David Bowie: Starman
by Paul Trynka
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Pinning down rock’s quintessential chameleon is no easy task, said Christopher Bray in The New Republic. “One day Bowie is a curly-tressed hippie in paisleys and silks, the next a crop-headed proto-punk in denim and leather.” Paul Trynka’s thesis, that “Bowie is a far more conventional and conservative chap than all that satin and tat suggest,” is backed by evidence. Still, that theory “doesn’t begin to account” for the subversive power of Bowie’s career-long exercise in self-negation.
Jane Fonda
by Patricia Bosworth
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30)
Love her or hate her, Jane Fonda has exhibited an “uncanny ability to slip into era-defining guises as if they were custom couture,” said Susan Wloszczyna in USA Today. This “decade-in-the-making” biography follows all of the actress’s permutations—from sex kitten to Oscar winner, from anti-war activist to trophy wife. Because the star cooperated with the author, the book is full of revelations, and it “does a bang-up job” of deconstructing Fonda’s defining relationship with her father.
Just One Catch
by Tracy Daugherty
(St. Martin’s, $35)
“Few authors ever make a cultural impact as lasting as Joseph Heller did with Catch-22,” said Carolyn Kellogg in the Los Angeles Times. As Tracy Daugherty writes, Heller’s war satire was as powerful a first novel as they come, though it overshadowed the rest of Heller’s life and work, notably his second novel, Something Happened. Daugherty’s plain-facts approach to Heller’s life lacks “artistry and insight,” but his book is the first biography of Heller, and it’s “a decent starting point.”
Wendy and the Lost Boys
by Julie Salamon
(Penguin, $30)
“Everyone knew Wendy Wasserstein—or so they thought,” said Melissa Maerz in Entertainment Weekly. The Pulitzer–winning playwright, who gave voice to the struggles of a generation of women, “filled her work with intimate details about herself.” Yet when it came to certain private struggles—like her battle with lymphoma—Wasserstein was guarded. This “fascinating” biography “lays bare” Wasserstein’s secret inner life. “Like the playwright’s best work,” it’s “bound to cause a small scandal.”
-
Why ‘anti-Islam’ bikers are guarding Gaza aid sitesIn The Spotlight Members of Infidels MC, who regard themselves as modern Crusaders, among private security guards at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites
-
China: Xi seeks to fill America’s voidFeature Trump’s tariffs are pushing nations eastward as Xi Jinping focuses on strengthening ties with global leaders
-
Rebrands: Bringing back the War DepartmentFeature Trump revives the Department of Defense’s former name
-
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
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
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.
-
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.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
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.”
-
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.”