bound for the bestseller lists

April is an active month in the book world, as many publishers roll out their biggest spring titles, many from perennially bestselling authors. This month is no exception. Here are six releases from writers who have seen their fair share of time on bestseller lists over the past two decades.

First up is A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot To Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (Viking, April 4) by Timothy Egan, whose book The Worst Hard Time won the National Book Award in 2006. In his latest, the author uncovers the frightening story of the ascendancy of the KKK and its ability to infiltrate all levels of society in the early to mid-1900s. In this characteristically well-researched, vivid history, Egan delivers “an excellently rendered, unsettling narrative of America at its worst,” says our reviewer.

Tom Clavin returns with Follow Me to Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice (St. Martin’s, April 4), which our critic calls a “rollicking tale of a Texas lawman and the iron-jawed contingent that rode with him.” The author of Lightning Down, Wild Bill, and other nonfiction page-turners takes us into the raucous world of 1870s Texas, chronicling the creation of the Texas Rangers and their unique brand of justice.

“Fans of the Wild West and its pistolpackin’ miscreants will enjoy Clavin’s latest,” notes our reviewer.

One of the biggest names in contemporary nonfiction is Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968, and other popular works. His latest, Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader (Atlantic Monthly, April 11), is a can’tmiss tale for fans of The Wire and similar dramas. The author brings readers into the streets of Baltimore, offering “a powerful, nuanced depiction of gang violence in America that makes a strong case for meaningful reform beyond policing,” according to our review.

The suspense continues with The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Doubleday, April 18), by David

Grann, author of two of the most recognizable popular nonfiction books of the last decade: Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z This riveting, mid-18th-century tale of high-seas treachery chronicles the fate of the Wager, and Grann’s meticulous re-creation of the crew’s many ordeals is both vibrant and chilling. “Recounting the tumultuous events in tense detail,” writes our reviewer, “Grann sets the Wager episode in the context of European imperialism as much as the wrath of the sea.”

In her latest incisive exploration, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (Knopf, April 25), Claire Dederer, author of Love and Trouble and Poser, digs deep into a fascinating question: “What to do when we love the work and hate the life behind it?” Using examples ranging from Roman Polanski to Vladimir Nabokov and beyond, Dederer skillfully blends close textual readings and riveting cultural analysis. Our reviewer concludes in a starred review, “Bringing erudition, emotion, and a down-to-earth style to this pressing problem, Dederer presents her finest work to date.”

Finally, we have Simon Winchester, one of the most prolific authors of popular nonfiction, author of The Perfectionists, Pacific, and The Map That Changed the World. The next in Winchester’s long line of wide-ranging, fact-packed histories, Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic (Harper/ HarperCollins, April 25), explores how humans have acquired, retained, and passed along knowledge through the centuries. “Drawing on abundant research and autobiographical reflections on personal experiences of learning,” writes our reviewer, “the author creates an engaging narrative populated by a vast array of individuals, including philosophers, religious figures, polymaths, inventors, and researchers from all over the world.” the word

IN THE BLOOD How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took on the U.S. Army Barber, Charles Grand Central Publishing (304 pp.)

$29.00 | May 30, 2023

9781538709863

The tale of an outcast engineer and a desperate marketer who came together to create a new medical technology.

In a book that blends biography, history, and medical science, Barber—a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and author of Comfortably Numb and Citizen Outlaw—begins with an unlikely duo: Frank Hursey, an eccentric and uncharismatic inventor who uncovered the blood-clotting properties of the common mineral zeolite but sat on the discovery for years until he teamed up with salesman Bart Gullong. Together, they launched a new company, Z-Medica, in 2002 and introduced their zeolite blood-clotting product, QuikClot, to the U.S. Navy, to rousing success. Over the course of its venture, Z-Medica overcame obstacles from the outside—namely, those of antagonistic Dr. John Holcomb, the head of trauma medicine for the Army—and from within when Gullong struggled with his own personal traumas. It is a classic American success story—perhaps too classic even for the broad target audience. The author’s prose is readable by anyone, background in medical technologies or not, including explanations and common terms whenever technical phrasing arises. This fits well with the biographical content but contrasts with the explorations of the mechanics of various technologies. Specialist readers may be interested in these sections, though Barber doesn’t delve deeply enough and includes redundancies to keep general audiences up to speed. Just as abundant are extra biographical elements, namely character backgrounds for the minor players in Hursey and Gullong’s story. While often interesting in their own rights, these character-specific historical asides are presented formulaically and have little bearing on the primary narrative. The core story lacks sufficient development, requiring numerous digressions, some of them intriguing and at least tangentially related, to fill out the text.

An inspiring story about a novel medical invention, albeit one stretched thin as a single layer of gauze.

THE WORD How We Translate the Bible— and Why It Matters

Barton, John Basic Books (368 pp.)

$32.00 | May 2, 2023

9781541603684

A study of the craft of translating the Bible.

Esteemed biblical scholar Barton, the author of many books on the Bible and Christianity, introduces readers to the art of translation. After barreling through a cursory but serviceable history of Bible translation, the author moves on to explore his topic in depth. “This book is about how translators negotiate the difficult task of producing usable versions of the Bible in the language of their own day, while remaining true to the original,” he writes. “It is a task that raises issues of faith and interpretation, as well as the obvious technical requirements, such as an intimate knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was written.” Barton explores the many nuances of a dichotomy he characterizes as either “bringing the Bible to the reader” or “taking the reader to the Bible.” In the former case, the translator stresses meaning and message over technical correctness. In the latter, the translator focuses on an accurate, even “literal,” rendering of the original text. Barton argues, however, that there are more possibilities available to translators than this single choice. He also notes that “the ‘adequacy’ (rather than perfection) of a translation is time- and context-bound.” In other words, a translation’s value should be judged by how it fulfills its purpose in a given culture, time, or setting. The author also examines a variety of challenges unique to Bible translators. For instance, which primary texts should one use as a basis for a translation? With Hebrew Scriptures, especially, there are a wide variety of possibilities. Also, in what ways can and should inclusive language be used in a Bible translation? Barton’s work is accessible but certainly geared toward students of language and of Biblical history and content. His choice of translation examples is broad, illustrative, and erudite.

A densely packed yet fruitful review of the philosophy behind Bible translation.

Genealogy Of A Murder

Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful

Night

Belkin, Lisa

Norton (416 pp.)

$29.95 | May 30, 2023

9780393285253

The entangled history of the people, incidents, and systems that led to the murder of a police officer in 1960.

On July 7, 1960, a convict out on parole killed David Troy in a holdup gone wrong. Belkin, a former New York Times correspondent and author of Show Me a Hero and Life’s Work, begins her story decades before, tracing the twists and turns of four families to the moment they entwined in that tragic event. From the years before the Great Depression through the following decades of war and economic growth, we come to know not just Troy and his killer, Joseph DeSalvo, but also their ancestors and Dr. Alvin Tarlov, whose support led to DeSalvo’s being granted a second chance. Obsessed with “how any of us become who we are,” Belkin inspects the inflection points that push an individual—and their family tree—into one plot rather than another. As generational stories overlap, the author masterfully builds hand-wringing anticipation of the fateful evening despite having already revealed its shape. Wading into the details of characters’ personal dispositions, successes and failures, and attempts to correct course, she creates a rich backdrop against which to probe the implications of punishment, rehabilitation, and recidivism in America’s system of imprisonment and parole. She deftly manages the particularities of a wide catalog of individuals and their historical and cultural contexts, teasing out pertinent insights into how America treats its prisoners; the tenuous position of parolees and the system surrounding them; and the messy connections among fate, dispositions, and outcomes. If never decidedly answering some of her questions about the case, Belkin creates an impressive work of in-depth narrative journalism that artfully conveys the countless paths a life can follow and exposes the instinctual human desire for alternative endings.

An absorbing, thought-provoking inquiry into what it means to change and defy the odds.