9 New Books We Recommend This Week

From global warming to a reality show set on Mars, and from “My Hijacking” to “My Murder,” we bring you an eclectic selection of recommended books this week. In fiction, Gina Apostol’s novel “La Tercera” braids a mother-daughter story with a history of the Philippines, Deborah Willis’s “Girlfriend on Mars” imagines the above-mentioned reality show and Katie Williams’s “My Murder” brings its heroine back from the dead. In nonfiction, we recommend Jeff Goodell’s study of climate change, along with a biography of the extended Shakur family and a handful of memoirs covering everything from war reporting to a very public gender transition. Happy reading. —Gregory Cowles In his fast-paced new book about the extreme heat caused by climate change, Goodell shows how even the most privileged among us will struggle with the cascading catastrophes — rising seas, crop failures, social unrest — generated by the deadly heat. “Goodell’s stripped-down style suits his subject. This is a propulsive book, one to be raced through; the planet is burning, and we are running out of time.” When the narrator of Apostol’s novel learns of her mother’s death in the Philippines, she reflects on her ancestry and the fraught relationship she had with this extraordinary and infuriating woman. The story includes snapshots of the country’s history, and makes full use of its rich linguistic diversity. “Profoundly rewarding, opening up a glorious new understanding of a country and a culture that ought to mean more to Americans than a twinge of guilty conscience.” In 1970, when Hodes was 12, the TWA flight she and her sister were taking from Tel Aviv to New York was hijacked by Palestinian militants, who diverted the plane to Jordan. Hodes, now a historian, reconstructs the ordeal, exploring the documentary record and puzzling over gaps in her own memory. “This is what gives her book its propulsive force: her effort not only to piece together the details of the hijacking and its aftermath, but to make sense of the omissions in her own memory.” Chung’s second memoir is a look at family, illness and grief, and the way […]

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