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The latest book from Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond examines the pervasiveness and conditions of poverty in the United States. Thoroughly researched and grounded in both historical research and original reporting, Poverty, by America (5.5 hours) provides readers with an avenue to think critically and compassionately about one of the most pressing social issues we face. 

In the audiobook, performed by award-winning voice actor Dion Graham, the questions posed in Poverty, by America become even more visceral and undeniable. With a disarming, conversational tone, Graham guides us through a harrowing topic while also bringing a sense of urgency and reflection, amplifying Desmond’s empathy and curiosity in such a way that invites listeners to lean in and pay attention. Together, Desmond and Graham urge listeners to heed the book’s call to action and become, as Desmond writes, “poverty abolitionists.”


Read our review of the print edition of Poverty, by America.

Through this audiobook, performed by award-winning voice actor Dion Graham, the questions posed in Poverty, by America become even more visceral and undeniable.
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Time is often viewed as structured, chronological and profit-driven—but it doesn’t have to be this way. In Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock (11.5 hours), Jenny Odell dissects the cultural underpinnings of our perceptions of time, wealth and value, and offers a fresh perspective that cultivates hope, not anxiety.

Saving Time is a smooth listen that’s simultaneously thought-provoking and gentle. Kristen Sieh’s narration is emphatic but peaceful, lending further authority to Odell’s writing. It feels like an experienced mentor is sharing her wisdom, and listeners will likely find themselves nodding along, surprised by the simple yet paradigm-shifting ideas presented within.

Odell’s book reminds us that we are allowed to slow down, to find joy in the moment, and listening to this audiobook can be a practice in the very principles it explores.


Read our interview with Jenny Odell on Saving Time: “If it’s true that we don’t have enough time, how did we get here? And why?”

Listeners of the Saving Time audiobook will likely find themselves nodding along, surprised by the simple yet paradigm-shifting ideas presented within.
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Even though Shakespeare refers to the great Egyptian queen as both “tawny” and “black” and his English contemporaries understood Egyptians to be dark-skinned, why did a major British production of Antony and Cleopatra not cast a Black Cleopatra until Doña Croll in 1991? Because too many of the Bard’s admirers have failed to address, or even notice, race in his plays.

Farah Karim-Cooper, a Pakistani American professor of literature and Shakespeare studies at King’s College London, challenges that willful ignorance in The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race. Karim-Cooper, who also serves as Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe, argues that the bad alternatives to an honest conversation about race in Shakespeare are either to dismiss his work or stubbornly cling to the stale tradition of brushing aside race—both of which oppose her desire for the plays to speak to a wider public.

Aiming to include non-academic readers in her audience, Karim-Cooper takes a close look at characters who are clearly people of color: Othello, Aaron the Moor and the Prince of Morocco. She considers more ambiguous cases, like Cleopatra and Caliban, and also ranges farther afield to depictions of otherness such as the witches in Macbeth, noting how Shakespeare routinely relies upon racialized imagery and dehumanizing language: white/fair equals good; dark equals bad and ugly.

Like his contemporaries, Shakespeare employs racist and antisemitic tropes in his characters, yet also writes them as multifaceted individuals. “Shakespeare often challenges us to hold two contradictory views simultaneously,” Karim-Cooper states. Indeed, Othello is brave and forthright as well as lethally jealous; we hear Caliban’s side of the story as well as Prospero’s. The evidence of Black people and interracial marriage in Tudor England introduces the possibility of Shakespeare having actually encountered people of color. And Karim-Cooper’s analysis of The Merchant of Venice might make one wonder whether Shakespeare knew any Jews passing as Christians for safety.

Our perception of Shakespeare’s work is ever-evolving: It wasn’t until the 18th century that he was even glamorized as “the Bard” by theater star David Garrick. Karim-Cooper’s candid discussion of more nuanced and informed approaches to interpreting Shakespeare can only help his work endure.

Karim-Cooper's candid discussion of more informed and nuanced approaches to interpreting Shakespeare can only help the Bard’s work endure.
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Lynn Melnick’s I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton is an extraordinary homage to one of country music’s leading ladies. Melnick’s early life was marked by abuse and trauma, and she fell in love with Parton’s music at age 14. Mixing her personal history with reflections on the singer’s significance as a cultural figure, Melnick creates a moving narrative of female endurance. Parton’s popular tunes, including “Jolene” and “Islands in the Stream,” serve as springboards for the chapters of this inspiring book.

In Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate, Anna Bogutskaya explores how our perception of what makes a “likable” woman has changed as more complex female characters have become prevalent in media. Bogutskaya uses tropes such as “the mean girl” and “the shrew” as reference points and celebrates how those misogynist terms have been, in some cases, reclaimed. Bogutskaya’s analysis of gender, sexuality and the power of the media will get book clubs talking as she explores famous figures such as Cardi B and Hillary Clinton.

Emily Nussbaum delivers a shrewd overview of the modern TV landscape with her dazzling collection of essays, I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. Over the course of the collection, Nussbaum—an unabashed fan of the tube—provides engaging analyses of audience viewing habits and storytelling trends and traditions. She also interviews showrunners and considers the significance of watershed series like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Nussbaum’s lively writing style and gifts as a critic are on full display in this eye-opening collection.

Nerd: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse, Maya Phillips’ smart, incisive essay collection, investigates the growth of nerd culture and its influence on modern media. Reading groups will appreciate Phillips’ personal yet wide-reaching critiques of cultural touchstones such as Harry Potter, Star Wars and Marvel comics and how they inspire feelings of belonging among fans. Phillips also delves into the complications of her own experiences as a Black woman engaging in fandoms without many Black characters. The evolution of pop culture, hero worship and the impact of fan bases are but a few of the rich themes in this intriguing book.

These great picks come with ready-made playlists and watchlists!
STARRED REVIEW

Our top 10 books of August 2023

Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.
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Children's

Ghost Book

Remy Lai juxtaposes serious topics with charming humor in Ghost Book, a lushly illustrated folkloric contemporary fantasy that will inspire readers to learn more about

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Crook Manifesto book cover
Crime Fiction

Crook Manifesto

Crook Manifesto more than matches the finely hewn psychological tensions that haunted Colson Whitehead’s main character in Harlem Shuffle. The interplay between context and character

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Fiction

Tom Lake

Tom Lake is a gorgeously layered novel that spans decades yet still feels intimate, meditating on love, family and the choices we make.

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Coming of Age

Bellies

Nicola Dinan’s debut is a vulnerable, moving, riotously funny and deeply honest story about trans life, first love, art-making, friendship, grief and the hard, slow

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History

Valiant Women

Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.

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Arts & Culture

The Great White Bard

Karim-Cooper’s candid discussion of more informed and nuanced approaches to interpreting Shakespeare can only help the Bard’s work endure.

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Nature

The Underworld

The Underworld is Susan Casey’s dazzling answer to the age-old, tantalizing question about the ocean’s abyss: “What’s down there?”

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Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.
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In Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words, Jenni Nuttall draws from decades of knowledge gleaned from studying and teaching medieval literature in order to track the origins and winding evolutions of the language used to discuss the female experience.

Nuttall arranges her history in topical chapters, opening the first chapter about anatomical terms with Chaucer (Who else?) and delving into a discussion about how terms describing genitalia are either euphemistic or coldly clinical. These bleed into the next chapter on menstrual language, a wild journey through a millennium of speculation about period bleeding. This is followed by a chapter on lust and sexuality, which demonstrates the ways that cultural and religious institutions have created a shameful and heteronormative path for women. A chapter covering gendered violence comes with painful but necessary context for our current victim-blaming culture, followed by a final chapter about feminism, misogyny and developing empowering vocabularies around the two.

Each chapter roves through time, picking salient points that result in a narrative, not a glossary. This makes Mother Tongue feel better suited to someone wishing to muse and draw connections than someone concerned with mapping changes over an exact interval. Where the text excels is in providing thought-provoking origins and comparison points for words that English-speaking culture often portrays as immutable. The book also makes the origins of our current cultural norms apparent from the lack of available information around lesbianism in early English and broad definitions and decryings of “sodomy”  to the origin of the word “drudgery” as explicitly meaning women’s work.

The book lauds women who emerge from under the thumb of patriarchy,  but meets the changes of the future (and present) gender revolution with bland neutrality, and sometimes quiet apprehension. Nuttall’s introduction states that many terms in the book apply also to nonbinary and transgender people, but the book is ultimately cisnormative both in its focus and its afterword, which makes sense for a book tracing the Anglo mainstream but can feel a bit out of step with current conversations around gender. Nuttall applies “both sides” reasoning and hand-wrings over what she calls “circumlocutions,” such as “people who menstruate” that describe traits traditionally seen as female without limiting them to a single gender identity.

Despite such reactionary moments, this easily digestible and scenario-rich depiction of the evolution of language we take for granted is still done with care and compelling detail.  Nuttall answers why we have been taught to say what we do, but more importantly, reminds us that the language we are handed is contextual, cultural and ultimately changeable.

This easily digestible and scenario-rich exploration of gendered language shows how our words are contextual, cultural and ultimately changeable.

Kristi Coulter (Nothing Good Can Come From This) details her 12 grueling years as an Amazon executive in Exit Interview, her funny, candid memoir. In 2006, Coulter felt stalled in her work and life. She had earned an MFA in writing at the University of Michigan, but now worked in management, marketing DVDs in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “I’m thirty-five and can’t remember the last time I changed or learned in any big way. I’m bored with my job and my town, but also—especially—with myself.” When she spotted an opportunity at the then still-newish Amazon, she went for it, getting hired to manage the team that merchandised books and media. Soon, she and her husband, John, had begun a new West Coast life.

Coulter takes us along on her wild Amazon ride, from her first days at a company where desks were made of plywood scraps, where there were pointedly no perks like free food or on-site child care and where the crises came fast and frequently, to the moment years later when she knew she’d had enough. Early on, she notices that there was “something lumpy about Amazon’s demographics. When I’m in a room with people beneath me in seniority . . . a solid third of them are women. But when I’m with my peers or senior leaders, men usually outnumber women at least three to one.” Working seven days a week, Coulter found that the feeling of failure rarely left her, and she needed three or more glasses of wine every night to calm down from the day’s stresses. Coulter adds depth to the narrative by braiding the story of her Amazon years with her slow journey to sobriety, which changed her sense of herself and her life. Nevertheless, over the next 10 years, she rose through multiple departments, including Amazon Publishing and Amazon Go.

Coulter is a delightful, funny guide, giving us an insider’s view of Amazon’s quirks and toxicities, and she’s alert to the personalities and characters around her (including glimpses of Jeff Bezos and his management style). Occasionally, the memoir uses alternative forms, like the chapter “Events in the History of Female Employment” that mixes memoir and women’s history to funny and infuriating effect.

An engaging, well-paced, and thoughtful memoir, Exit Interview takes a cleareyed look at women in corporate America, particularly tech, noting how far from parity they remain in those worlds.

Exit Interview is a cleareyed look at women in corporate America, particularly tech, noting how far from parity they remain in those worlds.

Roadways are one of the best examples of how civilization can paradoxically both give and take away. The millions of road miles that crisscross our planet have greatly enabled the mobility of people and goods, but they also have impacted the DNA of wildlife, are a major contributor to climate change and create a significant amount of noise pollution. In Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, Ben Goldfarb (Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter) confronts this conundrum head-on, like an 18-wheeler barreling down an interstate. As he states, “North America and Europe constructed their road networks with little regard for how they would affect nature and even less comprehension of how to blunt those effects.”

Organized into three sections: “Killer on the Road,” “More than a Road” and “The Roads Ahead,” Crossings is a comprehensive guide that uncovers the many different factors that led to global road transportation systems and their continued impact. Goldfarb’s synopsis includes lots of important dates and statistics, such as how “between 1807 and 1880 the U.S. Army carved twenty-one thousand miles of roads through prairies, forests and mountains, cracking open America’s interior to mail delivery and agriculture” and the history behind terminology coined as roads became mainstream such as “Sunday drivers,” “road hogs,” “juggernauts” and “flivverboobs” (inconsiderate motorists).

Through commentary from experts such as ecologists, biologists, historians and government officials, Goldfarb examines the severe impact of roads on wildlife populations and their migration and reproduction, causing localized extinctions of reptiles and amphibians and disruptions among mountain lion populations known as “genetic drift.” He also goes into great detail explaining the game-changing significance of deer collisions, which have made deer North America’s most dangerous wild animal, and discusses roadway interference outcomes noted by researchers, such as the wildlife patterns changed by traffic noise.

Now embedded in human culture, roads have contributed to major change, a fact made blatantly evident through Goldfarb’s extensive research and analysis. Roads aren’t going away anytime soon, but Crossings will spark conversation around the future of motorized vehicles and transportation in general.

Roads aren’t going away anytime soon, but Crossings will spark conversation around the future of motorized vehicles and transportation in general.
STARRED REVIEW

Our top 10 books of September 2023

The top 10 books for September include the latest from Angie Kim & Zadie Smith, plus a compelling mystery from William Kent Kruger and a helpful guide for talking about food with kids.
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Book jacket image for While You Were Out by Meg Kissinger
Family & Relationships

In a thoughtful attempt to reckon with the past, Meg Kissinger delivers a spellbinding account of how mental illness and addiction ripped her family apart.

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Book jacket image for The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Fiction

Zadie Smith writes eloquent, powerful and often quite humorous novels with social issues at the fore, and The Fraud is no exception. Its firm grounding

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Book jacket image for He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
Fantasy

He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan’s sequel to She Who Became the Sun, is the most finely crafted fantasy novel of the year.

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Book jacket image for Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
Family Drama

Angie Kim’s suspenseful follow-up to Miracle Creek follows a family that lives in a quiet and even bucolic neighborhood near Washington, D.C. They try to

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Book jacket image for Fat Talk by Virginia Sole-Smith
Family & Relationships

Virginia Sole-Smith provides tons of helpful advice for navigating food and conversation with your child to help unpack fatphobia.

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Book jacket image for Crossings by Ben Goldfarb
Nonfiction

Roads aren’t going away anytime soon, but Crossings will spark conversation around the future of motorized vehicles and transportation in general.

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Book jacket image for Codename Charming by Lucy Parker
Contemporary Romance

Lucy Parker’s breezy and winning new rom-com, Codename Charming, follows a reserved royal bodyguard and the perky personal assistant of the prince he protects.

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Book jacket image for Chinese Menu by Grace Lin
Children's

Chinese Menu is a treat in every way: an exceptional compilation that can be read all at once or taken out from time to time

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Book jacket image for A Walk in the Woods by Nikki Grimes
Children's

Nikki Grimes, Brian Pinkney and his late father, Jerry Pinkney, have gifted us a heartbreakingly beautiful picture book about loss and grief.

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The top 10 books for September include the latest from Angie Kim & Zadie Smith, plus a compelling mystery from William Kent Kruger and a helpful guide for talking about food with kids.
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I find it impossible not to feel a mite sad while scanning 50 Years of Ms., which comes along at a time when print magazines, and the newsstands that used to stock them like boxes of bonbons, are a vanishing breed. But really, this is no time for tears: Ms., which has advanced and amplified feminist perspectives on society from diverse angles like no other publication, thrives on in both print and digital form with the tagline, “More than a magazine, a movement.” And as founding editor Gloria Steinem writes in a foreword, “A movement is a contagion of truth telling: at last, we know we are not alone.” Back in 1972, the first issue sold out in eight days; in it, 53 prominent American women “shouted” their abortions. Clearly, we desperately need the work of this media group more than ever. The book, including pieces by Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde and other heavyweights, provides an essential look back while making an impassioned case for the critical role of feminist writing going forward.

This collection from the iconic magazine provides a look back while making an impassioned case for the critical role of feminist writing going forward.
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In Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us, Rachel Aviv examines the challenges of living with mental disorders and how those disorders can define who we are. Aviv shares personal experiences and talks to a range of individuals who deal with—and find a sense of self in—mental illness. Featuring riveting firsthand reportage, moving interviews and important research, Aviv’s compassionate, revealing narrative offers a glimpse into the secrets of the human psyche while tackling tough questions about psychiatric treatment and diagnosis.

Judith Grisel mixes memoir and reportage in Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, a compelling investigation of drug use and the nature of dependency. Grisel, a former drug user who is now a neuroscientist, writes with honesty about her troubled past and grappling with substance abuse. She also looks at the unique psychology of the addict and provides possibilities for escaping the cycle of dependency. The role of genetics in addiction and the brain’s response to drugs are but a few of the book’s rich discussion topics.

In Mind on Fire: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery, Arnold Thomas Fanning offers a powerful, intimate account of a life spent wrestling with depression and bipolar disorder. Fanning’s first encounters with mental illness took place during his teenage years and left him ill-equipped to navigate daily routines. After spending time in an institution and living on the streets of London, Fanning found help in medication and therapy and achieved success as a playwright. In this poignant chronicle of living with illness, he shows that healing is possible.

Max Fisher considers the ways in which Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms have impacted our daily lives in The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World. Bolstered by in-depth research and interviews, Fisher’s fascinating book traces the evolution of social media, the rise of sensational content and the strategies employed by popular platforms to attract users and make profits. Themes like communication, self-esteem and the human need for connection will get book groups talking. 

From neuroscience to psychology, these nonfiction titles explore the mysteries of the human mind.

If the viewer count for Robert Waldinger’s TED Talk “What Makes a Good Life” is any indication, a lot of us (43 million and counting) are interested in finding out how to live meaningful and happy lives. In The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, Waldinger and co-author Mark Schulz help readers do just that by sharing with enthusiasm and warm encouragement what they’ve learned as stewards of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, “the longest in-depth longitudinal study of human life ever done.”

The study, which began in 1938 with 724 men and has since grown to include three generations of the original participants’ families, has obtained blood and DNA samples, brain imaging, et al., from its subjects, who have also answered countless questions over the decades. Waldinger is currently the study’s fourth director and Schulz its associate director. In 10 illuminating and wide-ranging chapters, they assert that a truly good life is well within reach if we will acknowledge one straightforward yet profound conclusion: “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.”

Chapters like “The Person Beside You” and “Family Matters” explore how romantic and familial connections shape and strengthen us. In “The Good Life at Work,” survey participant Loren exemplifies the benefits of developing office allies: Her stress level lowered and her interactions at home improved thanks to a newly boosted sense of belonging. And “All Friends Have Benefits” argues that we shouldn’t underestimate casual friendships. After all, even if someone isn’t a ride-or-die friend, positive-yet-fleeting interactions still “provide us with jolts of good feeling or energy.” What’s not to like about that? 

Those looking for concrete how-tos will appreciate the authors’ W.I.S.E.R. (Watch, Interpret, Select, Engage, Reflect) model for breaking out of confounding relationship patterns. Self-assessment questions such as “Was I willing to acknowledge my role in the situation?” will help readers assess and improve on their roles in interpersonal conflicts.

To do that requires flexibility, of course, and that’s another key lesson of The Good Life: A willingness to consider new perspectives is proven to protect our physical and mental health. So, too, will remembering the authors’ uplifting discovery that “it doesn’t matter how old you are . . . everyone can make positive turns in their life.”

Findings from the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveal that a truly good life is well within reach, and The Good Life will show you how to grasp it.
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“Rough sleepers” are homeless people who mostly choose to sleep on the streets rather than in indoor shelters. Their death rates are staggering, their health needs endless, their fates often in the hands of people who struggle to know what to do with them. However, there are some people whose mission is to care for rough sleepers, doing work that is both lifesaving and extremely frustrating. With a straightforward scrutiny that somehow sees, describes and reveals without flinching or judging, Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder offers a long, hard look at the lives of people without housing in Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.

As a writer, Kidder is intensely immersive. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, he traveled with Dr. Paul Farmer to observe groundbreaking health care work around the world. In Rough Sleepers, Kidder documents the three years he spent with the team that cares for Boston’s homeless population, making rounds with Dr. Jim O’Connell in his van late into the night. They treated people on the street or got them into hospitals and clinics to receive care. They offered blankets and food. They listened. Kidder was given deep access to their world—to the shelters, clinics, emergency rooms, hidden hangouts—and to the life of the man leading these efforts, fondly known by his many patients as Dr. Jim.

Readers also meet some of the people who live without homes in Boston in Rough Sleepers. There’s Tony Colombo, who spends his days at a respite house helping residents and staff and his nights on the street getting into trouble. Tony’s friend BJ, having lost both legs, needs constant help keeping upright in his wheelchair. Joanne Guarino is maintaining her sobriety after 30 years on the street and remains a regular guest speaker at Harvard Medical School, where she compels students to treat homeless people with compassion.

Dr. Jim and his team are the inspiring center of Kidder’s book. Now in his 70s, the Harvard-trained physician is still the city’s “street doctor,” sustaining and nurturing relationships with society’s most marginalized and vulnerable people. He realizes his work has come at the cost of his own family life and wryly compares himself to Sisyphus. His colleagues also grapple with the personal toll such vigilant care takes. Still, they see themselves as merely necessary, not heroic. In Rough Sleepers, Kidder begs to differ.

With a straightforward scrutiny that reveals without judging, Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder offers a long, hard look at the lives of homeless people.

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