Paperbacks new and noteworthy

“Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War,” by Deborah Cohen. (Random House, 608 pages, $20.) This ensemble biography critically examines the entwined friendships, exploits, missteps and sex lives of four influential American journalists — John Gunther, H.R. Knickerbocker, James Vincent “Jimmy” Sheean and Dorothy Thompson — who took Europe by storm in the lead-up to World War II.

“The Island of Missing Trees,” by Elif Shafak. (Bloomsbury, 368 pages, $18.99.) This novel jumps from contemporary London to Cyprus in 1974 and the early 2000s. It is also narrated, in part, from the perspective of a fig tree. But as it tells the story of its Greek-Turkish teenage protagonist, its unconventional structure reveals familiar themes of identity, grief and grappling with family history.

“Drowning Practice,” by Mike Meginnis. (Ecco, 400 pages, $19.99.) One night, every person across the world has a shared dream that a flood in November will wash away all life on the planet. As their world adapts to this news, Lyd and her teenage daughter, Mott, embark on a road trip — Lyd’s controlling ex-husband works for the CIA and is looking for them.

“The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron,” by Benjamin Ehrlich. (Picador, 464 pages, $20.) This biography of Ramón y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience, gathers every detail of his life, from his abusive childhood in the Aragonese highlands to the obsessive nature that fueled his scientific discoveries. Reviewer Benjamín Labatut called it a “deeply researched, well-written and lovingly crafted biography.”