Candy
by Samira Kawash (Faber & Faber, $27)
America’s love affair with candy has been “a sweet ride shot through with periodic suspicion,” said Melanie Rehak in Bookforum. Samira Kawash, founder of the blog CandyProfessor.com, has now written an ambitious history of the U.S. sweets industry, chronicling how waves of moral panic have been met by crafty public relations moves. Kawash herself articulates at least one point in candy’s defense with “marvelous precision”: It’s blessedly honest about being unhealthy.
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Perv
by Jesse Bering (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26)
Many of the fetishes explored in this new book on human sexuality seem “ripe for lampooning,” said Michael Washburn in The Boston Globe. But even when psychologist Jesse Bering is discussing people with an erotic interest in wasps, he “does an admirable job” of showing us why such niche interests are not so different from garden-variety turn-ons. Even pedophilia is a sexual orientation rooted in early development, he argues, and treating it as such would help pedophiles keep their urges in check.
Love and Math
by Edward Frenkel (Basic, $28)
Love and Math rates as “an admirable attempt to lay bare the beauty of numbers for all to see,” said John Matson in Scientific American. Seeking to redeem a field that many outsiders consider arcane, mathematics professor Edward Frenkel shares stories about how, as a young man of Jewish heritage in the openly discriminatory Soviet Union, he had to study high-level math on the sly. Still, Frenkel has to begin explaining such math eventually, and “some readers may balk” when he does.
The Map and the Territory
by Alan Greenspan (Penguin, $36)
Rather than learning from his mistakes, Alan Greenspan “seems determined to repeat them,” said Steven Pearlstein in The Washington Post. The former Fed chairman begins his first book since 2008’s financial crisis by admitting that economists should have seen it coming. But in listing the probable causes, he offers no hint that he might have played a role, then blames old bogeymen, like federal entitlement spending and overregulation. If there’s any logic to his argument, it’s “hard to discern.”
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Weapons: Julia Garner stars in 'hyper-eerie' psychological thrillerThe Week Recommends Zach Cregger's 'top notch' new film opens with 17 children disappearing at exactly the same time
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Freakier Friday: Lohan and Curtis reunite for 'uneven' but 'endearing' sequelThe Week Recommends Mother-and-daughter comedy returns with four characters switching bodies
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Al fresco art: the UK's best sculpture parksThe Week Recommends Soak up the scenery with a stroll through these open-air galleries
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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.”