Novels by Angela Flournoy, Kiran Desai and Megha Majumdar, along with a memoir by Arundhati Roy, are finalists for the Kirkus Prize.

It was a life that took him from peanut farming to the presidency.

Betty Prashker, a pioneering editor of the 20th century who as one of the first women with the power to acquire books published such classics as Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics” and Susan Faludi’s “Backlash,” died July 30 at age 99.