Glenna Halvorson-Boyd

Yuval Noah Harari. Random House, $35 (528p) ISBN 978-0-593-73422-3 Bestseller Harari (Homo Deus) offers an ambitious but muddled meditation on the past and future of information technology. Positing all human history as a history of information—and defining information as “something that creates new realities”—Harari ends up telling a cautionary tale about the power of stories.

Russell Cobb. Beacon, $31.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8070-0737-2 This riveting legal thriller from historian Cobb (The Great Oklahoma Swindle) opens up a “Pandora’s box containing vital questions about land ownership... and oil wealth” in modern-day Oklahoma.

Jenny Slate. Little, Brown, $29 (240p) ISBN 978-0-316-26393-1 The quirky humor of comedian Slate (Little Weirds) lights up these odd yet endearing essays, which trace her path to becoming a mother in the years after divorcing her first husband. Reflecting on the early days of dating her second husband, she recounts worrying whenever they were apart that he would lose interest in her, a feeling she gradually overcame through the strength of their connection.