Editor’sChoice
Djibouti, by Elmore Leonard, $26.99.
Leonard goes exotic with this eventually killer story of contemporary piracy set on the horn of Africa. Seasoned Leonard readers will see some grays poking through — this at times reads like a quite good imitation of an Elmore Leonard novel — but it still beats the pants off most of the competition. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg, $25.95.
The term “mean girls” is elevated to a new level in Goldberg’s moody novel. Is there anything uglier or more damaging than the well-honed bullying techniques of middle-school girls? This is a layered, understated novel about the complex, ambiguous nature of memory and its effect on the dynamics of relationships. Publishers Weekly
In the Company of Others, by Jan Karon, $27.95.
In Karon’s latest, Father Timothy Kavanagh, the moral center of the beloved Mitford series, hops the Atlantic for a long anticipated vacation in the Irish countryside. Though it’s not the ideal entry point to the expansive world of Father Tim, fans will relish this new chapter in his life. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953, by Robert Dallek, $28.99.
After World War II, the most destructive war in history, everyone yearned for a better world. Veteran historian Dallek delivers a shrewd analysis of why world leaders failed to deliver it. Despite repeated painful experiences and immense expense, traditional, pugnacious power politics proved irresistible. Publishers Weekly
Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World’s Greatest Chocolate Makers, by Deborah Cadbury, $27.95.
Cadbury, a descendant of the Cadbury family, here traces the development — via her famous family and world events, ending with Kraft’s 2010 Cadbury acquisition — of the international chocolate industry, from its humble beginning with a fatty and gritty drink in the early 1800s to the milk chocolate confections we know today. Library Journal
Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine, by John T. Spike, $27.95.
Alternating between accounts of the turbulent political atmosphere and details of Michelangelo’s most private moments in the sculpture studio, Spike creates a rich narrative that promises more intrigue than the best adventure novel. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Hell, by Robert Olen Butler, $14.
Prolific Pulitzer-winner Butler features a colorful cast of underworld dwellers in his latest novel, and, as in “Severance and Intercourse,” captures stream of consciousness in delicious, unleashed rhythm. Butler’s lust for the tabloid romp and his stream of the never-ending punch line both irritate and illuminate. Publishers Weekly
In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, by Lauren Weber, $14.99.
Weber demonstrates that, from the Puritan settlers to today’s economic-stimulus measures, America has endured cycles of thrift and consumption, an endless battle for behavioral dominance between saving and spending. Publishers Weekly
Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks, by Ben Goldacre, $15.
Goldacre is the acerbic quackbuster who’s a thorn in the side of celebrity nutritionists and alternative medicine practitioners in Britain. There’s plenty to debunk, like the detox footbaths that turn brown whether your feet are in them or not. Or the homeopathic remedies that are no more effective than placebos. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
A Widow’s Story: A Memoir, by Joyce Carol Oates, $25.99.
One of America’s best known authors, in a departure from her many other works, talks intimately about the death of her husband of 48 years. (February)
