Editors’ Choice: 9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
'All Ships Follow Me' Rustles Up Questions About The Privilege To Be Heard
Mieke Eerkens has written an engrossing memoir on the interesting, even inspiring, stories of her parents after WWII. Yet despite its careful questioning and analysis, it's an uncomfortable read.
(Image credit: Beth Novey/NPR)
Nonfiction: The Stoic Philosopher of the Lockup
“Solitary,” by Albert Woodfox, is a remarkable testament of suffering and self-transformation by a man who survived more than 40 years in solitary confinement.
There's No 'Stroke Of Luck' For These Miserable Millenials
Ann Beattie strikes out in her new novel about a disaffected young man who drifts through an unsatisfying series of jobs and relationships until his life is upended by a revelation from the past.
(Image credit: Beth Novey/NPR)
'The Last Stone' Documents A 40-Year Quest For Answers In A Cold Case
Mark Bowden's account of the unsolved 1975 case of two girls who went missing near D.C. is a riveting, serpentine story about the dogged pursuit of the truth, regardless of the outcome or the cost.
(Image credit: Atlantic Monthly Press )
Fiction: Two Thai Novelists Explore Bangkok’s Swirl of Remembering and Forgetting
The city becomes a fever dream in Pitchaya Sudbanthad’s “Bangkok Wakes to Rain” and Veeraporn Nitiprapha’s “The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth.”
Nonfiction: Healing the Divisions in Our Country
Arthur C. Brooks, in “Love Your Enemies,” offers advice on how to restore civility to American politics.
Nonfiction: His Blog Explored Notions of Black Masculinity. His Memoir Explodes Them.
The essays in “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker” recount Damon Young’s evolution from blogger to Established Magazine Writer even as he searches for his authentic self.
In 'Stony The Road,' Henry Louis Gates Jr. Looks At The Period After Reconstruction
In his new book, the literary scholar presents an absorbing, necessary look at the "Redemption" era, in which the hard-fought gains of African-Americans were rolled back by embittered Southern whites.
(Image credit: Penguin Press)
Nonfiction: Looking Again at the Chernobyl Disaster
Adam Higginbotham’s “Midnight in Chernobyl” explores the causes of the Chernobyl explosion, and Kate Brown’s “Manual for Survival” considers the consequences.
Nonfiction: The Cracking of a Cold, Cold Case
In his true-crime epic, “The Last Stone,” Mark Bowden follows detectives as they try to solve the 1975 disappearance of two Maryland sisters.
Nonfiction: Why Are We Feeling So Bad When Life Is So Good? Two Books Want Us to Accentuate the Positive
“The Right Side of History,” by Ben Shapiro, and “Clear and Present Safety,” by Michael A. Cohen and Micah Zenko, declare current pessimism is totally overblown.
Poetry: A Poetic Body of Work Grapples With the Physical Body at Risk
In “The Tradition,” Jericho Brown witnesses and celebrates vulnerability and resilience in a country that too often scorns or condemns them.
Fiction: A Peerless Chronicler of the 1970s and ’80s Turns Her Gaze on Generation Y
Ann Beattie’s new novel, “A Wonderful Stroke of Luck,” follows its protagonist from prep school in 2001 into his 30s today.
Nonfiction: Skin and Bones, Hold the Skin: An Author Considers Our Inner Scaffolding
Brian Switek’s “Skeleton Keys” takes a close look at our 206 bones and how they allow us to “stomp, fly, swim, slither, dig, run.”
'Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss' Is Smart, Comforting Sentiment
Rajeev Balasubramanyam's fourth novel follows a cantankerous yet sympathetic economics professor whose life is upended after he fails yet again to win a Nobel Prize (among other, lesser catastrophes).
(Image credit: The Dial Press)
'The Matriarch' Presents Barbara Bush As Indispensable To Two Bush Presidencies
Beyond the juicy bits, journalist Susan Page paints a larger portrait of one of the more underappreciated, least understood figures of the last century — one with both insecurities and influence.
(Image credit: David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)
The Shortlist: Three Books Examine Our Changing Earth
From melting ice to diminishing populations, these books look at the effects of climate change and humans’ shifting relationship with our planet.
Nonfiction: Barry Lopez Travels to the Ends of the Earth, Seeking Glimmers of Hope
In “Horizon,” the eminent environmentalist reconstructs decades’ worth of his observations of the natural world, from the Arctic to Australia.
Nonfiction: A Journey — if You Dare — Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers
Clive Thompson’s “Coders” demystifies the work done to create the algorithms and programs that have come to dominate our world.
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