Forecasting a busy summer of big books

‘The Librarianist,’ by Patrick deWitt

DeWitt, the wildly imaginative author of genre-defying novels like “The Sisters Brothers” and “French Exit,” returns with a more melancholy story about a quiet retired librarian named Bob Comet who begins volunteering at a senior center in Portland, Ore. (July 4)

‘Crook Manifesto,’ by Colson Whitehead

The new novel by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Whitehead (“The Underground Railroad,” “The Nickel Boys”) is a sequel to his bestseller “Harlem Shuffle” (2021). Set in the 1970s, it again features Ray Carney, a furniture store owner who — when the book starts, anyway — has left a life of crime behind. (July 18)

‘Family Lore,’ by Elizabeth Acevedo

Acevedo is a champion slam poet and a National Book Award winner as an author for young readers (“The Poet X”). Her first novel for adults is the polyphonic story of women in a Dominican American family who are preparing for their sister’s “living wake,” an opportunity to celebrate her while she’s still here. (Aug. 1)

‘Tom Lake,’ by Ann Patchett

The widely beloved Patchett’s first novel since “The Dutch House,” which was a Pulitzer finalist, tells the story of three sisters who gather at their family’s Michigan farm in the early days of the pandemic. For readers who like their stories with an extra dose of star power, Meryl Streep is recording the audiobook. (Aug. 1)

‘The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,’ by James McBride

McBride (author of “The Color of Water” and “The Good Lord Bird,” among other acclaimed books) returns with the story of a small town of immigrant Jews and African Americans reckoning with long-held secrets after a skeleton is found at the bottom of a well. (Aug. 8)

History and Current Affairs

‘Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World,’ by John Vaillant

Vaillant is known for propulsive narrative nonfiction, and in “Fire Weather” he tells the story of a massive blaze in 2016 at Fort McMurray, an oil-sands town in Alberta, Canada. A story terrifying in its own right — it caused the largest fire evacuation in Canadian history — it also has ominous things to say about the planet’s future. (June 6)

‘The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History,’ by Laurence Jurdem

Jurdem’s book recounts the 35-year friendship between Roosevelt and Lodge, and how the older senator from Massachusetts helped Roosevelt on his way to the White House as the youngest man to ever become president. (July 4)

‘The Heat Will Kill You First,’ by Jeff Goodell

Goodell’s previous book was about rising sea levels. This one’s about the planet getting hotter. Goodell argues that increasing temperatures will not only endanger lives but transform the ways our societies and values are shaped. (July 11)

‘Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy,’ by Colin Dickey

Dickey’s idiosyncratic, fascinating books have shone light on myths, aliens, ghosts and grave robbers. In his latest, he traces the ever-present strain of paranoid thinking in American life and in America’s halls of power, from the Salem witch trials to QAnon. (July 11)

‘When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era,’ by Donovan X. Ramsey

Through the stories of four individuals, journalist Ramsey tells the larger story of the crack epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, tracing the history from the end of the civil rights movement through Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs to today’s debates about mass incarceration. (July 11)

‘Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud,’ by Ben McKenzie with Jacob Silverman

Journalist Silverman and actor McKenzie (“The O.C.”) team up for this polemic against cryptocurrency, spurred by McKenzie’s initial interest in it during the early days of the pandemic. (July 18)

‘Pageboy,’ by Elliot Page

The actor recounts his career, including what it was like to star in “Juno” (2007) and deal with the nature of the sexual scrutiny in much that was written about the movie and Page. In addition to recalling his experiences with anti-queer bigotry, Page ruminates on its effects in Hollywood and beyond. (June 6)

‘The Power of One,’ by Frances Haugen

In 2021, Haugen identified herself as the whistleblower at Facebook who copied documents to show that the social media giant was aware that its algorithms were reinforcing extremist and hateful content on the site. In this book, she tells her story, from childhood in Iowa to testifying in front of Congress. (June 13)

‘Directions to Myself: A Memoir of Four Years,’ by Heidi Julavits

Acclaimed novelist Julavits here writes about her own life: her childhood in Maine, her concerns about raising her son in today’s world, and our current national debates about accountability and justice. (June 27)

‘Twentieth-Century Man: The Wild Life of Peter Beard,’ by Christopher Wallace

If biographers are blessed when they have outsize subjects, then Wallace is lucky indeed. Photographer, artist and environmentalist Beard could hardly have had a more interesting life. He spent a great deal of time in Kenya, photographing wildlife there. In New York, he partied at Studio 54 and, movie-star handsome himself, was friends with A-list celebrities. (July 4)

‘Toy Fights: A Boyhood,’ by Don Paterson

The prizewinning poet recounts the first two decades of his life in working-class Scotland, including his uninspiring performance as a student and his obsession with music. “Music is the thing I love more,” Paterson told the Guardian earlier this year, “but unfortunately you don’t get to choose what you’re better at.” (July 11)

‘The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing,’ by Lara Love Hardin

Hardin went from suburban soccer mom to heroin addict to convicted felon (32 counts). There’s plenty of drama in that story, but there was more to come — after she left prison, she became a very successful ghostwriter and ended up rubbing elbows with Oprah, the Dalai Lama and others, all while struggling to come to terms with her past. (Aug. 1)

‘They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us,’ by Prachi Gupta

Gupta writes about growing up in a supportive, high-achieving Indian American family in suburban Pennsylvania — and how the model-minority myth exacerbated tension between outward success and turmoil inside herself and her family. (Aug. 22)

‘Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury,’ by Drew Gilpin Faust

Faust recalls her conservative upbringing in the 1950s, and how rebelling against it led her to a deep interest in gender and race and an active role in the political movements of the 1960s. Eventually Faust would become the president of Harvard and an acclaimed historian whose previous books include “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.” (Aug. 22)

‘All the Sinners Bleed,’ by S.A. Cosby

Cosby’s “Razorblade Tears” was one of the biggest breakout hits of 2021. In his first novel since, a Black sheriff in Virginia investigates the murder of a schoolteacher by a student, and has to deal with an extremist group planning a celebration of the Confederacy. (June 6)

‘Zero Days,’ by Ruth Ware

In Ware’s latest thriller, a husband and wife work together to help companies test their security systems. The husband is murdered, the wife is suspected — and with echoes of “The Fugitive,” she goes on the run to try to clear her name. (June 20)

‘The Only One Left,’ by Riley Sager

This novel is about a Lizzie Borden-like character (grim nursery rhyme and all) now in her 70s. Fifty years after she was thought (but not proved) to have killed her family, she’s ready to confess — to what exactly, we’ll find out. (June 20)

‘Prom Mom,’ by Laura Lippman

Lippman is back in her stomping grounds of Baltimore with the story of a woman named Amber Glass who escaped that city after a disastrous prom night led to her conviction for manslaughter, though what really happened is unclear. Two decades later, she returns to the city and gets involved with an old beau, sparking some high-stakes complications. (July 25)

‘After That Night,’ by Karin Slaughter

Slaughter’s series of novels about a special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation inspired the TV series “Will Trent,” which started on ABC this year. In this 11th novel featuring Trent, Dr. Sara Linton helps to save a woman who’s been brutally attacked — and then learns that the incident has a connection to her own traumatic past. (Aug. 22)