Superman: The High-flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero

By Larry Tye (Random House, $27)

Larry Tye gives us the backstory, front-story, inside dirt, and more.

James Joyce: A New Biography

By Gordon Bowker (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $35.00)

Bowker has given us a massive, intricate contemporary take on the Irish writer.

My Poets

By Maureen N. McLane (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25)

A poet weds criticism to memoir, making readers privy to her eclectic and ecstatic reading life.