Also of interest ... in chameleons and shape-shifters

Summertime

by J.M. Coetzee

(Viking, $26)

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Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee apparently wishes he were a different writer altogether, said Brock Clark in The Boston Globe. This is the third novel he’s written in the form of a fictionalized autobiography. Here, the character “John” Coetzee is actually dead, and his biographer is interviewing ex-lovers, who invariably describe him as having been cold and detached. In effect, we are listening to “one of our major writers confessing to his limitations,” and the experience is unexpectedly moving.

Happy

by Alex Lemon

(Scribner, $25)

Alex “Happy” Lemon coped poorly with the stroke that interrupted his college career, said Laura Miller in Salon.com. In his sometimes overwritten but otherwise vivid and compelling memoir, Lemon confesses to shoplifting, boozing, picking fights with his best friend, and cheating on his best girl. It’s his “hippie sculptor” mom who helps dig him out if his hole. Their relationship is “funkily, goofily, supremely life-affirming,” and Lemon’s depiction of it makes this book “something special.”

How to Change Someone You Love

by Brad Lamm

(St. Martin’s, $25)

Brad Lamm’s new book challenges the thinking of 12-step addiction-recovery programs, said Benoit Denizet-Lewis in TheDailyBeast.com. Alcoholics Anonymous has insisted for decades that non-addicts can’t change an addict’s behavior, but Lamm strongly advises group interventions, often with “enablers” included. Lamm has worked for ­several years as an intervention specialist, but I worry that his title alone “sends out a potentially unhealthy message.”

The Autobiography of Fidel Castro

by Norberto Fuentes

(Norton, $28)

This fictional autobiography probably captures the reality of Fidel Castro’s life better than any nonfiction book ever will, said Steve Weinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times. Norberto Fuentes knew Castro well before falling out of favor, and he’s used that insider knowledge to depict the Cuban leader as “prolix and off-center from the beginning.” Imagine Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin, in the form of a 550-page “masterpiece” of Latin American literature.