Michael Schaub

Kate Christensen's new novel follows a group of people on a vintage-themed cruise — think cabaret, cocktails and no Internet — who are thrown together unexpectedly when things go wrong on board.

Evgenia Citkowitz's new novel follows a family attempting to put their lives back together after a loss. The Halls hope their newly purchased country retreat will help — but things soon go awry.

Fatima Farheen Mirza's first novel follows an Indian-American Muslim family — at its best, a happy family, but torn by tensions between a father and son who keep missing opportunities to connect.

Critic and novelist James Wood has often dinged other writers for what he calls "hysterical realism," but his new novel Upstate — while beautifully written — goes too far in the other direction.

In his new book, Richard Rhodes lays out an accessible and surprisingly optimistic history of energy by exploring the lives of scientists and inventors — and a few unlikely people, like Bard of Avon.

James Pogue — a journalist with his own rebellious streak — gets at the deep-seated anger that led Ammon Bundy to mastermind the ill-fated armed occupation of the Malheur wildlife refuge in Oregon.

Kevin Powers' bleak, stunning new book is set in both the 1950s and the Civil War era. It's an intricately plotted look at the ways violence can shape a nation in ways that may not be recoverable.

Rachel Kushner's heartbreaking, nearly flawless third novel centers on Romy Hall, a young woman who's just been sentenced to two life sentences for beating her stalker to death.

Some time in the 1990s, author Charles Bowden wrote a memoir of his friendship with prickly but legendary environmentalist Edward Abbey. And then it sat, neglected, on his computer — until now.

Lawrence Wright is at his best in this new examination of his home state — a thoughtful, beautifully written book about a place that can be hard for outsiders to understand.

Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad's new book is a heartbreaking but necessary account of two teenage sisters from a moderate Muslim family who fled to war-torn Syria after becoming radicalized.

Jon Pineda's new novel follows a young girl living with her father in an old boathouse, somewhere in the Southern United States. It's a well-written book that manages to be both honest and poetic.

Patrick Dacey puts his characters through the wringer in his new novel, a wrenching saga of a profoundly unhappy family set against the ostensibly idyllic background of Cape Cod.

Scott McClanahan's semi-autobiographical novel is packed with loss, pain and existential anguish, but his narrator — also named Scott — refuses to give up, no matter how often he's knocked down.

By turns funny, shocking and heartbreaking, Everett's new novel follows a painter who's deeply ambivalent about his apparently idyllic life and digs into the moments in his past that shaped him.

Gabe Habash's audacious coming-of-age novel follows a charismatic, troubled, sometimes repellent college wrestler who comes close to the edge of madness after an injury derails his final season.

The great American dancer Isadora Duncan led a tragic life, and her worst year — just after the deaths of her first two children in an accident, forms the core of Amelia Gray's powerful new novel.

Slovak author Jana Beňová's English language debut is a bizarre, oblique — but beautiful — series of vignettes about a couple who spend their time drinking and smoking in Bratislava coffee shops.

Daisy Johnson's story collection is set in the marshlands of eastern England — now mostly, catastrophically drained. It's beautifully creepy, hard to explain but easy to read over and over again.

Speeches in book form are a reliable cash cow for publishers, and tend to fall into the "last minute gift idea" category. But David McCullough's new The American Spirit is a happy exception.