Books

The new Pushcart anthology of the best of the small presses is heavy on sincerity, light on cynicism; heavy on depth of feeling, light on cheap shots.

“One Last Lunch,” Erica Heller’s colorful compendium of essays, gives a number of writers the chance to share a repast with their deceased friends, lovers, colleagues, occasional alter egos, and notably fathers, from Saul Bellow to John Cheever to, of course, Joseph Heller.

In “On Account of Race,” Lawrence Goldstone traces Supreme Court decisions regarding voting rights from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to the present. It is a book that challenges your faith in the independence and fairness of the high court.

Grace Schulman casts her steady eye on mortality in her new collection of poems, “The Marble Bed.” Or, more accurately, she casts her eye on the things around her and they describe mortality back to her. 

Donald Trump is by far the most egregious liar ever to reside in the White House, but he is hardly the first, writes Eric Alterman in “Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie — and Why Trump Is Worse,” a kind of American history textbook for our unsettled times.

Roger Rosenblatt’s “Cold Moon” is like an extended prose poem, with runs of free associations and streams of consciousness tackling major themes of life, death, and grief.

On the new books front: Suzanne McNear’s “Swimming Lessons and Other Stories” and Janet Lee Berg’s “Restitution,” a follow-up to “Rembrandt's Shadow,” historical fiction about one family’s art looted by the Nazis.

The character-driven second book by the singer-songwriter turned novelist Suzzy Roche is set in a Catholic enclave in Pennsylvania in 1961. It is a social satire with sympathy, realism with softened edges.

The M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature at Stony Brook Southampton will welcome the poet Major Jackson for an online reading and talk on Oct. 28 at 7 p.m.

Bill Henderson’s “The Family Bible” is a collection of plainspoken, candid poems centering on his struggle with the fundamentalist, literalist religion of his childhood and youth, with its contradictions of a loving and angry God and stories of kindness and violence.

Alastair Gordon talks up the Barnes Coy architecture firm and interviews a principal, and Grace Schulman headlines a celebration of Turtle Point Press via Canio’s Books.

Chris Whipple’s “The Spymasters” fleshes out the triumphs, tragedies, and turf wars of national intelligence with a trove of new details and insights from an astounding cast of characters.