11 New Books We Recommend This Week
Feb. 11, 2021
Crime and punishment make their presence felt in this week’s recommended titles, from Russell Shorto’s family history of his grandfather’s mob ties (“Smalltime”) to Philippe Sands’s account of a Nazi fugitive (“The Ratline”); Maurice Chammah’s study of the death penalty and its decline (“Let the Lord Sort Them”) to Reuben Jonathan Miller’s look at the life that awaits ex-inmates (“Halfway Home”).
Also on our night stands this week: Ethan Zuckerman’s new book about the collapse of institutional authority (“Mistrust”), Emily Rapp Black’s memoir of motherhood and grief (“Sanctuary”), Jeremy Atherton Lin’s personal and cultural history (“Gay Bar”) and Avi Loeb’s argument that aliens visited the neighborhood in 2017 (“Extraterrestrial”). Finally, there’s Thomas Healy’s “Soul City,” about one man’s attempt to create a Black-run city in the 1970s; Charles Wheelan’s “We Came, We Saw, We Left,” about his family’s round-the-world trip; and, in fiction, Chang-rae Lee’s picaresque new novel, “My Year Abroad.”