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10 New Books We Recommend This Week 10 New Books We Recommend This Week
(about 11 hours later)
That tremor you felt last week was the dropping of a new John Green novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” his first since “The Fault in Our Stars” and a seismic event not just in young people’s literature but in all people’s literature. The other tremor you felt was the dropping of a new Ron Chernow biography, “Grant,” the story of the general turned president tasked with the ultimate political challenge, uniting a post-civil-war society. We recommend them both — just don’t drop Chernow’s actual book; at 1,074 pages, it might break something.That tremor you felt last week was the dropping of a new John Green novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” his first since “The Fault in Our Stars” and a seismic event not just in young people’s literature but in all people’s literature. The other tremor you felt was the dropping of a new Ron Chernow biography, “Grant,” the story of the general turned president tasked with the ultimate political challenge, uniting a post-civil-war society. We recommend them both — just don’t drop Chernow’s actual book; at 1,074 pages, it might break something.
Radhika JonesEditorial Director, BooksRadhika JonesEditorial Director, Books
THE COLLECTED ESSAYS OF ELIZABETH HARDWICK, Selected and with an introduction by Darryl Pinckney. (New York Review Books, $19.95.) “To move one’s way through Hardwick’s essays is to bump into brightness on nearly every page,” writes our critic Dwight Garner about this volume of writings by one of the co-founders of the New York Review of Books and a landmark American critic. Hardwick, who died in 2007, “had fresh eyes, quick wits, good feelers and was murderously well-read.”THE COLLECTED ESSAYS OF ELIZABETH HARDWICK, Selected and with an introduction by Darryl Pinckney. (New York Review Books, $19.95.) “To move one’s way through Hardwick’s essays is to bump into brightness on nearly every page,” writes our critic Dwight Garner about this volume of writings by one of the co-founders of the New York Review of Books and a landmark American critic. Hardwick, who died in 2007, “had fresh eyes, quick wits, good feelers and was murderously well-read.”
TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN, by John Green. (Dutton, $19.99.) Green’s new novel, his first since the mega-best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,” is “by far his most difficult to read,” writes our critic Jennifer Senior. “It’s also his most astonishing.” The story of Aza, a 16-year-old who suffers from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, delves into familiar Green themes of love and suffering, working toward an ending that Senior describes as “so surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.”TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN, by John Green. (Dutton, $19.99.) Green’s new novel, his first since the mega-best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,” is “by far his most difficult to read,” writes our critic Jennifer Senior. “It’s also his most astonishing.” The story of Aza, a 16-year-old who suffers from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, delves into familiar Green themes of love and suffering, working toward an ending that Senior describes as “so surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.”
GRANT, by Ron Chernow. (Penguin Press, $40.) Chernow gives us a Grant for our time, comprehensively recounting not only the victories of the Civil War general but also the challenges of a president who fought against white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan and championed the right of eligible citizens to exercise the vote. “For all its scholarly and literary strengths,” writes former President Bill Clinton, “this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s significant achievements at the end of the war and after, which have too long been overlooked and are too important today to be left in the dark.”GRANT, by Ron Chernow. (Penguin Press, $40.) Chernow gives us a Grant for our time, comprehensively recounting not only the victories of the Civil War general but also the challenges of a president who fought against white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan and championed the right of eligible citizens to exercise the vote. “For all its scholarly and literary strengths,” writes former President Bill Clinton, “this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s significant achievements at the end of the war and after, which have too long been overlooked and are too important today to be left in the dark.”
GOOD ME BAD ME, by Ali Land. (Flatiron, $25.99.) This debut novel’s teenage narrator, Milly, is speaking to the mother she loves and misses. It’s a one-sided conversation because her mother is about to go on trial for murder, and her daughter is the one who turned her in. Land is a mental health nurse who has worked with traumatized children, and her portrait of Milly has a powerful sense of authenticity.GOOD ME BAD ME, by Ali Land. (Flatiron, $25.99.) This debut novel’s teenage narrator, Milly, is speaking to the mother she loves and misses. It’s a one-sided conversation because her mother is about to go on trial for murder, and her daughter is the one who turned her in. Land is a mental health nurse who has worked with traumatized children, and her portrait of Milly has a powerful sense of authenticity.
THE RIVIERA SET: Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society, by Mary S. Lovell. (Pegasus, $27.95.) Full of gossip about what Somerset Maugham called a “sunny place for shady people,” Lovell’s narrative describes the entertainments staged by the various owners of a chateau in the south of France that became a playground for the superrich. Lovell, who has written entertaining biographies of the Mitford and Churchill families, knows how to render sly appraisals of her often complicated subjects.THE RIVIERA SET: Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society, by Mary S. Lovell. (Pegasus, $27.95.) Full of gossip about what Somerset Maugham called a “sunny place for shady people,” Lovell’s narrative describes the entertainments staged by the various owners of a chateau in the south of France that became a playground for the superrich. Lovell, who has written entertaining biographies of the Mitford and Churchill families, knows how to render sly appraisals of her often complicated subjects.
THE ORDINARY VIRTUES: Moral Order in a Divided World, by Michael Ignatieff. (Harvard, $27.95.) This admirable little book, in which the author grapples with whether globalization is drawing us together or tearing us apart, represents a triumph of execution over conception. Ignatieff travels around the world to speak with civic groups and ordinary men and women about democracy and human rights, and his conclusions suggest that locality, rather than globalization, is the book’s true subject.THE ORDINARY VIRTUES: Moral Order in a Divided World, by Michael Ignatieff. (Harvard, $27.95.) This admirable little book, in which the author grapples with whether globalization is drawing us together or tearing us apart, represents a triumph of execution over conception. Ignatieff travels around the world to speak with civic groups and ordinary men and women about democracy and human rights, and his conclusions suggest that locality, rather than globalization, is the book’s true subject.
WHY WE SLEEP: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker. (Scribner, $27.) The director of Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab makes the argument for why sleep is essential to our well-being: “to reset our brain and body health each day.” His book is dense with information, but Walker is adroit at presenting his findings and their implications in language accessible to the lay reader. And, he says, it really is true that you’ll have a harder time falling asleep if you’ve been reading a book on an LED device than you will after reading one on old-fashioned paper.WHY WE SLEEP: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker. (Scribner, $27.) The director of Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab makes the argument for why sleep is essential to our well-being: “to reset our brain and body health each day.” His book is dense with information, but Walker is adroit at presenting his findings and their implications in language accessible to the lay reader. And, he says, it really is true that you’ll have a harder time falling asleep if you’ve been reading a book on an LED device than you will after reading one on old-fashioned paper.
GREATER GOTHAM: A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919, by Mike Wallace. (Oxford, $45.) A vibrant, detailed chronicle, almost 1,200 pages long, of the 20 years that made New York City the place we know today, with new bridges, the advent of Broadway and the opening of the first subway lines. This work, by one of the authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gotham” (1999), is as much a social and cultural history as a political narrative, with debates about urban life that still resonate.GREATER GOTHAM: A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919, by Mike Wallace. (Oxford, $45.) A vibrant, detailed chronicle, almost 1,200 pages long, of the 20 years that made New York City the place we know today, with new bridges, the advent of Broadway and the opening of the first subway lines. This work, by one of the authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gotham” (1999), is as much a social and cultural history as a political narrative, with debates about urban life that still resonate.
COMPLETE STORIES, by Kurt Vonnegut. Edited by Jerome Klimkowitz and Dan Wakefield. (Seven Stories, $45.) Vonnegut used his early short fiction to test the themes that animated his later novels: the cruel stupidity of war, the dehumanizing dangers of technology; the devolution of American values into greed and selfishness. For completists, these 98 stories (including five published for the first time) will be like a boxed set of a musician’s first recordings. COMPLETE STORIES, by Kurt Vonnegut. Edited by Jerome Klinkowitz and Dan Wakefield. (Seven Stories, $45.) Vonnegut used his early short fiction to test the themes that animated his later novels: the cruel stupidity of war, the dehumanizing dangers of technology; the devolution of American values into greed and selfishness. For completists, these 98 stories (including five published for the first time) will be like a boxed set of a musician’s first recordings.
AKATA WARRIOR, by Nnedi Okorafor. (Viking, $18.99.) The long-awaited sequel to Okorafor’s “Akata Witch” is about a 13-year-old Nigerian girl whose mystical powers could save the world even as she’s trying to find her place in it. She’s pure of heart, a fiercely protective sister and a palpably real teenager.AKATA WARRIOR, by Nnedi Okorafor. (Viking, $18.99.) The long-awaited sequel to Okorafor’s “Akata Witch” is about a 13-year-old Nigerian girl whose mystical powers could save the world even as she’s trying to find her place in it. She’s pure of heart, a fiercely protective sister and a palpably real teenager.