1. John P. Loonam’s review of What We Can Know: A Novel by Ian McEwan (Knopf). “Eager to reach the novel’s conclusion, I flipped the pages so quickly that my own questions about language’s shifting nature and its effect on our understanding of literature, history, and the world around us will require a second, closer reading to answer.”


2. “Readers as Radicals” by Jason Ray Carney. “You can feel it, right? The pocketable screen incarcerates us in skull-sized prisons; the impulse to update, to ‘like,’ to refresh diminishes our presence. Even when the Wi-Fi drops, our circuitry of attention — retrained for interruption — keeps tugging us away from each other and toward our phones. It’s unsettling, but here lies our chance for rebellion, our chance to intentionally slow down, to dwell in the sentences of Toni Morrison, to trace the logical turns of Plato, to meditate on the sublime landscapes of Thomas Cole, to live as people, to make a genuine punk gesture. Pursue the humanities.”


3. Daniel de Visé’s review of Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and an American Awakening by Jim Newton (Random House). “One quality that sets Newton apart from most prior Dead biographers is his reportorial depth. Journalists have a skillset that historians sometimes lack: They’re more likely to consult sources beyond the official canon — including news clippings, court records, police reports, and voices from outside the bubble.”


4. William Rice’s review of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow (MCD). “The phenomenon Doctorow so rudely but effectively describes is the tightening profit squeeze on everyone who interacts with Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and our other few corporate overlords. The inescapable nature of modern technology combined with decades of business consolidation — unimpeded by the rusting mechanisms of anti-trust laws — have created money-making monsters that can freely jack up the prices of their goods and services while simultaneously diminishing their quality.”


5. Diane Kiesel’s review of Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent’s Search for Hope and Justice by John Edward and Robert Hilland (St. Martin’s Essentials). “Whether readers buy the idea that Edward possesses clairvoyant powers ends up being irrelevant. Chasing Evil is a good, old-fashioned police procedural and an entertaining page-turner. Pounding the pavement and re-interviewing witnesses eventually led Hilland to Escondido, California, where Smith (as Edward predicted) had moved. He’d taken on a third wife, who investigators feared might also be in danger.”

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