New in paperback

The latest releases.

"Selected Poems," by Derek Walcott. Edited by Edward Baugh (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Born on St. Lucia in 1930, Walcott was educated in Jamaica and has lived in Trinidad and in the United States, where he still teaches for part of the year at Boston University. This collection, edited by the Jamaican poet Edward Baugh, represents every stage of Walcott's long career, for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1992.

"Letter to a Christian Nation," by Sam Harris (Vintage). After his book "The End of Faith" appeared, Harris, who is completing a doctorate in neuroscience, received thousands of letters, many of them hostile, about his lack of belief in God. This "letter," addressed to fundamentalist Christians, is his reply. Harris addresses topics such as intelligent design, stem-cell research and the role of religion in public life. "The primary purpose of the book is to arm secularists against their opponents," he writes.

"The Wealth of Nations," by P.J. O'Rourke (Grove). Adam Smith's treatise revolutionized economic thought when it was published in 1776; it established the intellectual foundation of capitalism and free markets. But today few readers make it all the way through the more than 900 pages of Smith's convoluted prose.

"Heyday," by Kurt Andersen (Random House). Andersen's protagonist, a wealthy young Briton, has been involved in an accidental killing during the revolution in France and, pursued by the dead man's brother, flees to New York. There he joins up with a firefighter and his sister (with whom he falls in love) and a roguish journalist. Eventually, they make their way to the gold fields of California.

"Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction," by Jake Halpern (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin). "Why do countless Americans yearn so desperately for this sort of fame?" Halpern asks. "Why do others devote their entire lives to serving these people? And why do millions of others fall into the mindless habit of watching them from afar?" Halpern ponders, and finally rejects, the dubious explanation that fame is physically addictive, but along the way he presents plenty of evidence, both funny and disturbing, about Americans' celebrity obsession.

"Famous Writers School," by Steven Carter (Counterpoint). In this clever epistolary novel, a clueless writing teacher criticizes the work of the three students who have signed up for his correspondence course. Writers, teachers and the nature of narrative itself are the subjects of this satire.

"Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos," by Emily Wu and Larry Engelmann (Anchor). Even as a 3-year-old, Wu was a class enemy during the Cultural Revolution because her father was a well-known academic. He was dismissed from his university and publicly humiliated; he and his wife were exiled to separate towns, leaving their children in state care. The family was eventually reunited, but more suffering followed. "This is what I still see and hear when I close my eyes and those times descend on me again," Wu writes.

"Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty," By Tim Sandlin (Riverhead). In this comic novel, Woodstock-generation residents in 2022 stage a rebellion at an assisted-living center.

"That Sweet Enemy. Britain and France: The History of a Love-Hate Relationship," by Robert and Isabelle Tombs (Vintage). Married historians, one British, the other French, look at 300 years in the contentious relations between their countries. The book emphasizes the conflicts between 1689 and 1815, ending with Wellington's defeat of Napoleon (oddly, Waterloo Station was until recently the terminus of the Eurostar, which links London and Paris), but social and cultural matters also receive their due in this stylish synthesis.

"Con Ed," by Matthew Klein (Grand Central). This funny swindling-scam novel, set in the world of the Internet nouveaux-riches, is full of perfectly observed Northern California details.