No one is coming to save us A novel

THE IMAGINEERS OF WAR: The Untold Story of Darpa, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World, by Sharon Weinberger. (Vintage, $17.) Few know much about Darpa - populated by a "procession of nuts, opportunists and salesmen," Weinberger tells us - but the group helped shape modern life and modern warfare. Some notable inventions: stealth aircraft, armed drones, Agent Orange and even the internet. EXIT WEST, by Mohsin Hamid. (Riverhead, $16.) In this elegant meditation on refuge, exile and home, a couple flee their unnamed country riven by civil war. Hamid weaves the surreal into his tale: Magic doors separate the dangers of home from the perils of a new life. The novel, one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2017, is this month's pick for the PBS NewsHourNew York Times Book Club. STEVEN SPIELBERG: A Life in Films, by Molly Haskell. (Yale, $15.) A feminist critic's take on the filmmaker focuses on his Jewish identity. Praising the match between biographer and subject, our reviewer, Lisa Schwarzbaum, wrote, "The exploration here is lively, the critic is deeply informed and she approaches her mandate with a calmness of inquiry that is a gift often bestowed on the outsider anthropologist impervious to tribal influences." UNIVERSAL HARVESTER, by John Darnielle. (Picador, $16.) At the local Video Hut where Jeremy works as a clerk, someone begins splicing violent, vaguely malevolent scenes into the tapes, and his Idaho town is shaken. As his friends and family are consumed by the phenomenon, Jeremy pursues the mystery, culminating in a final reckoning at the remote farm where the scenes were filmed. Darnielle, the lead singer for the band the Mountain Goats, counteracts the sinister with acute sensitivity in this story, his second novel. WHY TIME FLIES: A Mostly Scientific Investigation, by Alan Burdick. (Simon & Schuster, $17.) Burdick, a New Yorker staff writer, investigates how we experience the passage of time: varying perceptions of duration; how humans agreed on the common measure of an hour. His account doesn't satisfy every question, but it opens up new lines of inquiry into the subtle and profound ways humans process time. NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US, by Stephanie Powell Watts. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $16.99.) A riff on "The Great Gatsby," this debut novel centers on the fates and fortunes of AfricanAmerican families in modern-day North Carolina As our reviewer, Jade Chang, put it, "Watts is interested in what black people are allowed to want - and allow themselves to want - in 21st-century America."

As Sarah Jessica Parker's inaugural selection for the American Library Association's Book Club Central, Watts's (We Are Only Taking What We Need) first novel is getting well-earned attention. Initially inspired by The Great Gatsby, Watts wanted to give voice to the mostly silent African American characters in Fitzgerald's privileged world. Here, Jay becomes JJ, who's returned to Pinewood, NC-a town crippled by factory closings-as a wealthy man, determined to reconnect with his (Daisy-based) former sweetheart Ava. The obvious parallels end there, as Watts confidently crafts an original narrative starring troubled characters in search of connection and meaning. After multiple mis-carriages, Ava's need for mother-hood becomes obsessive. Her husband already has a secret child. Her mother, Sylvia, might have replaced her son with a convict she's never met but whose collect calls she regularly accepts. Ava's father is unsure whose bed to occupy. Narrator Janina Edwards's ability to cross generations, genders, and ages enhances Watts's family saga with spirit and vitality. Enlivened by Edwards's versatile performance, these Pinewood residents will each confront demanding decisions. VERDICT Given both the book's acclaim and popularity, libraries will want to offer multiple formats to eager audiences. ["Believable and gratifying": LJ 2/1/17 review of the Ecco: HarperCollins hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.