Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf, $27)
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Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy
by Peter Carlson (PublicAffairs, $27)
Peter Carlson’s true tale about a pair of Yankee reporters who became Confederate prisoners “unspools like a buddy flick,” said Tony Horwitz in The Washington Post. Close friends and “insouciant thrill-seekers,” the two men risked their lives to get close to the action before being tested by a long imprisonment. All ends happily for both journalists, yet Carlson’s account also exposes a dark corner of the Civil War that few readers will know.
Is This Tomorrow
by Caroline Leavitt (Algonquin, $15)
Caroline Leavitt’s latest succeeds as both a mystery novel and “an arresting portrait of a bygone America,” said Skip Horack in the San Francisco Chronicle. Red Scare–era tension suffuses the 1956 Boston suburb where an outgoing Jewish divorcée finds few friends beyond a neighbor whose young son soon disappears. Leavitt builds tremendous suspense while remaining “as concerned with character as she is with plot.” She’s created an insightful parable about a “complicated and uncertain era.”
The Golem and the Jinni
by Helene Wecker (Harper, $27)
When two mythic creatures from Jewish and Arabic folklore arrive separately at Ellis Island in this “inventive” debut novel, they’re “only slightly more bewildered” than their fellow immigrants, said Patricia Cohen in The New York Times. “Not-quite-convincing contrivances” eventually bring the Polish-born Golem and Syrian-born Jinni together, but author Helene Wecker makes you care enough about each of these magical spirits that you’ll regret reaching the final page.
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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.”