RELIGION
Basilica
by R. A. Scotti (Viking)
The construction of St. Peter’s in Rome required the combined efforts of Michelangelo, Raphael, and more than twenty popes, not to mention countless others.
Double Crossed
by Kenneth Briggs (Doubleday)
There are nearly 100,000 fewer nuns in the United States than there were forty years ago, and those that remain are systematically ill-served by the Catholic Church, argues a former religion editor of The New York Times.
The Devil Is a Gentleman
by J. C. Hallman (Random House)
A neo-Jamesian look at contemporary religious experience in all its variety, from Scientologists to Druids to Christian pro wrestlers.
Seminary Boy
by John Cornwell (Doubleday)
The author of Hitler’s Pope recalls an adolescence spent training for the priesthood in 1950s England.
Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene
by Bart D. Ehrman (Oxford)
A historical study of three of Jesus’ most famous followers finds almost no evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, that Paul worked miracles, or that Peter was crucified upside down.
BUSINESS and ECONOMICS
The New Argonauts
by AnnaLee Saxenian (Harvard)
How Silicon Valley entrepreneurs from China, Taiwan, India, and Israel have boosted their home countries’ economies.
Treasure Hunt
by Michael J. Silverstein with John
Butman (Portfolio)
A leading management consultant examines how our competing tastes for luxury and thrift are hollowing out the vast middle of the global market.
More Than You Know
by Michael J. Mauboussin (Columbia)
A top investment strategist’s multidisciplinary guide to the world of finance.
Reluctant Capitalists
by Laura J. Miller (Chicago)
The sociology of bookselling—and the culture-versus-commerce, indie-versus-megastore battle lines that define it.
SCIENCE
Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949–2006
by Edward O. Wilson (Johns Hopkins)
A lifelong study of ants informs ecology, sociobiology, and biogeography in this collection of essays from the Harvard entomologist.
After Dolly
by Ian Wilmut and Roger Highfield
(Norton)
The man behind Dolly the sheep discusses cloning’s human potential, concluding that “as much damage can be done by failing to exploit the beneficial applications of a technology as by promoting the applications of that technology which are risky or harmful.”
ESSAYS
Reporting
by David Remnick (Knopf)
Al Gore, Mike Tyson, and Natan Sharansky stand shoulder to shoulder in this collection from the editor of The New Yorker.
The Din in the Head
by Cynthia Ozick (Houghton Mifflin)
Assessments of Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag, Sylvia Plath, Isaac Babel, and others, as well as a fictional interview with Henry James.
Crime Beat
by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
A collection of newspaper articles from the mystery novelist’s former career as a police reporter.
NOVELS and SHORT STORIES
The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories
by Valerie Martin (Vintage)
Writers, painters, and actors confront the challenges of their work and of loving one another.