Dive right in

Editors’ note: One of the perennial questions of summer is, what to read? Here is a selection of fiction and nonfiction titles, organized according to the months when they’ll be published.

June

America America

A Novel

Ethan Canin

Random House

During the Nixon era, a working-class boy’s involvement with a powerful upstate New York family reveals the heights and depths of ambition.

Claim of Privilege

A Mysterious Plane Crash, a Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets

Barry Siegel

Harper

How the deaths of three civilians in a 1948 Air Force plane crash led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing the “state secrets” privilege.

The Garden of Last Days

A Novel

Andre Dubus III

W.W. Norton

From the author of “House of Sand and Fog,” a pre-Sept. 11 novel -- set in Florida and involving a Saudi jihadist and an exotic dancer.

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

A Novel

Sasa Stanisic

Grove Press

This debut unfolds as a stream-of-consciousness recollection of a lost childhood by a Bosnian refugee.

Mustang

The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West

Deanne Stillman

Houghton Mifflin

Tracing the mustang’s evolution and disappearance in the Americas, its return with the conquistadors and its spread through the West.

Slumberland

A Novel

Paul Beatty

Bloomsbury

A young, disaffected DJ from Los Angeles goes on a wild search in Berlin for a jazzman who may be his double.

The Spies of Warsaw

A Novel

Alan Furst

Random House

From a master of the spy genre: a novel about cat-and-mouse games before the outbreak of World War II.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

David Sedaris

Little, Brown

The humorist takes us from the French countryside to a mobile home in North Carolina, then to Tokyo.

July

All About Lulu

A Novel

Jonathan Evison

Soft Skull Press

In a family of bodybuilders, a young man is attracted to his troubled stepsister.

Ark of the Liberties

America and the World

Ted Widmer

Hill & Wang

A history of the United States and its global ambitions to secure rights and liberties for all.

Books

A Memoir

Larry McMurtry

Simon & Schuster

McMurtry recalls his early attempts to acquire a personal library and the establishment of his bookstore.

Chasing Darkness

An Elvis Cole Novel

Robert Crais

Simon & Schuster

A corpse discovered in Laurel Canyon sets private investigator Elvis Cole on another quest -- and this time he’s blamed for freeing a murderer.

A Few Seconds of Panic

A 5-foot-8, 170-pound, 43-year-old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL

Stefan Fatsis

Penguin Press

A sportswriter’s tale of surviving the Denver Broncos’ training camp, a la George Plimpton’s “Paper Lion.”

The Last Embrace

A Novel

Denise Hamilton

Scribner

Dark doings (You don’t say!) are underway in 1940s Hollywood.

My Name Is Will

A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakespeare

Jess Winfield

Twelve

A tale of two Williams: the Bard, on a secret mission, and a broke graduate student delivering a psychedelic mushroom to a client.

Palace Council

A Novel

Stephen L. Carter

Alfred A. Knopf

An up-and-coming Harlem literary star finds the garroted body of a prominent Wall Street lawyer -- and then his own sister disappears.

Rome 1960

The Olympics That Changed the World

David Maraniss

Simon & Schuster

How the Cold War between east and west was played out on the fields of the 17th Olympiad.

Shining City

A Novel

Seth Greenland

Bloomsbury

A satire set in West Hollywood, in which a dry-cleaning business fronts for an escort service.

Traffic

Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

Tom Vanderbilt

Alfred A. Knopf

A cultural and psychological study of that most mundane of our daily activities.

August

Dry Storeroom No. 1

The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum

Richard Fortey

Alfred A. Knopf

Behind the scenes at London’s storied Natural History Museum and a look at the collections and their collectors.

Man in the Dark

A Novel

Paul Auster

Henry Holt

A retired book critic, recovering from a car accident, spends a troubled night re-imagining the country’s recent history and avoiding his own.

The 19th Wife

A Novel

David Ebershoff

Random House

A Mormon woman’s crusade against her husband, Brigham Young, is woven with a present-day story of murder and polygamy in Utah.

One More Year

Stories

Sana Krasikov

Spiegel & Grau

A debut collection of stories about Russians, Georgians and other emigres from the former Soviet Union -- and some who have returned.

The Wrecking Crew

How Conservatives Rule

Thomas Frank

Metropolitan Books

What happens when the faction calling itself “conservative” takes over the controls of the state: how conservatism-in-power is very different from conservatism on the streets.