A FASHIONABLE MIDWIFE CLASHES with “public purity” crusaders in a brilliantly evoked 19th century New York. B PLUS

MY NOTORIOUS LIFE
Scribner
2013

FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Robert Gates’s memoir of his Cabinet years is startlingly candid, oddly cranky. SOLID B

DUTY: MEMOIRS OF A SECRETARY AT WAR
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
2014

A TOFF’S-EYE VIEW OF the Profumo Affair, the 1963 sex scandal that rocked English society. Witty and wise! B PLUS

AN ENGLISH AFFAIR : SEX, CLASS AND POWER IN THE AGE OF PROFUMO
William Collins
2013

PIONEERING POLITICAL LEADER Shirley Chisholm, the first black US Congresswoman, profiled in a must-read bio. B PLUS

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
Westview Press
2013

A MARRIAGE SHATTERED, a career ended, and a family in crisis after a man’s brain tumor. Intense Danish novel. B PLUS

YOU DISAPPEAR
Nan A. Talese
2014

INTRIGUING, IMPASSIONED MEMOIR of a youth spent in the Czechoslovakian resistance to Nazis, then Soviets. B PLUS

BORDER CROSSINGS: COMING OF AGE IN THE CZECH RESISTANCE
1021 Press
2012

BLEAKLY GORGEOUS NOVEL contrasts peasant and tourist life in Morocco. Beautiful, spare, and haunting. A MINUS

THE AFRICAN SHORE
Yale University Press
2013

EARLY SELF-HELP GURU Dale Carnegie profiled in this richly detailed biography. A fascinating life story. B PLUS

SELF-HELP MESSIAH: DALE CARNEGIE AND SUCCESS IN MODERN AMERICA
Other Press
2013

A GRIEVING MOTHER INVESTIGATES her teen daughter’s death in a stylish novel of suspense. Upscale NYC setting! B PLUS

RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA
Harper
2013

RAMBUNCTIOUS SOUTHERN NOIR from Rick Gavin; a third gloriously seedy caper starring assorted Delta lowlifes. B PLUS

NOWHERE NICE
Minotaur Books
2013