A call to action [women, religion, violence and power]

A CALL TO ACTION: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, by Jimmy Carter. (Simon & Schuster, $16.) President Carter's 28th book surveys global discrimination against women, much of which he attributes to distorted interpretations of major religions and sacred texts. Carter argues that these flawed approaches, exacerbated by the world's "growing tolerance of violence and warfare," need immediate corrective action. SWEETNESS #9, by Stephan Eirik Clark. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.) At the outset of this novel, an eager young flavor chemist, David Leveraux, is testing a promising new sugar substitute when he notes troubling side effects. Years later, the chemical has saturated the American diet, and its insidious effects are everywhere, including David's own family: His heavyset wife flits between fad diets, his son drops verbs from his speech and his unhappy daughter goes vegan in protest. HOW WE LEARN: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens, by Benedict Carey. (Random House, $16.) Like many other students, Carey, a New York Times science reporter, "grew up believing that learning was all self-discipline." After following research that investigates how learning actually occurs, he reconsiders that belief, presenting strategies to help us study smarter. THE WHEREWITHAL, by Philip Schultz. (Norton, $16.95.) This novel in verse centers on Henryk Stanislaw Wyrzykowski, a man dodging the Vietnam War and translating the journal his mother kept during a massacre in their hometown in 1940s Poland. Steeped in tragedy, the story captures the "strain of finding the wherewithal to face suffering on every human scale," Adam Plunkett wrote here. THE SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN, by Jill Lepore. (Vintage, $16.95.) Wonder Woman's back story may begin among the mythic Amazons, but her origins are distinctly American, As it turns out, her "secret history" is due in large part to her eccentric creator, William Moulton Marston, whose fraught feminism and kinky proclivities were evident on the page. (In Lepore's telling, it was no coincidence that the superhero was tied up in virtually every comic.) THE INVENTION OF EXILE, by Vanessa Manko. (Penguin, $16.) A Russian émigré arrives in America in 1913, but after being sent back to Russia and, later, traveling to Mexico, spends a lifetime trying to return. This debut novel tells the story of an "epic love frustrated but never destroyed by political antagonism between nations," our reviewer, Jonathan Dee, wrote.

Carter addresses the many cultural and institutional issues that put women at a disadvantage in the U.S. and abroad. He calls upon religious leaders, world leaders, and activists to fight for women's rights and guarantee parity in all aspects of life. Unfortunately, Carter is an ineffective narrator. He does not project the energy needed to engage listeners. Carter's narration lacks clarity, and his pronunciation is at times hard to decipher. His performance ultimately undermines the powerful message of his book. A Simon & Schuster hardcover. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.