Flappers
by Judith Mackrell (Sarah Crichton, $28)
This “spellbinding” group biography of six jazz-age trendsetters “bubbles with the giddy energy of the era,” said Kate Tuttle in The Boston Globe. The intertwined profiles show how Josephine Baker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Tallulah Bankhead, and three other free-spirited women pushed the boundaries of acceptable female behavior. “Their courage took many forms,” but they largely shared the same sad fate: being “thwarted, even crushed,” for having aspired to a life beyond convention.
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The Race Underground
by Doug Most (St. Martin’s, $28)
“New York and Boston make an impressive team when they channel their aggression,” said The Economist. In Doug Most’s exciting account of the race to complete America’s first subway, the rival cities actually work collaboratively more than they compete, but the story offers much that’s worth reading. Brothers Henry and William Whitney headed the parallel efforts, each an amazing engineering feat that relieved dangerous overcrowding and opened the way to 20th-century growth.
Extreme Medicine
by Kevin Fong (Penguin, $28)
“Virtually everything we take for granted in lifesaving medical intervention was once unthinkable,” said Laura Landro in The Wall Street Journal. In Extreme Medicine, anesthesiologist Kevin Fong pays tribute to the doctors who pioneered new treatments when history put them to the test. Fong’s “engaging and fast-paced narrative” shows how World War II’s battlefield injuries, a failed 1910 South Pole expedition, and NASA space travel all have begotten major innovations.
The Monkey’s Voyage
by Alan de Queiroz (Basic, $28)
Evolutionary biologist Alan de Queiroz “makes quite a tale” out of a fierce debate that roiled his field a half-century ago, said Jonathan Weiner in The New York Times. Certain plant and animal species—including South America’s monkeys—have close cousins that evolved an ocean away, and the family split can’t always be explained by continental drift. Charles Darwin’s hypothesis that some species rafted across the water may seem far-fetched, but science now backs that odd idea.
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August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
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5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
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Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”