1. A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig (Penguin Press)

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Rucker (White House bureau chief) and Leonnig (national investigative reporter) have been breaking news for the first three years of the Trump presidency. Now the pair have stepped back, assiduously connected the dots, and revealed the president’s pattern of behavior. In their careful reconstruction of Donald Trump’s incompetence and narcissism, Rucker and Leonnig don’t merely tell a colorful story with wacky characters; rather, they make a compelling case exposing an unhinged president.

2. Harvest the Vote: How Democrats Can Win Again in Rural America by Jane Kleeb (Ecco)

With the Iowa caucuses on the horizon, Kleeb’s fierce manifesto calls on urban and rural voters to find common ground, in the manner of the coalition of environmental groups, farmers, and Native Americans that formed to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. In this brief volume, Kleeb describes growing up in South Florida and working in Washington, D.C., before laying down roots in Nebraska, where she became chair of the state Democratic Party and founded the grassroots group Bold Nebraska. She ends her call for collective action, helpfully, with “Some Things You Should Know When You Visit Rural America.”

3. Building America: The Life of Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Jean H. Baker (Oxford University Press)

With this fine biography, historian Baker rescues Benjamin Henry Latrobe from obscurity and restores his reputation as the “Father of American Architecture.” Baker captures the arc of Latrobe’s career, from apprenticeship in London to his move to the new republic, where his friendship with Thomas Jefferson led to his appointment as “surveyor of public buildings.” Latrobe’s mark endures in Washington from the U.S. Capitol’s House of Representatives and Senate wings and the Supreme Court’s meeting room, to the main gate of the Navy Yard as well as the Washington Canal.

4. Stateway’s Garden by Jasmon Drain (Random House)

The Stateway Gardens public housing projects may have been razed and their apartment dwellers scattered, but Drain’s collection of linked short stories recaptures life in those grim, isolated brick towers. At the center of these stories are a boy and his half-brother, living with their hardworking single mother in a 14th-floor apartment, and their neighbors and friends, who are buffeted in different ways by the forces of segregation, racism, and the perils of life. This rich kaleidoscope of stories is animated by a wonderful energy and closes with an “Epilogue: The Battle of Segregation, 1958-2007,” marking the lifespan of the buildings that held the dreams of generations.

5. We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan (Riverhead Books)

Zancan’s compulsively readable campus novel, evocative of Donna Tartt’s classic The Secret History, focuses on the psychodrama, angst, and power dynamics within a claustrophobic and competitive cohort of MFA students. Narrated by a collective “we,” the novel centers on a trio of talented writers with conflicting ambitions about commercial and artistic success. This separate little ecosystem is interrupted by a guest professor, a glamorous and best-selling author, who sets the simmering cauldron to a boil.