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Why is America so divided by class and economic status? Who seeks to gain from a lack of action on labor and tax laws and climate change? Jane Mayer follows the Dark Money (Doubleday) to the bowels of a network of grotesquely wealthy Americans funding the radical right wing.

Veteran terrorism reporter Peter Bergen roots out the motives of Americans drawn to ISIS in United States of Jihad (Crown). A progressive school community in Kabul steels itself for the departure of U.S. troops in Jeffrey E. Stern'sThe Last Thousand (St. Martin's). Darryl Pinckney's young gay African-American hero seeks Isherwood's Berlin in Black Deutschland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). L.A. Reid rhapsodizes about discovering Fisher and breathing life into Mariah Carey in Sing to Me (Harper). Ingrid Betancourt'sThe Blue Line (Penguin Press) illustrates the tumult of coming of age during Argentina's Dirty War. Afghanistan's real-life Romeo and Juliet barely escape an honor killing in Rod Nordland'sThe Lovers (Ecco). Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith land a punch with Blood Brothers (Basic Books) Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. NPR's Diane Rehm advocates

for the right to die in On My Own (Knopf). Sayed Kashua'sNative (Grove) compiles his satirical Haaretz columns. Roger Rosenblatt'sThomas Murphy (Ecco) is a boisterous old Irishman. Jack Viertel rolls out the barrel in Die Secret Life of the American Musical (Sarah Crichton). Gail Lumet Buckley unpacks her extraordinary family's privilege in The Black Calhouns (Atlantic Monthly Press). Brady Carlson exhumes the unfortunate demises and unlikely afterlives of Dead Presidents (Norton)—why does Millard Fillmore rest in peace beside Rick James? Ryan Patrick Hanley profits hugely from Adam Smith (Princeton), founding father of capitalism. Money, money, money.

ELISSA SCHAPPELL