Innocence, Penelope Fitzgerald (Holt). “The characters in...

Innocence, Penelope Fitzgerald (Holt). “The characters in ‘Innocence’ are vivid, precisely because of their ineffectiveness. Nothing they say or do seems to change very much.” A “clever and dangerously beguiling social comedy” (Richard Eder).

Familia: Migration and Adaptation in Baja and Alta California, Robert R. Alvarez Jr. (University of California). “The greatest merit of this highly readable and engaging book is the humanization of the immigrant experience” (Jesus Trevino).

What You Need to Know About Business, Money and Power, Michael Kidron and Ronald Segal (Simon & Schuster), “combines state-of-the-art graphics and lively summary to bring vivid color and comprehensive perspective to the often gray world of business and economic theory” (Alex Raksin).

Over the Edge, Jonathan Kellerman (Atheneum). The author, a pediatrics professor at USC, has produced “more than a solid, gripping, page-turning mystery.” This “is the work of a novelist of uncommon insight and storytelling skill” (Dick Lochte).