Summer reading: Current events

Allah, Liberty and Love

The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom

Irshad Manji

Simon & Schuster: $25

The author looks at the contentious world views sometimes dividing Muslims and non-Muslims and suggests solutions to transcend those differences. (June)

An Anatomy of Addiction

Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine

Howard Markel

Pantheon: $27.95

Markel recounts the decades-long use of cocaine by Freud, father of modern psychoanalysis, and by Halsted, father of modern surgery. (July)

The Believing Brain

From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

Michael Shermer

Times Books: $28

Is there a God? Are there ghosts? The founding publisher of Skeptic magazine looks at the web of personal, subjective and psychological factors that influence our understanding of reality. (June)

Bill Moyers Journal

The Conversation Continues

Bill Moyers

New Press: $29.95

Moyers draws from his successful public television series to present this eclectic selection of interviews with Howard Zinn, Jon Stewart, E.O. Wilson, John Grisham and many more. (June)

The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary

A True Story of Resilience and Recovery

Andrew Westoll

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: $25

Here’s a story of a special family recovering from trauma: a group of chimpanzees rescued from a research lab and resettled at a sanctuary in the French Canadian countryside. (May)

Dog Sense

How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet

John Bradshaw

Basic Books: $25.99

Are dogs furry humans or friendly wolves? They’re neither, argues the author, who looks at humanity’s effect, for better and for worse, upon its four-legged friends. (June)

Epic

John McEnroe, Björn Borg and the Greatest Tennis Season Ever

Matthew Cronin

Wiley: $25.95

An account of the thrilling battles between two tennis legends on Wimbledon’s Centre Court and at the U.S. Open. (May)

A Father’s Love

One Man’s Unrelenting Battle to Bring His Abducted Son Home

David Goldman

Viking: $ 26.95

Goldman describes his highly publicized ordeal to reunite with his young son, Sean, after his wife took the boy on a two-week vacation to her native Brazil and then decided to stay and keep Sean there. (May)

Ghost in the Wires

My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

Kevin Mitnick with William L. Simon

Little, Brown: $25.99

No computer system was too formidable — or impenetrable — for Mitnick, once a top “cyber criminal” who was on the run from the FBI for several years. (August)

High Strung

Björn Borg, John McEnroe, and the Untold Story of Tennis’ Fiercest Rivalry

Stephen Tignor

Harper: $25.99

Along with “Epic,” Stephen Tignor celebrates the tennis clash of titans that electrified the sport in the 1970s and early 1980s. (May)

Intern Nation

How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy

Ross Perlin

Verso: $22.95

Are internships a learning experience or a revolving door for menial labor? The author chooses the latter in this exposé of the internship model, starting with the practices that keep the magic of the Walt Disney Co. going in its many ventures. (May)

La Seduction

How the French Play the Game of Life

Elaine Sciolino

Times Books/Henry Holt: $26

Elaine Sciolino looks at how seduction shapes every aspect of French life, from food and wine to literature and foreign policy. (June)

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor

Mark Seal

Viking: $26.95

Mark Seal unravels the true story of a man known as Clark Rockefeller, who in March was charged with the murder of John Sohus, his landlord in the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino. (June)

The Mirage Man

Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America’s Rush to War

David Willman

Bantam Books: $27

Willman, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, details the anthrax attacks and what they have meant for America. (June)

My Faraway One

Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

Selected, annotated and edited by Sarah Greenough

Yale University Press: $39.95

Two giants of 20th century American art exchange letters written in very different styles, one spare and vibrant while the other is fervent and lyrical. Guess which is which. (June)

Nom de Plume

A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

Carmela Ciuraru

Harper: $24.99

An exploration of 16 writers who used secret identities to pen their works. It delves into the reasons and rationales of such authors as Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell and the Brontë sisters. (June)

The Quotable Hitchens

From Alcohol to Zionism, the very best of Christopher Hitchens

Edited by Windsor Mann

Da Capo: $16.95 paper

A collection of gemlike insights pared from the public intellectual and author’s many books and other writings. (May)

Reasonable Doubt

The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, and the Trial of Chris McCowen

Peter Manso

Atria Books: $25.99

The murder of 46-year-old fashion writer Christa Worthington on Cape Cod became a media circus with the conviction and life imprisonment of Christopher McCowen. Was justice served? Peter Manso isn’t so sure. (July)

Rock the Casbah

Rage and Revolution Across the Islamic World

Robin Wright

Simon & Schuster: $26.99

A portrait of the fierce turmoil today among moderates and extremists in the Islamic world. (July)

Rush

Why You Need and Love the Rat Race

Todd G. Buchholz

Hudson Street Press: $25.95

The key to happiness is activity, not a vacation or going to a yoga camp, argues this economist who takes aim at those saying the goal in life is peace and quiet. (May)

Second Reading

Notable and Neglected Books Revisited

Jonathan Yardley

Europa Editions: $15

The Washington Post book critic explores the power and pleasure of literature to inform and entertain by revisiting masterpieces from our youth. (July)

The Secret Life of Pronouns

What Our Words Say About Us

James W. Pennebaker

Bloomsbury: $28

Our most forgettable parts of speech — pronouns and prepositions — can be the most revealing about our feelings, our self-concepts and social intelligence. (August)

Shock Value

How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented Modern Horror

Jason Zinoman

Penguin: $25.95

An entertaining account of the gifted, eccentric directors who gave us modern horror in the 1970s, including Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter and Brian De Palma, bringing a new brand of politics and gritty realism to the genre. (July)

Super Mario

How Nintendo Conquered America

Jeff Ryan

Portfolio/Penguin: $26.95

The rise of a video game giant on the shoulders of an always cheerful, portly little plumber. (August)

Those Guys Have All the Fun

Inside the World of ESPN

James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

Little, Brown: $27.99

How a gamble on a channel devoted solely to sports grew into a television empire. (May)

12 Who Don’t Agree

Valery Panyushkin

Europa Editions: $15 paper

The author, a journalist in Moscow, profiles a broad range of Russian citizens who, despite their social differences, share a common outrage against government corruption in their country. (July)

The World as It Is

Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress

Chris Hedges

Nation Books: $26.99

“War is always about betrayal,” writes the author, a longtime war correspondent and Truthdig columnist, whose new book assesses the condition of life in the American Empire and its effect abroad. (available now)

Yoga Bitch

One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment

Suzanne Morrison

Three Rivers Press: $15 paper

The author ditched her pack of smokes and headed for Bali to better understand her cravings and search for her higher self. (August)

Yossarian Slept Here

When Joseph Heller was Dad, the Apthorp was Home, and Life was a Catch-22

Erica Heller

Simon & Schuster: $25

The intriguing incidents and characters encountered in a house where the father was a big-time novelist. (August)