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editors’ choice
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Monday is Memorial Day, when Americans pause to remember those who have lost their lives in the country’s wars, and if that somber occasion puts you in the mood to think about global politics and foreign policy, this would be a good weekend to settle in with “New Cold Wars,” in which my Times colleague David E. Sanger and his collaborator Mary K. Brooks evaluate the current state of tensions among China, Russia and America.
Elsewhere, we also recommend new fiction from Colm Tóibín, Juli Min and Monica Wood, along with a biography of the groundbreaking transgender actress Candy Darling and a book of photos by the incomparable Corky Lee, documenting moments in Asian American life. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles
NEW COLD WARS:
China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West
David E. Sanger with Mary K. Brooks
In this compelling first draft of history, Sanger reveals how a generation of American officials have grappled with dangerous developments in great war competition, from the war in Ukraine to the technological arms race with China.
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“Vividly captures the view from Washington. But, as Sanger makes clear, … the fate of the U.S.-led order rests more than ever on the ideas, beliefs and emotions of people far outside the Beltway.”
From Justin Vogt’s review
Crown | $33
LONG ISLAND
Colm Tóibín
More than a decade after Tóibín introduced us to Eilis Lacey, the finely wrought Irish émigré heroine of his novel “Brooklyn,” he’s conjured her again, this time as a married mother whose suburban New York life is disrupted by a crisis that propels her back to Ireland once more.
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“Eilis is hardly passive. She is an interesting and vivid character because she manages to make her destiny her choice. … In her own mind, and in the eyes of sympathetic readers, she is free.”
From A.O. Scott’s review
Scribner | $28
SHANGHAILANDERS
Juli Min
Min’s debut is a sweeping story, told in reverse. The novel opens in 2040 with the Yangs, a wealthy family tense with frustrations and troubles. Then the novel gradually moves backward to 2014, revealing along the way the complex lives of each family member and how they got to their anguished present.
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“Having knowledge of these characters’ futures before we know about their past makes stumbling on their bygone days all the more touching.”
From Jean Kwok’s review
Spiegel & Grau | $28
HOW TO READ A BOOK
Monica Wood
The latest from Wood (“When We Were the Kennedys”) brings together three lonely people in and around Portland, Maine — a retired teacher, a widower and a young woman recently released from prison — for a dextrous and warmhearted tale of unlikely redemption and connection.
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“A charming, openhearted novel, deceptively easy to read but layered with sharp observations, hard truths and rich ideas.”
From Helen Simonson’s review
Mariner | $28
CANDY DARLING:
Dreamer, Icon, Superstar
Cynthia Carr
Carr, an astute guide to the Manhattan demimonde, offers a compassionate and meticulous biography of the transgender actress, who flitted in and out of Andy Warhol’s orbit before dying of cancer at 29 in 1974, after being immortalized in a famous photograph by Peter Hujar and in the Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side.”
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“There wasn’t really vocabulary to describe the territory Darling was exploring back then … and her biographer extends a sure hand across the breach. To push her from the Warhol wings to center stage, at a moment when transgender rights are in roiling flux, just makes sense.”
From Alexandra Jacobs’s review
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $30
CORKY LEE’S ASIAN AMERICA:
Fifty Years of Photographic Justice Photographs
Corky Lee; edited by Chee Wang Ng and Mae Ngai
Several years after his death from Covid at age 73, the famed photographer’s work remains enduringly relevant. This new book, a sort of survey course in Asian Americans’ decades-long fight for social and political equality, offers both intimate, atomized portraits of the everyday and galvanizing visions of a larger unified movement.
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“A man with an intimate understanding of the invisible, turning his lens on behind-the-scenes fragments and people that the annals of history have largely ignored.”
From Wilson Wong’s review
Clarkson Potter | $50
See more on: Colm Toibin
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