SUPREME POWER: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. By Jeff Shesol. (Norton, $27.95.) Contention over Roosevelt’s proposal to transform the court nearly paralyzed his administration for over a year and severely damaged fragile Democratic unity.

THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith. By Joan Schenkar. (St. Martin’s, $40.) A witty biography of the manipulative, secretive and obsessive creator of Tom Ripley, a character who was a version of Highsmith herself.

THE TENTH PARALLEL: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam. By Eliza Griswold. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A journey along a latitude line where two religions meet and often clash.

TRAVELS IN SIBERIA. By Ian Frazier. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) Dubious meals, vehicle malfunctions and relics of the Gulag fill Frazier’s uproarious, sometimes dark account of his wanderings.

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. By Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House, $30.) This consummate account of the exodus of blacks from the South between 1915 and 1970 explores parallels with earlier European immigration.

WASHINGTON: A Life. By Ron Chernow. (Penguin Press, $40.) Chernow brings his considerable literary talent to bear on the continued hunger of many Americans for more tales of the first president’s exploits.

THE WAVE: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean. By Susan Casey. (Doubleday, $27.95.) Brainy scientists, extreme surfers and mountains of water mix it up in Casey’s vivid, kinetic narrative.

WILLIE MAYS: The Life, the Legend. By James S. Hirsch. (Scribner, $30.) In his long, fascinating account, Hirsch concentrates mostly on the baseball brilliance, reminding us of a time when the only performance-enhancing drug was joy.