From the winter sky comes Michael Chabon's radiant Moonglow (Harper). This close-to-the-bone novel, in the works since his first, was inspired by the stories Chabon's grandfather told on his deathbed. The narrative unwraps to reveal a multi-layered, tragicomic package containing some of Chabon's favorite toys: love, family, Jewish identity, model-rocketry, and full-scale war. Of the model rocket in question, the Pulitzer Prizewinning author writes, "It was at once a prayer sent heavenward and the answer to that prayer." The same could be said for this genre-swirling tale.

You better not pout: Will Schwalbe and his great taste are coming to town with Books for Living (Knopf). Dava Sobel breaks the observatory ceiling in The Glass Universe (Viking). The short stories of the late activist, playwright, and filmmaker Kathleen Collins want to know Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? (Ecco). Siri Hustvedt's insightful essays on art, sex, and general judgment join forces in A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women (Simon & Schuster). Colin MacCabe's Perpetual Carnival (Oxford) seamlessly switches the reels between film and literature. Mary McCartney reminds us to be not afraid of greatness with her unprecedentedly intimate photos of actor Mark Rylance and company in Twelfth Night 13.12.15 (Heni). Peter Godfrey-Smith'sOther Minds (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) sells us on the sentient cephalopod and the history of our own consciousness, one tentacle at a time. Stay woke, friends.