1. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson (Crown)

Erik Larson has distinguished himself with his talent for spotlighting dramatic moments in history, from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 to the Lusitania, and in his new book he returns to the territory of Hitler’s rise to power, which was the context of his In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. Now Larson approaches World War II from the perspective of Winston Churchill and his first year as British prime minister. It was 1940, and Germany had invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had resigned, and Churchill was appointed by King George VI. Larson renders these turbulent times vividly, capturing Churchill famously proclaiming, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” In his signature gripping, robust style, Larson captures the full drama of the Blitz, enriching the story with ordeals involving Churchill’s wife, Clementine, and their children.

2. The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World by Rahm Emmanuel (Knopf)

“Our hope lies with our mayors,” writes Emmanuel in his lucid manifesto about the promise, peril, and performance of cities. “They make the world work.” More than a defense of his record and inflation of his accomplishments, Emmanuel’s book looks beyond Chicago and highlights cities such as Dayton, Houston, Louisville, and Milwaukee, uplifted by forward-thinking mayors. Central to his argument is that innovation can happen on a smaller scale, where mayors are accessible to their constituents and where ideas can be generated and road-tested and then serve as models for the world. Emmanuel has done his homework on urban policy and history, and has considered the intertwined issues of “income inequality, the environment, immigration, housing, education, infrastructure, mounting pension debt, [and] the costs of prosperity.” He notes that mayors stand on the front lines of those issues and are confronting, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “the fierce urgency of now.”

3. These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackmann (W.W. Norton)

 Ackmann brings poet Emily Dickinson into full focus in her innovative biography. Drawing from her career teaching an Emily Dickinson seminar at Mount Holyoke College in the poet’s own house, Ackmann clarifies the enigmatic woman in white in a set of essays that provide snapshots of Dickinson “with the past in dissolve like a multiple exposure.” The portrait that emerges draws her closer to the poet who did not pursue publication, yet called attention to her work. In her profound understanding of Dickinson’s life. Ackmann, who has a track record of biographies of women obscured from history — such as America’s first female astronauts and the first woman to play professional baseball in the Negro League — zeros in on the episodes that revealed Dickinson’s life in a way that deepens appreciation of her poetry.

4. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall (Viking)

Enough with the “allies.” Be “accomplices,” argues activist Kendall in her bracing essay collection calling for a more inclusive women’s movement. Kendall indicts mainstream feminism for focusing on the best ways to be a CEO rather than working for an inclusive movement that includes marginalized women. Drawing from her experiences, Kendall reflects on her eating disorder, which she recently detailed in The New York Times, and indicts the traditional movement for failing to contend with gun violence, discrimination by police, voting rights, quality medical care, poverty, and the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Kendall exhorts African American and Muslim women to resist the patriarchal elements of the black church and Islam.

5. Apartment by Teddy Wayne (Bloomsbury)

Wayne’s novel smolders with tension as the angst-ridden unnamed narrator in 90s New York City, an MFA creative writing student at Columbia University fully funded by his father, invites his magnetic seminar classmate Billy to share his apartment rent free. Wayne subtly ratchets up the class conflict as talented Billy, who attended Midwestern community college, challenges the narrator’s status. Resentment and jealousy rise as their competing ambitions collide in an unexpected way, which Wayne renders in its full complexity.