UNDERGROUND AIRLINES by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland Books). In this alternate history, Mr. Winters imagines a horrific modern-day America where the Civil War never happened, and slavery still exists. The persistence of American slavery is a popular alternate-history plotline, along with the Nazis’ winning World War II, but Mr. Winters carves out fresh territory by blending genres, adding elements of detective fiction. His weary and haunted protagonist, a former slave who calls himself Victor, works as a bounty hunter who tracks down escaped slaves for the United States Marshals Service. He’s on the trail of a man named Jackdaw when his mission, and the painful bargain he’s made with his minders and himself, begin to unravel. (July 5)

FROM THE BOOKSHELF Carlo Rovelli’s “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” (Riverhead Books). I’ve wanted to read Mr. Rovelli’s surprise best seller ever since a reviewer said his breezy “tone would give Brian Cox a run for his quarks.” In just 88 pages, he explores mind-bending topics in physics, like gravitational waves, the heat of black holes and quantum gravity. It sounds like the rare book about physics that can be ingested in a single sitting, which I hope to do sometime this summer.

Sarah Lyall

I AM NO ONE by Patrick Flanery (Tim Duggan Books). Summer is a great time for creepiness and paranoia, and so I’m looking forward to “I Am No One.” In this novel, strange things are happening to a New York University professor who has recently returned from abroad. He seems to be under surveillance of the most insidious and unnerving kind. It’s a terrible predicament to be in, but is he hiding something? (July 5)

Image Credit... Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times

MODERN LOVERS by Emma Straub (Riverhead Books). While you’re lazing around on the beach, three college friends and former bandmates, now in the throes of middle age, are spending their summer confronting hard truths about their pasts while dealing with their suddenly sexually active teenagers. Secrets unravel, and revelations are made, not just about them but about a fourth band member who became famous on her own. (Tuesday)

FROM THE BOOKSHELF “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust. I’ve never read Proust. Now is the time. A few of us from various parts of the country (and Canada) have decided to read “In Search of Lost Time” together and record our spur-of-the-moment thoughts in a group Google document. We’ve just started. Our reactions are all over the place. So far so good.

Jennifer Schuessler

HEROES OF THE FRONTIER by Dave Eggers (Alfred A. Knopf). After fictional forays to Silicon Valley (“The Circle”) and Saudi Arabia (“A Hologram for the King”), Mr. Eggers takes his dark vision of 21st-century American confusion to the wilds of Alaska. In this adventure-novel-meets-moral-inquiry, a Midwestern single mother at the end of her rope cruises the scenic byways in a rickety R.V. with her two children, dodging raging wildfires, tourist traps, personal demons and epically bad weather, ultimately digging deep to find something close to old-fashioned courage. (July 26)