(Yale University, $28.) The dean of Berkeley Law School critiques the conservative legal philosophy of originalism, which he argues is both “dangerous” and untenable as a method of interpreting the Constitution. WORSE THAN NOTHING: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism, by Erwin Chemerinsky. (Simon & Schuster, $27.) A firsthand account of the last years of Mother Teresa’s life by a longtime friend and former lawyer, who reflects on the ways working with her and the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta taught him to be less worldly and more humble. TO LOVE AND BE LOVED: A Personal Portrait of Mother Teresa, by Jim Towey. (Grand Central, $29.) A documentarian who once survived a collision with a breaching humpback whale considers the possibilities of human communication with whales and the technology that could enable it. HOW TO SPEAK WHALE: A Voyage Into the Future of Animal Communication, by Tom Mustill. This book - gathering late poems, journal entries and more - shows he has not let up. (Counterpoint, $20.) At 92, Snyder remains an important touchstone in American poetry and the environmental movement. UNCOLLECTED POEMS, DRAFTS, FRAGMENTS, AND TRANSLATIONS, by Gary Snyder. (Norton, $26.95.) Prikryl’s latest collection finds the poet applying her quicksilver mind to questions of middle age (marriage, motherhood, the passage of time) in a book that among other things tracks the course of one year as the seasons change outside her window. (House of Anansi, paper, $19.99.) A native of Newfoundland, Crummey puts travel and alienation at the center of his sixth book, summoning personae from the Devil to the Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer (the passengers of the title, perhaps) to evoke an outsider’s perspective. If racism (or empire, or patriarchy) is structural, these poems say, here is the structure that sustains it, via ordinary workers like curators and interns and prison guards. (Graywolf, paper, $16.) Schwartz’s debut collection casts a critical eye on the bureaucratic apparatus that allows injustices to thrive. CIVIL SERVICE: Poems, by Claire Schwartz.

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