The Great Triumvirate, Merrill D. Peterson (Oxford)....

The Great Triumvirate, Merrill D. Peterson (Oxford). A “thorough and scholarly” account of three enduring symbols of congressional leadership, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, and “the grand debates that consumed their lives” (Jody Powell).

Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk, David Elkind (Knopf). The author “is a fine explainer and simplifier of research on child development. In a clear, calm, almost avuncular voice, he counsels parents not to try so hard, to slow down and enjoy these precious years” (Milton Chen).

Klaus Fuchs: Atom Spy, Robert Chadwell Williams (Harvard); Klaus Fuchs: The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb, Norman Moss (St. Martin’s). “ ‘Atom Spy’ provides a wonderfully detailed picture of the shadowy world in which Fuchs operated, while ‘The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb’ creates a fuller, more rounded portrayal of the man himself” (Peter Goodchild).

Reuben, John Edgar Wideman (Henry Holt). “A stirring and magical novel . . . . You could go to James Joyce or Virginia Woolf to find an equivalent for Wideman’s power to render the tangible substance of his personages through their thoughts and feelings” (Richard Eder).