Zona
by Geoff Dyer (Pantheon, $24)
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Marigold
by James G. Hershberg (Stanford, $39.50)
This 900-page study of missed opportunities to end the Vietnam War is a “staggering exercise in historical scholarship,” said Gordon M. Goldstein in The Washington Post. James Hershberg spent years focusing on a 1966 effort, code-named Marigold, in which a Polish diplomat nearly brought the U.S. and North Vietnam together for direct peace talks. Though he found nothing that explained why the initiative collapsed, he makes a strong case that Marigold was peace’s best hope in pre-1973 Vietnam.
The Lifespan of a Fact
by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal (Norton, $18)
This unusual work offers “exciting reading for anyone interested in how we define ‘the truth,’” said Matthew Tiffany in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. When writer John D’Agata tried to publish an impressionistic essay about a Las Vegas suicide, he and magazine fact-checker Jim Fingal spent months in a tug-of-war about which facts mattered. In the “enthralling” correspondence that’s reproduced here, the two men “dove deep” into what it means to create “nonfiction.”
Anatomy of Injustice
by Raymond Bonner (Knopf, $27)
Raymond Bonner’s “meticulously researched” new book unpacks a 1982 South Carolina homicide case that was “egregiously bungled” by small-town law enforcement, said Ethan Gilsdorf in The Boston Globe. Just three months after an elderly widow was found murdered, and despite a lack of relevant evidence, a mentally disabled black handyman was sentenced to death for the crime. Bonner writes “workaday” prose, but his “masterful” management of the facts will leave you gasping.
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Confessions of a Brain Surgeon: an 'exceptional' documentaryThe Week Recommends Retired neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reflects on his pioneering work with exquisitely 'raw honesty'
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A new subtype of diabetes was found and it may require different treatmentUnder the radar It is prevalent in Black Africans and Americans
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Sudoku medium: August 20, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
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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.”