What to read this week: New books by Phoebe Robinson, Jane Leavy and Rosellen Brown

EVERYTHING'S TRASH, BUT IT'S OKAY, by Phoebe Robinson. The world is "nothing but a bunch of dumpster fires," declares the co-host of the "2 Dope Queens" podcast and author of "You Can't Touch My Hair" in this new collection of comic essays. Robinson has something to say about everything, including: beauty standards, money problems, interracial dating and workaholism. (Plume, $26)

THE BIG FELLA: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, by Jane Leavy. This sweeping biography offers a portrait of the sports icon who learned the game at a Baltimore orphanage and went on to a dazzling career of excellence on the baseball diamond and international celebrity. The Sultan of Swat, who died of cancer in 1948, comes to life in these pages. (Harper, $32.50)

THE LAKE ON FIRE, by Rosellen Brown. It's been 18 years since we had a novel from the author of "Civil Wars" and Tender Mercies," but this tale of Jewish immigrant siblings in 19th-century Chicago was worth the wait. Chaya manufactures cigars in a sweatshop; Asher survives as a petty thief; Brown depicts their world with prose that soars. (Sarabande, $17.95 paper)