Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir by Molly Gaudry (Rose Metal Press). Reviewed by Marcie Geffner. “When writers’ lives inspire their fiction and their imaginations color their memoirs, where can a line be drawn between the two — or does no such line exist? Astute readers may point to ‘autofiction,’ a mashup of autobiography and fiction, as the answer. But Molly Gaudry’s inventive Fit Into Me isn’t that. Rather, it is a true dual-genre work that is literally part memoir and part novel. The autofiction game of trying to guess what’s true and what isn’t vanishes as Gaudry demonstrates that the dichotomy itself is false.”

Charlie and Me: Charles Manson and the Reporter Who Came to Know the Most Famous Mass Murderer in History by Mary Neiswender with Kate Neiswender (Potomac Books). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “The author, a pioneering reporter who died in 2025 at 99 (her daughter, Kate, a journalist and lawyer, supervised the book’s final edits), wasn’t fooled by Charlie’s jail-side manner. She recognized he was ‘violent, unpredictable, and cruel.’ She thought he was a killer, although he steadfastly denied it. Yet, she was bold enough to air his side of the story. ‘Some have suggested I should feel guilty about giving Manson a voice during his trial,’ she wrote. ‘But I believe it is essential to find out what makes such men tick — how they think, how they operate and how they seduce others to kill.’ By getting inside Manson’s strange head and sharing her insights, Neiswender turns a familiar old story into a fascinating new tale.”

Crick: A Mind in Motion by Matthew Cobb (Basic Books). Reviewed by Stephen Case. “In the masterful Crick: A Mind in Motion, biographer Matthew Cobb engagingly recounts the man’s life and career. A zoology professor emeritus at the University of Manchester, the author knows his stuff and his subject. (In making their breakthrough, Crick and Watson famously drew on an X-ray image of DNA — ‘Photograph 51’ — taken by a student working under scientist Rosalind Franklin without first requesting consent or later giving credit. The book offers a detailed, well-balanced account of the matter, one that leaves it to readers to judge whether there was any wrongdoing.)”

Winter: The Story of a Season by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press). Reviewed by Anne Cassidy. “Winter is not just about work, though. It’s also about celebrations. McDermid begins with Halloween and the old Scottish version of trick-or-treating, ‘guising,’ which she practiced as a child. Guising involved turnip lanterns and performing a song or telling a joke to score a treat. Some might argue that Halloween is actually a fall festival, but McDermid grew up in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, and ‘needed something to remind us that the light always comes back.’”

Departure(s): A Novel by Julian Barnes (Knopf). Reviewed by John P. Loonam. “His assertion that he’s writing nonfiction — in a book with the word ‘novel’ literally on its cover — is further undermined by his repeated return to that exemplar of memory, Proust. He points out that the Frenchman worked through multiple drafts and that the famed petite madeleine wasn’t his first choice of catalytic cookie, having initially tried stale bread as the refresher of life’s memories, and later toying with plain toast. Perhaps all our memories are inevitably reworked toward the end we desire.”

Cromwell’s Spy: From the American Colonies to the English Civil War: The Life of George Downing by Dennis Sewell (Pegasus Books). Reviewed by Stuart Kay. “Nonetheless, Downing’s tangible legacy seems fitting. The clever mortar lines painted on the buildings on his eponymous street — to make the brickwork seem more even and of higher quality — indicate deceit and parsimony. Downing never lived on Downing Street; its construction was simply a quick business venture to make money. As Winston Churchill observed, the buildings were ‘shaky and lightly built by the profiteering contractor whose name they bear.’ Sewell’s biography of this ‘profiteering contractor’ is an engaging, albeit ineluctably grim, read.”

Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America by Howard Bryant (Mariner Books). Reviewed by E. Ethelbert Miller. “Bryant notes a meeting that took place on December 3, 1943, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City between Major League Baseball’s 16 team owners and Robeson. At the time, Robeson was highly celebrated for his achievements in the theater, including for his role as Othello. He was also an outstanding athlete and felt that Black people were ready to play in the big leagues. Most of the owners, though, didn’t want Blacks to join their teams, but one exception was Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers. His signing of Robinson — the MLB’s first Black player — was viewed as a great experiment, but Rickey was simply a business owner making a business decision. One which would prove profitable.”

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