Mr. Kundera, the author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” was known for sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in his native Czechoslovakia.
“Blight,” by Emily Monosson, chronicles the threats fungal pathogens pose to humans, animals and plants as the world’s most devastating agents of disease.
In “When Crack Was King,” Donovan X. Ramsey offers a fresh history of the epidemic that gripped minority communities, inflamed media coverage and led to draconian drug laws.
Martin Sherwin struck the deal and dove into the research. But it was only when Kai Bird joined as a collaborator that “American Prometheus” came to be.