Editor’s Choice
Gryphon, by Charles Baxter, $27.95.
Baxter’s skill with short fiction is confirmed in this stellar collection of 23 stories, seven of which are new. In Baxter’s comic-melancholic world, people may be incapable of averting sadness or violence, but they survive. Publishers Weekly
Fiction
The Metropolis Case, by Matthew Gallaway, $25.
In his ambitious debut, Gallaway jumps back and forth in time between two cities, spiraling in on four characters connected by music. Gallaway, a former musician, gives music a literary presence, intertwining opera and punk by illuminating their shared passion and chaos. Publishers Weekly
Damage, by John Lescroart, $26.95.
San Francisco homicide chief Abe Glitsky takes on a particularly nasty villain in Lescroart’s hair-raising 16th novel featuring Glitsky and lawyer Dismas Hardy. What at first appears to be a stunningly stark black-and-white portrayal reveals many subtle shadings by book’s end. Publishers Weekly
Nonfiction
Our Man in Tehran, by Robert Wright, $25.95.
Much of Iran’s relationship with the West — and their mutual antipathy — stems from the the day — Nov. 4, 1979 — when Iranian militants overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran launching a 444-day-long hostage drama. Wright puts newly unclassified documents to excellent use in recounting how Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor hid the six Americans who had slipped out a side door and gathered intelligence for the U.S. government. Publishers Weekly
The Return: Russia’s Journey From Gorbachev to Medvedev, by Daniel Treisman, $30.
Treisman looks back over the 25 years since Mikhail Gorbachev began his attempts to reform the Soviet Union’s political system. Treisman provides a carefully detailed account of the events, personal interactions, and crucial decisions that created such a monumental shift, but his main concern is the why of the change. Library Journal
Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years, by David James Smith, $27.99.
Longtime journalist Smith digs into newly discovered government documents and firsthand interviews (though none with the supportive but ailing Nelson Mandela himself) in humanizing the iconic leader. Smith ventures deep into the horror of apartheid to trace the burgeoning revolutionary’s philosophical trajectories. Publishers Weekly
Paperbacks
Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II, by A.N. Wilson, $20.
Although “the second Elizabethan era” has been a period in which the majority of the British basked in comfort, security, and luxury, it is also the reign in which Britain effectively stopped being British, contends the opinionated and entertaining Wilson (“After the Victorians”). Library Journal
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Heidi W. Durrow, $13.95.
“The Girl Who Fell From the Sky” can actually fly. Its energy comes from its vividly realized characters, from how they perceive one another. Durrow has a terrific ear for dialogue, an ability to summon a wealth of hopes and fears in a single line. The New York Times
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande, $15.
Marshaling anecdotes and analysis, he implores the medical community to use checklists more widel. Thoughtfully written and soundly defended, this book calls for medical professionals to improve patient care by adopting a basic, common-sense approach.
Coming Up
The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan, by Bing West, $28.
The noted foreign correspondent offers a strong policy assessment on the war and a controversial way forward. (Feb.)
