April 18, 2024 Spring Books Issue

Walter M. Shaub Jr.

The Corruption Playbook

Donald Trump’s plan to destroy civil service protections if reelected is more than an employees’ rights issue. What’s at stake is democracy itself.

Bei Dao,
Jeffrey Yang

Human Resources

In her new novel, Adelle Waldman gambles that it’s possible to draw out the interiority of her characters mainly by sketching their working conditions.

Help Wanted

by Adelle Waldman

Nathaniel Rich

Ufologists, Unite!

Belief in UFOs sits uneasily between science and theology.

American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology

by D.W. Pasulka

Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences

by D.W. Pasulka

Tim Judah

Gloom in Ukraine

Two years after the Russian invasion, Ukrainian morale has plummeted.

Merve Emre

As Long as You Both Shall Live

Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall explores the various fictions a mother and son must tell themselves and each other when their visions of life diverge.

Anatomy of a Fall

a film directed by Justine Triet

Colin Grant

The Jeopardy Is the Juice

Colson Whitehead’s latest novel, Crook Manifesto, depicts its characters’ perilous navigation of race, class, and crime in 1970s Harlem.

Crook Manifesto

by Colson Whitehead

Geoffrey O’Brien

Furious Stasis

Verdi’s sprawling opera La Forza del Destino draws its power from asymmetry, arbitrary juxtapositions, and extreme situations.

La Forza del Destino

an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Mariusz Treliński, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, February 26–March 29, 2024

Francine Prose

Despite the gravity of subjects in Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!, which include addiction and an obsession with the metaphysical, what makes the novel feel light is its bravado, buoyancy, and innovative form.

Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

Daisy Hildyard

The Long View

Martin MacInnes’s novel In Ascension reveals the technical sophistication of the newest genre fiction.

In Ascension

by Martin MacInnes

Héctor Tobar

The Truths of Our American Empire

Jonathan Blitzer’s new book deftly explains the impact of decades of US foreign policy on Central America, but fails to move beyond the troubled terrain of our immigration policy “crisis.”

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

Brenda Wineapple

Stifled Rage

Louisa May Alcott worked obsessively to become a successful writer, which meant that despite her gift for tart observation she often retreated into homilies and platitudes.

A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott

edited and with an introduction by Liz Rosenberg, and a preface by Jane Smiley

Michelle Nijhuis

The Digital Planet

Digital technologies may worsen environmental problems, but they can also assist in the protection and restoration of ecosystems —and strengthen our relationships with them.

Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth

by Karen Bakker

Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet

by Ashley Dawson

Andrew Delbanco

A Hell of a Performance

Norman Mailer wrote with an unstable mixture of self-indulgence and self-awareness, bravado and diffidence, glibness and bracing honesty, macho posturing and an almost sheepish gentleness.

The Naked and the Dead and Selected Letters, 1945–1946

by Norman Mailer, edited by J. Michael Lennon

Jerome Groopman