Fiction
West of Sunset, by Stewart O’Nan (Penguin Random House) For the last few years of his life, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald had fallen out of the public eye and onto hard times. O’Man depicts Fitzgerald in California from 1937 to ’40 as he struggles with his declining literary reputation and alcoholism while trying to start over as a screenwriter with help from friends in Hollywood.
The Years, by Nicholas Delabanco (Little A) . When a couple meets four decades after a intense but failed college romance, they fall deeply in love again but are uncertain whether they should marry. The novel recounts their early, separate lives, the reunion and their final years together.
History
Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee — The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged, by William C. David (Da Capo Press). Historian David shows the Civil War generals as complex men who met only four times in person, yet had a number of similarities in their personal and professional lives.
Memoir
Publishing: A Writer’s Memoir, by Gail Godwin (Bloomsbury) With 14 novels and a lot of other impressive work under her belt, Godwin writes about how her career progressed from her days as a student at the University of North Carolina through stints at the Iowa Writers Workshop and writing fiction, as well as how the publishing industry has developed over the past half-century. With line drawings by Frances Halsband.
We Should Hang Out Sometime, by John Sundquist (Little, Brown) Revisiting his middle school, high school and college experiences in search of the reason why he’s still single, Sundquist — a Paralympic ski racer, cancer survivor and motivational speaker — tracked down each girl he tried to date to find out what wrong. He recounts the awkward conversations, clumsy moves and why the relationship with his first girlfriend lasted only 23 hours.
Literature
Huck Finn’s America: Mark Twain and the Era that Shaped his Masterpiece, by Andrew Levy (Simon & Schuster). Have we been misunderstanding “Huckleberry Finn” all these years? Levy points to Twain’s obsession with minstrel shows and the boy murderers who were making headlines in the 1880s as clues to what he wrote.
Science
The Modern Savage: Our Unthinking Decision to Eat Animals, by James McWilliams (Thomas Dunne Books). Food that is locally sourced and “farm to table” is all the rage, but the author wonders how people continue to justify being carnivores. He cites cruelty toward animals on even small and supposedly humane animal farms and promotes a diet without meat, dairy or other animal products.
The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice and Freedom, by Michael Shermer (Henry Holt and Company). Using a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 speech in Selma, Ala. — “the arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward justice,” — the author shows how science encourages morality in all aspects of life. We might think of modern society as being immoral, but over the long haul, advances in science and education have resulted in more political and personal freedoms and a more humane world, he says.
