A couple great new books out this week. Here are our notes on them!
Daniel recommends
How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, by Theo Baker. Daniel says: "When Theo Baker got into Stanford, he expected to take advantage of their acclaimed computer science faculty and the many ties to Silicon Valley, in addition to a getting a healthy liberal arts education. Joining the Stanford Daily was a lark. But the more he experienced college life, the more he saw the way big tech money and a billionaire lifestyle mindset had infected the campus, and how could he not report on it? There’s a secret Stanford within Stanford, where what they sell is access, and what they teach is success at any price. You know the result – Baker’s reporting eventually led to the resignation of campus president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. But how it came to happen is no less fascinating, and it’s only one of the stories Baker tells in this riveting mix of memoir and reportage."
And Rachel recommends
A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman. She writes: "Alice has her path in life figured out. As a lady's maid for the eldest daughter of a respectable and well-heeled family, she can expect to live the rest of her days scrubbing lacy underthings and (extremely stinky) delicate shoes, wearing her mistress's castoff clothing, and hoarding shillings to spend on her precious half days off (once every two weeks!). Then she meets Charlie Bell, valet for a very handsome and rich gentleman who happens to be quite loathsome to all who meet him. What are a pair of servants to do when they wish to spend a life together? Why, engineer a marriage, of course! Ayelet Waldman has produced a rollicking romp that manages to feel like reading a collaboration between Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft; part romance, part satire, part feminist manifesto, it's a pure delight from start to finish."
Tim just recently finished reading
Fair Chase, the new novel from Travis Mulhauser, and he recommends that, too. His notes: "The younger generation of Sawbrooks is back! They're one of my all-time favorite fictional families from Mulhauser's
The Trouble Up North, and they may get a new family member. A fourteen-year-old kid named Delos runs from the foster care placement where he landed after serving time on a bogus juvenile conviction. He claims he's a Sawbrook. His very young mother told him so before she died, and he’s got a reason to run to Sawbrook land. He's seen a gray wolf, maybe the only wolf to migrate back into Michigan‘s lower peninsula during the last hundred years. Delos needs to protect it after locking eyes with the big predator, and he knows his Sawbrook kin are likely the only people around who won't want it dead. Sawbrooks still have 600 acres of natural woodlands not yet invaded by developers, and they have a long history of resisting rules that threaten the land, their independence, and doing what’s right. I love Mulhauser's dry wit, the razor-sharp dialogue of great characters, and the aching suspense in his sudden plot turns. I laughed out loud… on a city bus! (There might have been snorting involved.) And I cried. These books breathe raw, new life into fiction. Just keep 'em coming, Travis!"
And Kathryn adds her notes for a book released last week, read this past weekend, and recommended today -
Midwestern Death Trip, by Meaghan Garvey. Kathryn says: "In an era where well researched and beautifully written journalism is particularly hard to find, this book is so refreshing. Garvey's curiosity and unwillingness to settle for half-truths is so clear, and even further illuminated by her thoughtfully lyrical writing.
Midwestern Death Trip is the best piece of nonfiction writing I've read in a very long time. A new favorite."
And those are our recommendations. More on the way next week. Until then, read on.
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