THE DIRTY SOUTH by John Connolly (Emily Bestler/Atria). I've said enough, I trust, about this modern classic thriller/supernatural horror series—but this new one takes us back in time to Charlie Parker's very first case, and is, more even than all the rest, not to be missed. Connolly's always really good, and at his very best, right now.

WHITE IVY by Susie Yang (Simon & Schuster). This brainy first novel, both witty and compassionate, might, on a careless description, put one in mind of the plotty, sexy commercial fiction of the 1940s and '50s—FOREVER AMBER, that sort of thing; but, let's take care. Kathleen Winsor's readers “believed in” Amber rather as kids “believed in” Batman; Susie Yang and Ivy Lin are a very different story. Ivy is not just shrewd but deeply intelligent, and ravenous for what life might hold, but scared and angry, rather than amused; she will leave you wiser and deeper, in touch with more complex humans and more of reality's ironies than you came in with. It's a busy book, it's set in the America we live in—or, well, the one the rich live in, anyway—and it's about a very smart girl and woman who learns a lot, and unlearns a lot, too, and grows . . . wiser? Maybe; more knowing, for sure.

GOD-LEVEL KNOWLEDGE DARTS: LIFE LESSONS FROM THE BRONX by Desus & Mero (Random House). These *****ers talk some **, *****ers—it never stops, and . . . and if I keep trying to sound like them, the column won't only become a fusillade of asterisks, it will read like an old white Hoosier trying to sound street-Bronx. They're seriously funny, though: very funny, about serious things (but not only). Also insightful, and not exactly inviting, but nevertheless rewarding, and it will enlarge us all to learn something about how *****ers like this . . . uh—I just looked back into the book, there—how these guys think and feel about it all. One's single, the other's married, and that **** (uh-huh) is also taken both seriously and comically. They run a podcast that has won serious awards in much more than local competion. And, they're not exactly talking to you and me, but if they didn't want us to hear them, they wouldn't be published by Bennett Cerf's old publishing house.

FAST ASLEEP by Dr. Michael Mosley (Atria). A practical self-help book, smart and informed, but only as scientific as it needs to be to give us confidence in it. Its clear aim is to teach us to regulate the quantity and quality of our sleep, with minimal to no medication—only moderate, do-able behavioral adjustments and common sense.