Zoo Story
by Thomas French
The Week
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Denial
by Jessica Stern
(Ecco, $25)
This new memoir from a prominent terrorism expert recounts a horrible personal experience that most likely led her into the field, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. Jessica Stern and her sister were raped by an intruder when they were teenagers, only to be doubted by police. Having finally revisited that 1973 crime, Stern lets her anger fly. The result is a “profound human document” that frequently feels “hot to the touch in ways both memorable and disturbing.”
Priceless
by Robert K. Wittman
(Crown, $25)
Robert Wittman had one of the best jobs that the FBI has to offer, said David Kirby in The Christian Science Monitor. Tasked with investigating international art theft, he became fluent in both art history and criminal banter and even made a run at solving the famous Gardner Museum heist of 1990. “Wittman’s touch is light” in this memoir, but he makes clear that the greatest challenge to his work was an FBI bureaucracy more interested in self-preservation than arrests.
Merchants of Doubt
by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
(Bloomsbury, $27)
This “powerful book” tells a “shameful story” about how a relatively small group of scientists has sown confusion on a multitude of important public issues, said The Economist. Merchants of Doubt shows that many of the same scientists who were paid to defend cigarettes are also taking corporate money to question the science behind global warming. Too bad the authors didn’t take on phony environmental scares, too.
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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.”