1. Kitty Kelley’s review of Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson (Simon & Schuster). “A practical woman, McCardell used her own experiences to fuel her designs. For instance, she grew frustrated having to lug a 100-pound steamer trunk full of clothes from her apartment to the docks of the Hudson River and then onto (and, later, off of) an ocean liner every time she traveled to Paris on a buying trip. So she devised a system of five different garments made of crease-free jersey that she could interchange while traveling and that fit into a single suitcase. Such a system of separates was unheard of in 1934, but it would revolutionize American fashion 50 years later.”


2. “A Trail of Tears” by Ellen Prentiss Campbell. “I pressed a button on the exhibit’s interactive map of the nation, and lights lit up for the three known lynchings in Montgomery County, Maryland. Two men were lynched in Rockville: Mr. John Dorsey Diggs in 1880 and Mr. Sidney Randolph in 1886. Scanning the glittering jars, I found the one holding soil from the Montgomery County sites. I recognized the crumbly reddish earth — dirt like in the back yard of my suburban childhood home or around my kids’ sandbox.”


3. Marcie Geffner’s review of If You Love It, Let It Kill You: A Novel by Hannah Pittard (Henry Holt & Co.). “The novel is autofiction, so Hana is, to some extent, Pittard. Both are college professors and authors. Both live with their boyfriend and his young daughter somewhere in Kentucky. (And Pittard’s former real-life husband did put her in one of his novels.) The book’s ‘is it truth or is it fiction?’ parlor-game feel will amuse some readers, and the prose is as smooth as the plot is unsubstantial. In the end, though, it’s never quite clear why we should care about the self-absorbed Hana or her inconsequential problems.”


4. Mike Maggio’s review of That’s All I Know: A Novel by Elisa Levi; translated by Christina MacSweeney (Graywolf Press). “Every once in a while, there comes a novel that tears at the heartstrings and speaks to the soul. The characters woo you into their world in a way that makes you feel you’re part of their lives. You recognize them as if you knew them before and sympathize with them so much that, no matter how egregious their acts might be, you forgive them and even understand why they behave as they do. The masterful That’s All I Know by Spanish writer Elisa Levi (and translated by Christina MacSweeney) is one such book.”


5. Chris Rutledge’s review of Charlottesville: An American Story by Deborah Baker (Graywolf Press). “Baker’s comparison of the two sides is stark. One side screams racist and antisemitic vitriol, while the other demonstrates the spirit shown in Cornel West’s words, ‘Let us bear witness to love, knowing that justice is what love looks like in public.’ It is almost impossible to read Charlottesville without feeling outrage. The fact that such battles continue today is damning. Knowing the motivations of all the players, it’s hard to imagine that there are truly ‘very fine people on both sides’ of this fight.”

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