1. Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect With the New American Community by Douglas B. Sosnik, Matthew J. Dowd, and Ron Fournier. There’s a hint of Malcolm Gladwell writing in this book where the Democratic and GOP pollsters team up with the AP’s former top political writer to explain how American society is now focused on “gut values.”

2. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. A year after the book Night Draws Near by the Post’s Anthony Shadid told the story of the Iraqi people, the Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief shows that life in the supposedly safe Green Zone is barely better.

3 & 4. Two big names return with powerful works of fiction: National Book Award winner Alice McDermott’s new novel, After This, follows an Irish Catholic family through the tumultuous 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones offers 14 new short stories in All Aunt Hagar’s Children.