WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? Essays, by Marilynne Robinson. (Picador, $18.) In a collection of lectures and other writing, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and critic dwells on the current political and cultural climate and defends the importance of the public university. Above all, Robinson returns to prominent themes across her work: the moral dimension of intellectual development and the relationship between faith and reason.
THE LOST GIRLS OF CAMP FOREVERMORE, by Kim Fu. (Mariner, $14.99.) An overnight kayaking trip becomes tragic one summer at a camp in the Pacific Northwest and reverberates throughout the lives of the campers for years to come. Times reviewer Lisa Ko praised the novel, writing that Fu is “a propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose to move seamlessly through time.”
ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain, by Abby Norman. (Bold Type, $16.99.) Norman is one of millions of women across the world with endometriosis and uses her experience as a jumping-off point to argue that women’s discomfort is routinely dismissed by doctors. Along the way, she interweaves revealing anecdotes — spanning everything from Freud to recent scientific debates.
DOWN THE RIVER UNTO THE SEA, by Walter Mosley. (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $15.99.) Joe King Oliver was once one of the NYPD’s top investigators until he was framed for sexual assault and imprisoned. Years later, he’s trying to recover from the horrors he faced in jail and running a private detective agency with his teenage daughter when he hears from the woman who accused him: She found religion and wants to clear her conscience. King then begins the tricky process of looking into who wanted him off the police force — and why.
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THE NINE OF US: Growing Up Kennedy, by Jean Kennedy Smith. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) The eighth of nine children, Jean is the last surviving Kennedy sibling and writes fondly about her experiences with the clan. Some notable episodes are absent from this slim memoir, but her recollections — especially those of a young child witnessing her father’s politicking — are a sweet tribute and give a more personal dimension to a highly public family.
THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS, by Luis Alberto Urrea. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $16.99.) This bighearted book tells the story of La Cruzes, an exuberant Mexican-American family in San Diego, who gather as the patriarch is dying of cancer. “The novel disrespects borders,” Times reviewer Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote, calling it “a Mexican-American novel that is also an American novel.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.