Beschloss, Michael. Presidents of War. Crown. Oct. 2018. 752p. ISBN 9780307409607. $35; ebk. ISBN 9780804137010. CD/downloadable. HISTORY NBC News Presidential Historian and a multi-award winner for his print and television work, Beschloss (Presidential Courage) considers the U.S. president as commander in chief, moving from the War of 1812 to the Vietnam War to clarify how that role has changed owing to circumstance and constant wrestling with Congress. History but also a guide for leadership today. Boyd, William. Love Is Blind. Knopf. Oct. 2018. 400p. ISBN 9780525655268. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9780525655275. LITERARY Winner of Whitbread and Costa honors for A Good Man in Africa and Restless, respectively, Boyd returns with a story featuring gifted piano tuner Brodie Moncur, who travels through fin de siècle Europe with John Kilbarron—“The Irish Liszt.” It’s an exciting and luxurious life beyond his wildest dreams, but his love of enticing Russian soprano Lika Blum, Kilbarron’s consort, complicates matters. Cohen, Leonard. The Flame: Poems and Notebooks. Farrar. Oct. 2018. 304p. ISBN 9780374156060. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780374718701. CD. LITERATURE In his final days, iconic poet/songwriter Cohen put all his energies into finishing his final collection of poetry. Packed into this valedictory volume, with poems whose subjects range from war and desire to hummingbirds and lamb chops, are the lyrics of his last three albums and revealing excerpts from the notebooks he has been keeping for years. Frey, James. Katerina. Gallery: S. & S. Sept. 2018. ISBN 9781982101442. $26.99. CD. LITERARY In propulsive, shattering prose that recalls top-selling Frey works like A Million Little Pieces, this latest novel moves primarily between 2017 Los Angeles and 1992 Paris as a successful but emotionally end-of-his-rope author is thrown back to his raucous, raunchy, revelatory, hopeful young days in the City of Light and his affair with the heart-stopping Katerina. Structurally distinctive and a sensual eye-opener. Hastings, Max. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945–1975. Harper. Oct. 2018. 864p. ISBN 9780062405661. $37.50; ebk. ISBN 9780062405692. lrg. prnt. HISTORY Prize-winning journalist and author Hastings, whose 26 books frequently cover military conflict, reported on the Vietnam War from the United States in 1967–68 and thence from Indochina for both the newspapers and BBC-TV, leaving the U.S. embassy in Saigon by helicopter during the final evacuation in 1975. So he can offer a thoroughgoing account of the war. With a 150,000-copy first printing. King, Stephen. Elevation. Scribner. Oct. 2018. 144p. ISBN 9781982102319. $19.95. CD. SUSPENSE In small-town Castle Rock, a favorite King setting, Scott Carey is losing weight (though he doesn’t look any thinner) and barely gets along with the married lesbians next door. But as the town resists the couple’s efforts to open a restaurant, Scott confronts his own prejudices and intervenes to help, even as his mysterious illness inspires compassion. Unusually sunny for King and proactive about issues today. Kingsolver, Barbara. Unsheltered. Harper. Oct. 2018. 480p. ISBN 9780062684561. $29.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062684745. lrg. prnt. CD. LITERARY With the magazine where she worked and the college where her husband taught both shuttered and their inherited Vineland, NJ, house, tumbling down (even as issue-fraught grown children linger), conscientious Willa Knox bitterly regrets that in middle age all her efforts seem to have come to naught. But as she researches the house’s history, hoping to interest the local preservation society in some much-needed repairs, she discovers an idealistic previous owner whose battles parallel her own. From the best-selling Pulitzer Prize finalist; with a 500,000-copy first printing and a ten-city tour. Morton, Kate. The Clockmaker’s Daughter. Atria. Oct. 2018. 512p. ISBN 9781451649390. $28; ebk. ISBN 9781451649437. LITERARY London-based archivist Elodie Winslow has an eerie feeling when she discovers a leather satchel containing the photograph of a woman in Victorian garb and a sketchbook featuring a twin-gabled house on a river. What’s her connection to Oxfordshire’s Birchwood Manor, where Edward Radcliffe gathered a group of young artists in 1862 for a summer of creative fun that ended tragically? Morton does again what she’s done so well in international best sellers from The House at Riverton to The Lake House. Noah, Trevor. Place of Gold: Coming of Age with South Africa. Spiegel & Grau. Oct. 2018. 208p. ISBN 9780525510772. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780525510789. MEMOIR The Daily Show host follows up his best-selling Born a Crime with a second memoir that shows him entertaining crazy schemes and dangerous jobs in his twenties, making a major career out of his stumble into an open-mic night, and leaving his South Africa home for international stardom. Meeting Jon Stewart and growing up with a newly freed-from-apartheid South Africa: it’s all here. Orlean, Susan. The Library Book. S. & S. Oct. 2018. 336p. ISBN 9781476740188. $28. CD. HISTORY On April 29, 1986, the Los Angeles Public Library went up in a blaze that would be the worst library fire in America’s history, destroying more than 400,000 books and damaging many more. Who set the fire, and why? After moving to Los Angeles, Orlean, a New Yorker staff writer whose well-received books range from The Orchid Thief to Rin Tin Tin, decides to seek some answers. Sanders, Bernie. Where We Go from Here. St. Martin’s. Oct. 2018. 320p. ISBN 9781250163264. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250163271. CD. POLITICAL SCIENCE For Sanders, things didn’t end with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency; they’re just getting started. Here, the U.S. senator from Vermont follows up his New York Times best-selling Our Revolution with further directives on pursuing a progressive agenda today. With a 750,000-copy first distribution across formats. Small, David. Home After Dark. Liveright: Norton. Sept. 2018. 400p. ISBN 9780871403155. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9781631493362. LITERARY/GRAPHIC NOVEL Small follows up his harrowing graphic memoir, Stitches, a No. 1 New York Times best seller and National Book Award finalist, with an equally harrowing graphic novel about a boy’s brutal coming of age in the 1950s. Abandoned by his mother, 13-year-old Russell Pruitt seeks out his father in sunny California but instead finds a neglectful drunk and a town full of merciless boys whose bullying brings Russell to the edge. Visually vivid: the story is told almost entirely through thousands of spliced images. Walker, Alice. Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart. 37 INK: Atria. Oct. 2018. 256p. ISBN 9781501179525. $25. POETRY A National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner for The Color Purple, Walker works in multiple genres, including poetry. Her new collection ranges from life’s simple joys (e.g., making frittatas) to the importance of bearing witness and in fact actively engaging in these hard times. Of special interest: the collection is presented in both English and Spanish.