“Republic of Detours,” by Scott Borchert, relates the history of the Federal Writers’ Project, which paid thousands of unemployed writers to write idiosyncratic guides to the country.
Set in the Deep South just after the war, “The Sweetness of Water,” by Nathan Harris, includes death and violence. But its plotlines suggest a vision of race and sexual relations rarely depicted in fiction about the period.
Historical fiction was once considered a fusty backwater. Now the genre is having a renaissance, attracting first-rank novelists and racking up major prizes.
In “The Extended Mind” Annie Murphy Paul explores all the ways our thinking is shaped by external forces, from physical sensations to the role of other people and their brains.