New books by Matthew Desmond, Catherine Lowell and Adam Cohen

EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond. Every year millions of American families are evicted from their homes. This powerful and important nonfiction title by a Harvard sociologist follows eight poor families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. (Crown, $28)

THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS, by Catherine Lowell. In this debut novel, Samantha Whipple, the last living descendant of the Brontës, inherits a shoe box from her late father that she believes may contain a lost manuscript by one her forbears. Instead, the box — empty but for a bookmark — sets Samantha on a literary treasure hunt. (Touchstone, $25.99)

IMBECILES: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, by Adam Cohen. In 1927, in Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court ruled to allow the forced sterilization of a woman deemed “feebleminded.” This book revisits the notorious decision and its disturbing implications. (Penguin Press, $28)