Opinion

Required reading

A Secret Life

The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland

by Charles Lachman (Skyhorse)

Grover Cleveland is hot! Just three months after “The President is a Sick Man,” about Cleveland’s “secret surgery at sea,” former Post reporter Charles Lachman rips the lid off the sex scandals — and coverups — of the man who became the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Lachman writes that Cleveland not only raped a woman in Buffalo, but he forced her into an insane asylum after she gave birth to his child.

The Sixes

by Kate White (Harper)

Taking a break from cover lines like “How to Outsmart a Bitch” and “Guys Rate 50 Sex Moves,” Cosmo editor-in-chief White tackles a humorous thriller. First, New York writer Phoebe Hall is dumped by her boyfriend. Then, she’s accused of plagiarism in her latest book, “Hollywood’s Badass Girls.” She flees the city to teach at a small college in rural Pennsylvania. But when a co-ed from Cobble Hill is murdered and Phoebe is determined to investigate, she runs up against a group of mean girls — The Sixes.

Rhythms of the Game

by Bernie Williams with Dave Gluck and Bob Thompson (Hal Leonard)

Longtime Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams is now a full-time jazz guitar player. And he’s got some interesting observations connecting his two fields. He notes that great free jazz musicians — Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane — “are not unlike a batter locked into the zone, responding intuitively off of a pitcher,” and identifies Derek Jeter, Vladimir Guerrero and Ichiro Suzuki as “the great free jazz musicians of baseball.”

Killed at the Whim of a Hat

by Colin Cotterill (Minotaur)

In Cotterill’s new series — a follow-up to his adventures of Laotian coroner Dr. Siri Paibon — Jimm Juree is an ambitious crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail in Thailand. But when her mother sells their home and the whole eccentric family relocates to a rundown resort in a tiny coastal village, Jimm worries her career is over. So she’s excited when a buried old van with the remains of two hippies is uncovered in a nearby farmer’s field and she gets to write about it.

This Beautiful Life

by Helen Schulman (Harper)

What are the consequences when a model Manhattan family makes some unacceptable choices involving the Internet? In Schulman’s latest tome, they make “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” look like a Girl Scout meeting. The crisis begins when newcomer 15-year-old Jake Bergamot — recently moved with his family from upstate — attends a wild party with classmates from his new, tony private school and receives a sex tape from an eighth-grade admirer. He forwards it to a friend, and soon it’s gone viral. The fallout threatens the Bergamots’ affluent city lifestyle, marriage and future.