Fiction | Simon &Schuster $26.

Asymmetry

By Lisa Halliday

The first section, "Folly," is the story of a love affair between a book editor and an elderly novelist. The second section, "Madness" describes an Iraqi-American economist who is being held up at Heathrow airport. In "Asymmetry," two seemingly unrelated sections are connected by a shocking finale.

Fiction | Viking. $27.

The Great Believers

By Rebecca Makkai

Set in the Chicago of the mid-80s and Paris at the time of the 2015 terrorist attacks, Makkai's deeply affecting novel uses the AIDS epidemic and a mother's search for her distant daughter to explore the effects of senseless loss and our efforts to overcome it.

Nonfiction | Random House $28.

Educated

By Tara Westover

Westover's extraordinary memoir (回忆录)is an act of courage and self-invention. The youngest of seven children, she grew up in Idaho, in a survivalist family lacking even a birth certificate (证明) and did not attend school until she went to college. The reward for her efforts Is a book that shows to a great thirst to learn.

Nonfiction | Simon & Schuster $37.50.

Frederick Douglass

By David W. Blight

Douglass wrote three autobiographies (自传）himself, describing his rise from slavery to a role as one of the greatest figures of the 19th century, but Blight's work is fuller than any of those, relating both the public and private life in a way that Douglass either could not or would not undertake.