It might seem that writing a thriller is relatively easy. You could be forgiven for thinking so – there certainly are a fair number of them populating bookshelves out there. And there’s a tendency to underplay their merit, to consider them as somehow less than because of their subject matter.

Rest assured – writing a book, any book, is a monumental task. And writing a thriller that works, that puts the pieces together in a way that viscerally clicks? That takes real skill.

Skill like that possessed by Jen Waite.

Waite’s new book “Survival Instincts” (Dutton, $26) offers precisely the sort of well-crafted tension that we seek from a thriller. This story of three generations of women – daughter, mother, grandmother – isolated and endangered for reasons that none of them understand is engrossing and tightly paced. It captures the fear that springs from a danger that feels both predestined and utterly random while also engaging with the courage that comes from the desire to protect our own, no matter the cost.

A good thriller is a high-wire walk, one that requires an author to maintain complete control at all times. Finding the ideal balance between character and conflict requires both delicacy and bravado – and Waite pulls it off. We move from present to past and back, shifting perspectives from timeframe to timeframe and person to person, all in service to a chilling, haunting tale.

There are plenty of people out there in the world who will tell you just how wonderful it is to be a parent. For these folks, there is nothing quite so rewarding as becoming a mother or father. That notion of the importance of having and raising children has been part of our society for so long as to have become engrained in the communal discourse.

But what about those who choose not to be parents? Those who choose to be childfree?

Dr. Amy Blackstone is a professor of sociology at the University of Maine; her new book is “Childfree by Choice: The Movement Redefining Family & Creating a New Age of Independence” (Dutton, $26). In it, Blackstone condenses a career’s worth of studies focused on childlessness and the childfree choice into a treatise on the concept of what it means to be childfree.

Alex Honnold has been having a bit of a moment.

The legendary rock climber made history in July of 2017 when he became the first to ever free solo climb – that is, climb without ropes or other aid – El Capitan, a notorious 3,000-foot cliff located in the Yosemite Valley in California.

Honnold’s historic ascent – years in the making – was the subject of “Free Solo,” a documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin that just won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.

But film is just one medium through which the story of Honnold’s climb can be told.

Mark Synnott’s “The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life” (Dutton, $28) is a longform literary exploration of Honnold’s feat. It lends texture and context to the climb, connecting it to the history of climbing in general and climbing in Yosemite specifically. By checking in with the sport’s forebears – among whom Synnott can include himself – the book allows for a depth of understanding in how climbing has evolved, as well as how that evolution has resulted in an athlete such as Alex Honnold.

What is it that truly defines athletic genius?

While there’s no doubt that physique and physicality play massive roles in what makes a successful athlete, there’s more to it than that. True sporting greatness springs from not just one’s body, but also that body’s connection with the brain.

In his new book “The Performance Cortex: How Neuroscience is Redefining Athletic Genius” (Dutton, $28), Zach Schonbrun attempts to explore that connection; it’s a deep dive into the neuroscience behind movement that attempts to develop an understanding of the body-brain relationship and determining how the relationship impacts those performing at an elite athletic level.