As Michelle T. King demonstrates in this moving and ambitious biography, Fu Pei-mei was far more than “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.”

An anxious artist’s road trip stops short for a torrid affair at a tired motel. In “All Fours,” the desire for change is familiar. How to satisfy it isn’t.

In Kimberly King Parsons’s witty, profane novel, “We Were the Universe,” a young mother seeks to salve a profound loss.

In her intimate memoir, “Rebel Girl,” the punk-rock heroine Kathleen Hanna recalls a life of trauma, triumph and riot grrrl rebellion.

Barbara Kingsolver’s debut, and a bad seed’s beginnings.

An entertaining new history by Steven Johnson explores an explosive moment when terror and nascent surveillance collided.