We review a pair of star-worthy history titles this week: Bartleby and Me by Gay Talese, who takes readers from his days as copyboy at the New York Times to a Sinatra concert--three pieces in all, "written with painterly precision and respect for hard workers"; and Scott Shane's Flee North, the "riveting account" of Thomas Smallwood, a freedman who helped other enslaved people escape. Plus three teens fight the capitalist agenda and grieve a missing Indigenous girl, while slinging jokes and pizzas in the "incisive, intimately told" Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson. And so many more!
And don't miss The Writer's Life with Booker Prize-winner Anne Enright discussing how generations grapple with a family legacy in The Wren, the Wren (reviewed in this issue).