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* Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life. By Sally Bedell Smith. Apr. 2017. 640p. illus. Random, $30 (9781400067909). 941.085092. In this comprehensive and admirably fair biography, [...]

The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family. By Tom Shroder. Oct. 2016. 416p. Penguin/Blue Rider, $28 (97803991745991.813.5. Shroder is the grandson of MacKinlay Kantor, [...]

May 2003. 310p. index. Houghton, $23 (0-618-33466-1). 330. Schlosser is the author of the best-selling Fast Food Nation (2001), which was a consciousness-raising examination of the fast-food industry. He now [...]

* Herbert Hoover. By Glen Jeansonne. Oct. 2016.464p. illus. NAL, $28 (9781101991008). 973.91. Hoover bears the dismal historical reputation as the American president who did very little to arrest the [...]

* The Life-Writer. By David Constantine. Oct. 2016. 240p. Biblioasis, paper, $14.95 (9781771961011). Middle-aged Eric is dying, slowly, and he refuses to spend his final days focused on trying to [...]

* Nutshell. By Ian McEwan. Sept. 2016. 208p. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese, $24.95 (9780385542074); e-book, $12.99 (9780385542081). Until the exciting (but, sadly, unlikely) day when McEwan (The Children Act, 2014) is [...]

* Madagascar: New and Selected Stories. By Steven Schwartz. Sept. 2016. 232p. Engine, paper, $15.95 (9781938126406); e book, $15.95 (9781938126444). In his third short story collection, Schwartz (Little Raw Souls, [...]

Dinosaurs on Other Planets. By Danielle McLaughlin. Aug. 2016. 256p. Random, $27 (9780812998429). The key to writing about the ordinariness of life, which is the objective of most short-story writers, [...]

* A House Full of Daughters: A Memoir of Seven Generations. By Juliet Nicolson. June 2016. 336p. Farrar, $26 (9780374172459). 306.874. Nicolson (The Perfect Summer, 2007) is the granddaughter of [...]

Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years. By John Guy. May 2016.448p. Viking, $35 (9780670786022). 942. Many readers love a good Tudor story, whether in nonfiction or fiction form, but still the question [...]

The Little Red Chairs. By Edna O'Brien. Mar. 2016. 320p. Little, Brown, $27 (9780316378239). While O'Brien retains every element of her gorgeous writing--significantly, a mastery of relevant detail, expressed with […]

* Tasting Wine and Cheese: An Insider's Guide to Mastering the Principles of Pairing. By Adam Centamore. Oct. 2015.160p. illus. Quarto/Quarry, $24.99 (9781631590672). 641.22. This very focused and gorgeously illustrated [...]

* Barn Find Road Trip. By Tom Cotter. 2015.192p. illus. Quarto/Motorbooks, $35 (9780760349403). 628.222. This road-trip travelogue isn't simply a chronicle of general-item, what-we-saw-and-did-today events. The narrative flourishes as a […]

* Deep South. By Paul Theroux. Oct. 2015. 448p. Houghton, $29.95 (9780544323520). 975. The idea that Theroux is one of the preeminent travel writers today needs neither proof nor explanation […]

Everyone agrees: it costs a bundle. The books on this list don't offer a simple solution to the crisis, but they do help all interested parties understand the problem, both […]

* Do Less, Get More: How to Work Smart and Live Life Your Way. By Shaa Wasmund. 2015. 224p. Portfolio, $27.95 (9781591847168). 158.1. 'Keep things simple' is the mantra of [...]

By Kent Haruf. May 2015. 192p. Knopf, $24 (9781101875896). The latest novel by the highly regarded author of Plainsong (1999), Eventide (2004), and Benediction (2013) is also, sadly, his last […]

* The Green Road By Anne Enright. May 2015. 320p. Norton, $26.95 (9780393248210). Domestic fiction as a genre can often be humdrum in its intended goal of capturing the quotidian […]

God Help the Child. By Toni Morrison. 2015.192p. Knopf, $24.95 (9780307594174). This novel is brief for Morrison--brief for most any major novelist. There is a lot of foundational information for [...]

17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-up in History. By Andrew Morton. Mar. 2015.341 p. illus. Grand Central, $28 (9781455527113). 941.084. It has become common knowledge--more or [...]

* Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. By Erik Larson. Mar. 2015. 464p. Crown, $28 (9780307408860); paper, $28 (9780307408877); e-book, $13.99 (9780553446753).940.4. The sinking of the British ocean […]

* Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made. By Richard Rhodes. Feb. 2015. 304p. Simon & Schuster, $30 (9781451696219).946.081. When King Alfonso XIII of [...]

The Selected Letters of Norman Mailer. By Norman Mailer. Ed. by Lennon J. Michael. Dec. 2014. 896p. Random, $40 (9781400066230); e-book (9780812986099).813.54. Lots of people didn't care for Norman Mailer [...]

Sisters. By Lily Tuck. Sept. 2017.176p. Grove/Atlantic, $20 (97808021271121. Tuck is widely admired for her economy of phrase in tandem with a richness of expression, as demonstrated in such previous [...]

Logical Family. By Armistead Maupin. Oct. 2017. 304p. Harper, $27.99 (9780062391223). 813.54. Born in the American South and, at first, submitting to that region's traditionally conservative political and social mind-sets, [...]

Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty. By John B. Boles. May 2017. 640p. Basic, $35 (9780465094684); e-book (9780465094691). 973.4. For many decades, the historical narrative concerning the third president of the [...]

The Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain: A Handbook for Visitors to the Seventeenth Century, 1660-1699. By Ian Mortimer. Apr. 2017. 464p. illus. Pegasus, $28.95 (9781681773544). 942. Displaying an impressive [...]

House of Names. By Colm Toibin. May 2017. 288p. Scribner, $26 (9781501140211); e-book (9781501140235). 'Now it is your duty as the son of Agamemnon to revenge his murder,' the late [...]

Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent, and the Obsessions That Forged Modern Europe. By John Julius Norwich. Apr. 2017. 304p. Atlantic Monthly, $26 (9780802126634). 940. [...]

Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris: The Story of a Friendship, a Novel, and a Terrible Year. By Peter Brooks. Apr. 2017. 288p. Basic, $30 (9780465096022). 843.8. French novelist Gustav [...]

All the Beloved Ghosts. By Alison MacLeod. Apr. 2017. 224p. Bloomsbury, $27 (9781632865434). A problem can occur in a reader's consciousness while proceeding through a collection of stories by the [...]

* Isabella of Castile: Europe's First Great Queen. By Giles Tremlett. Mar. 2017.624p. Bloomsbury, $35 (9781632865205); e-book (9781632865229). 946. Tremlett's (Catherine of Aragon, 2010) magisterial biography of Queen Isabella of [...]

Castle: A History of the Architecture That Shaped Medieval Britain. By Marc Morris. Apr. 2017. 272p. Pegasus, $27.95 (9781605983599). 726. Castle conjures notions of knights and damsels in distress or, [...]

The Typewriter's Tale. By Michiel Heyns. Feb. 2017. 288p. St. Martin's, $25.99 (9781250119001). The great American master storyteller Henry James (author of the classic novel Portrait of a Lady, among [...]

In the Name of the Family. By Sarah Dunant. Mar. 2017.448p. Random, $28 (9780812996975). In Blood and Beauty (2012), Dunant brought her avid readers into the Borgia world to witness [...]

Enigma Variations. By Andre Aciman. Jan. 2017. 288p. Farrar, $26 (9780374148430). Always searching for more, for something that isn't there, and wondering if finding true love happens only once--these are [...]

Crown of Blood: A Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey. By Nicola Tallis. Dec. 2016.400p. illus. Pegasus, $27.95 (9781681772448). 942.053. There are many portals into the vibrant Tudor period in [...]

* Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire. By Julia Baird. Nov. 2016. 720p. Random, $35 (9781400069880). 941.081. Given the many books about Queen [...]

* Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. By Douglas Smith. Nov. 2016. 832p. Farrar, $35 (9780374240844). 947.08. The 'holy man' who drove the Romanov dynasty into the [...]

Thus Bad Begins. By Javier Marias. Tr. by Margaret Jull Costa. Nov. 2016.448p. Knopf, $27.95 (9781101946084). The Spanish Civil War was a dark and complicated clash of cultural and political [...]

* Turner: The Extraordinary Life & Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner. By Franny Moyle. Oct. 2016. 528p. illus. Penguin, $35 (9780735220928). 759.2. The subtitle of this major biography [...]

* SS United States. By John Maxtone-Graham. Oct. 2014. 240p. illus. Norton, $75 (9780393241709). 623.82432. This big, gorgeous book correlates beautifully with its subject. The author is an expert on [...]

* Desert God. By Wilbur Smith. Oct. 2014. 448p. Morrow, $28.99 (9780062276452). Smith, in full force and robust form, returns to ancient Egypt, where, in the spectacularly successful River God […]

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. By H. P. Lovecraft. Ed. by Leslie S. Klinger. Oct. 2014.864p. Norton/Liveright, $39.95 (9780871404534). 809. H(oward) P(hillips) Lovecraft (1890-1937) posthumously earned a reputation for […]

Half a King. By Joe Abercrombie. July 20l4. 352p. Del Rey, $26 (9780804178327); e-book (9780804178334). Yarvi succeeds to the throne of Gettland when his father and elder brother are killed. […]

Updike. By Adam Begley. Apr. 2014. 576p. illus. Harper, $29.99 (9780061896453). 813. A keen appreciation for literary criticism is a prerequisite for reader interest in this thoroughly researched and rigorously […]

The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War. By James Oakes. May 2014. 160p. Norton, $23.95 (9780393239935). 973.6. Casual American-history buffs will quietly lay this book aside, [...]

Norman Mailer: A Double Life. By J. Michael Lennon. Oct. 2013. 928p. Simon & Schuster, $40 (9781439150191); e-book (9781439156209). 810.54. A larger-than-life personality, Norman Mailer was a force to be [...]

Gurganus, Allan. The Practical Heart: Four Novellas. Oct. 200l. 352p. Knopf, $25 (0-679-43763-0). The author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1988) presents a collection of three long short [...]

Carter, Jimmy. Christmas in Plains. Nov. 2001. 156p. illus. Simon & Schuster, $20 (0-7432-2491-4). 973.92. 'Christmas, family, and Plains--the three are inextricable,' the former president fondly muses in this series [...]