Two of our recommended titles this week explore surprising connections between humans and other members of the animal kingdom. In “Raiders, Rulers, and Traders,” David Chaffetz makes a thorough case that horses were the deciding factor enabling the spread of empires across ancient Asia, and in “Rat City” Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden revisit a groundbreaking academic study that shed light on the ways people resemble rats and vice versa.
Also recommended: new fiction from Rachel Kushner, Matt Haig and Helen Phillips, and memoirs from two people who followed very different career paths. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles
CREATION LAKE
Rachel Kushner
Kushner’s smart, sinuous espionage thriller — already longlisted for the Booker Prize — stars a ruthless American secret agent who infiltrates a radical environmentalist commune in rural France, and is brimming with heat.
RAIDERS, RULERS, AND TRADERS:
The Horse and the Rise of Empires
David Chaffetz
At one point, Genghis Khan controlled 10 million horses. So says this exhilarating 2,000-year history about the human beings and horses who fell in love on the Eurasian steppe, multiplied and, together, conquered vast portions of the globe, unifying China and establishing the Silk Road.
ALL THE WORST HUMANS:
How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians
Phil Elwood
Self-flagellating confession or humble brag? Either way, this memoir by a former public relations operative for the wealthy and the corrupt is greasy fun — stocked with scoundrels, cocktails and guns, and showing off the charm and quick wit that catapulted Elwood to the top of the sleazy, amoral world of high-end spin.
THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE
Matt Haig
In this novel, a 72-year-old retired math teacher named Grace Winters inherits a run-down house on a Mediterranean island from a friend and goes in search of answers, propelling her from “the most boring life in the universe” to an odyssey of action and awe in Ibiza, the Spanish isle of late-night raves and nude beaches.
LOVELY ONE:
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Crediting the mentors who lifted her up on her path to success, this memoir by the Supreme Court’s newest justice is deeply personal and full of hope, and highlights a fairy-tale marriage to her college boyfriend.
HUM
Helen Phillips
Phillips’s novel, her third, tackles the conundrum of parenting in an increasingly technological age. The story follows a mother who tries to go offline during a dream vacation, only to find herself needing the technology she tried to turn away from.
RAT CITY:
Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B. Calhoun
Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden
John Bumpass Calhoun was obsessed with rats. Charged with curbing a 1940s Baltimore vermin infestation, the behavioral scientist built an entire rat city at Johns Hopkins in order to observe their workings. While the team may have failed to eradicate the rodent problem, their study resulted in a series of conclusions about human behavior, which infiltrated government policy and popular culture. This book interweaves Calhoun’s biography with the story of the cities he built and the ways rats affect our lives in ways seen and unseen.
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