Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani probes the religious views of Chicagoans Dusty Baker, Barack Obama, Mancow Muller, and Billy Corgan, among other public figures, in The God Factor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $24).

In Death in the Haymarket (Pantheon Books; $26.95), University of Massachusetts history professor James Green examines the impact of Chicago’s infamous 1886 bombing on the 19th-century labor movement.

Columbia College alum Cris Burks tells the story of a young girl growing up in 1950s Chicago who overcomes a traumatic childhood, in Neecey’s Lullaby (Harlem Moon; $12.95).

The Eighth Day (Harmony Books; $24.95) offers an inside look at the controversy surrounding stem cell research, by journalist and Evanston resident Wendy Goldman Rohm.

In The Merchant of Power (Palgrave Macmillan; $24.95), UIC alum John F. Wasik tells the cautionary tale of Samuel Insull-a Chicago financier, CEO, and right-hand man to Thomas Edison-and his often overlooked contribution to the spread of electricity.

In her first full-length graphic novel, La Perdida (Pantheon Books; $19.95), former Chicagoan Jessica Abel illustrates the story of a young woman who leaves Chicago for Mexico City.