The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm,

1940-1965 By William Manchester and Paul Reid (Little, Brown, $40)

The third volume of the sweeping biography.

Dear Life By Alice Munro (Knopf, $26.95)

The acclaimed short-story writer offers glimpses of her own life in this collection.

Magnificence By Lydia Millet (Norton, $25.95)

This final installment in a trilogy teems with turn-of-the-century emissaries from a vanishing world.