Fiction
Stone Mattress, by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). The author of such works as “The Blind Assassin” turns to short fiction with nine stories, including three about “the romantic entanglements of a group of writers and artists.”
The Wonder of All Things, by Jason Mott (Mira Books). In a small Southern town, after a plane crashes during an air show, a girl discovers her ability to heal. But in helping others, her own health is drained. She ultimately has to decide how much she is she willing to give up to save others.
Poverty
Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, by Linda Tirado (Putnam). Think you’re busy? Tirado, a mother working two part-time jobs and trying to return to college, expands on the essay she wrote that went viral in response to the question, “Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive?” Among the topics she covers with personal insight and a sharp wit: why being poor is expensive, why healthy food isn’t really an option, and how the “safety net” has a lot of holes in it.
Politics
Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America, by Jonathan Darman. These two politicians couldn’t have been more opposite in their views, but they each had strong visions of what America could be. The author, who was a political correspondent for Newsweek, shows how in the years from 1963 to 1966, when Lyndon Baines Johnson was elected president and Ronald Reagan became governor of California, the stage was set for a shift in how the country would be governed for the ensuing decades.
Biography
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, by John Lahr (W.W. Norton) Written by The New Yorker drama critic, this nearly 800-page tome about the playwright shows how Williams’ dysfunctional family helped shape his life and his works.
