Also of interest … in authors’ letters

Selected Letters of William Styron

(Random House, $40)

“There’s very little tell-all” in this selection of letters William Styron wrote in his lifetime—“no rants, no rages, no revenge,” said Seth Lerer in the San Francisco Chronicle. Instead, the Southern-bred author of 1967’s Confessions of Nat Turner and 1979’s Sophie’s Choice comes across as “sensitive, erudite, caring, self-reflective, and observant,” even when dealing with his critics. Sometimes, among the missives to his family, friends, and peers, “we see in a sentence what it often takes a novel to achieve.

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P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

(Norton, $35)

“It’s easy to think of Wodehouse as the purveyor of literary comfort food,” said Ed Park in Bookforum. The creator of Reginald Jeeves and Bertie Wooster displayed such consistency across 90-plus books that he was able to joke in a letter to a fellow British novelist, “I have only got one plot and produce it once a year with variations.” The many ups and downs of his life stood in stark contrast to his characters’ reassuringly cushy existence, and this collection “gives us the grit along with the wit.”

Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

(Delacorte, $35)

Since Kurt Vonnegut used letters as a staging area for phrasing he’d later employ in his novels, publishing his correspondence was “destined to bring forth bounty,” said Lydia Kiesling in TheMillions.com. If the satirist’s trademark “grump-humanist sensibility” remains easy to admire in this collection, Vonnegut often isn’t. Even given his family troubles and wartime experiences in Dresden, Germany, it appears that “Kurt Vonnegut’s biggest obstacle to happiness was Kurt Vonnegut.”

The Selected Letters of Anthony Hecht

(Johns Hopkins, $35)

Much as the work of poet Anthony Hecht “depicts both light and shadow,” so do his letters, said David Yezzi in The Wall Street Journal. Culled from nearly 4,000, those published here range from a witty account of an awards ceremony to somber reports written after his U.S. infantry unit liberated a concentration camp. Often, though, “Hecht’s correspondence is just plain fun to read,” particularly when he boasts of competing with Marlon Brando to woo a fashion model—and winning.