“What is happening today in America is part of a global political turn,” Madeleine Schwartz, editor-in-chief of the Dial, writes in her introduction to this illuminating anthology of reflections from foreign journalists on U.S. politics. What’s odd, she continues, “is how little the American people” seem to realize it. Writers from 12 countries consider America’s descent into Trumpism, rampant poverty, and growing attacks on human rights, along the way interrogating the impact of U.S. politics abroad. Indian journalist Saumya Roy compares homelessness in California to slums in Mumbai, finding the latter’s poor “do not carry around the devastating sense of shame and loneliness I witnessed on the streets of San Francisco.” Ukrainian writer Nataliya Gumenyuk considers how, despite Ukraine’s growing dependence on American military protection, “rarely have the two countries felt so far apart in how each sees the world.” Author Kaya Genç draws parallels between Trump and Turkish president Recep Erdoğan, and Buenos Aires journalist Lucía Cholakian Herrera explores how American dollars have become the most valuable currency in Argentina, even as their international value plummets. These fascinating outsider perspectives not only ground American problems in wider trends, but often show the U.S. as responsible for worsening conditions elsewhere. The result is a much needed reality check. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Gross (Flight of the WASP) offers a lavish if tedious history of luxury getaway St. Barthélemy. A St. Barth frequenter for “almost three dozen years,” the author begins with an overview of the Caribbean island’s modern-day milieu of financiers, Hollywood stars, children of dictators, and infamous Epstein pals including Ghislaine Maxwell. The book traces the island’s growth from “the Caribbean’s ugly duckling” to “an uber-luxury product,” an evolution spearheaded by Rémy de Haenen, an eccentric London-born “smuggler... and criminal” who, drawn to the island’s tax-free status, founded its first “jet-set guesthouse” in 1953. From there, Gross recaps the buildup of increasingly pricey resorts, villas, and restaurants (one of which offered “the world’s most expensive” lentil salad), as well as the rise of “antidevelopment sentiment” directed at more recent newcomers, especially Russian oligarchs. While the anecdotes occasionally exhilarate—particularly those concerning Jimmy Buffett’s raucous hotel, Autour du Roche, “the staging ground for some of the worst behavior I have ever seen,” per Buffett—the account gets bogged down in the minutiae of real estate deals, and its tallying of extreme wealth can veer into soul-sucking territory (the author’s propensity for referring to elites as “buccaneers” doesn’t help matters). This glimpse of the lifestyles of the rich and famous is more tiresome than expected. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Kinney (Avidly Reads Opera), a professor of writing at the New School, offers an all over the map exploration of rejection in personal, political, and historical contexts. Rejections come in many shapes and sizes, Kinney notes: defectors spurn their homelands; revolutionaries deny their governments; and institutions exclude people from leadership roles (see the Catholic church’s rejection of female priests). She focuses in particular on rejections that stem from systemic inequalities, discussing how unfair immigration policies lead to citizenship denials and deportations, while racist hiring practices disadvantage people of color. With that in mind, she argues that quintessentially American narratives about rejection—namely, that it must be dealt with by simply working harder to measure up—are counterproductive and unfair because they ask people to aspire to arbitrary standards rooted in unequal systems. Instead, she calls for dismantling such oppressive structures, finding fresh ways of conceptualizing acceptance, and embracing failure’s unexpected benefits, like opening up spaces for new opportunities. Kinney provides especially intriguing commentary on the harms of can-do, self-improvement–focused responses to rejection, though her framework is so broad that she sometimes struggles to connect all her examples to the thesis. The result is a thought-provoking but uneven take on a universal phenomenon. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this entertaining account, Cuthbertson (Peace at Last), a professor of British literature and culture at Liverpool Hope University, examines the enduring impact of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. First published in 1928 in Italy, the book, which follows an upper-class woman who has an affair with a gamekeeper, was immediately controversial, due to its sexually explicit scenes and strong language. It was banned in the U.S. and the U.K., leading travelers to smuggle copies in their luggage. The bans sparked legal challenges in the U.S. and Japan, with the most famous trial occurring in the U.K. in 1960 after Penguin Books challenged British law by publishing an uncensored version of the book. Authors like Rebecca West and E.M. Forster defended its literary value, and the jury found Penguin not guilty of “publishing an obscene article,” opening the door for its mass distribution. It was an enormous commercial success, but many readers remained furtive, often covering their copy with brown paper. Despite the complicated feelings the book engendered, Cuthbertson makes a convincing case for its lasting influence on literature and culture—including providing sex education where none existed, inspiring film and television adaptations, and becoming a touchstone for issues of free speech and censorship. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the novel. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Humorist Sedaris (Happy-Go-Lucky) returns with a funny and heartfelt essay collection on friendship, family, and aging. Snapshots of his life with Hugh, his partner of more than 35 years, include his reluctance to assume the caretaker role after Hugh had hip-replacement surgery (he decries “the puffy, foot-tall toilet seat” Hugh needed after the operation, calling it “a specter of death no less chilling than the Grim Reaper himself”). The couple’s humorous dynamic is further showcased in “A Long Way Home,” which chronicles the time Sedaris invited a stranger on a seven-hour drive to keep Hugh company so Sedaris could lay in the back and indulge in his Duolingo addiction. Moments of sadness also bubble to the surface, such as the discovery that his childhood best friend, whom he hadn’t spoken to in 47 years, had died of throat cancer. The news leads Sedaris to reflect on the memories they shared and, even though they grew apart after a painful incident, conclude that his life is “different now, diminished” knowing his former friend is gone. Elsewhere, he discusses his eccentric family, his world travels, and unfortunate encounters with strangers. Throughout, Sedaris’s wit and keen awareness of life’s absurdities are on full display. These essays are among the best of his career. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Historian Laqueur (The Work of the Dead) traces in this delightful survey the long history of dogs appearing in artworks. After a slow start in which Laqueur painstakingly explains why he chose to focus on dogs rather than cats or horses, which have less “visual intimacy” with humans, the account accelerates into a whirlwind tour through centuries of art history, beginning in 9000 BCE with “massive” Saudi Arabian rock panels featuring dogs hunting alongside humans. He proceeds to spotlight an astonishing diversity of pup portrayals, including mythological mutts like Adonis’s hounds in Titian’s 1553–1554 painting Venus and Adonis; devoted canine companions, whether symbolically “keeping a dejected figure company” in Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving Melancholia or lounging in artists’ studios; and less frequently depicted “bad dogs,” which “are almost always a proxy for bad humans,” as seen in anti-slavery artwork where vicious canines attack enslaved people as proxies for “slave-owning masters.” Drawing from a staggering wealth of examples, the author successfully uncovers the overlapping uses and meanings of dogs in art, while interspersing the account with charming asides about artists’ relationships with the dogs that appear in their work (including Pablo Picasso’s “beloved dachshund Lump”). It’s an eye-catching homage to man’s best friend. (June)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Music journalist Walters debuts with an ebullient love letter to LGBTQ+ and “gay friendly” musicians. He begins in the late 1960s, when such artists as the Velvet Underground and Elton John explored themes of “alienation, rejection, melancholy... and uncommon love” in songs whose references were unmistakable to those in the know but subtle enough to fly under the radar (see Lou Reed’s “Candy Says,” which speaks “stirringly” of trans actor Candy Darling but could appeal to anyone who’s “wished they could change something about their body”). In the 1970s, David Bowie’s “audaciously queer” Ziggy Stardust persona popularized “bluntly homoerotic songs” and a glam rock style that “embraced... willful artificiality [and] those who couldn’t conform to what culture dictates as real.” Meanwhile Bette Midler, who got her start performing in the gay bathhouses of New York City, popularized “camp like no one since Liberace.” Also examined are the unique challenges faced by artists like the Jackson Five and Diana Ross in putting out music that brought together racial and sexual minorities. Walters evocatively draws out how LGBTQ+ musicians battled oppression in their work even as they navigated a record industry that sought to silence sexual nonconformity while profiting off styles gay musicians made fashionable. It adds up to an impressive and expansive celebration of a rich chapter of music history. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Classicist Venner debuts with a worthwhile account of Pompeii on the day leading up to the devastating eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, a catastrophe that left the city of some 20,000 inhabitants buried under a thick layer of ash and pumice. In “an effort to bridge the silences of the historical record,” she offers speculative reconstructions, rooted in archeological evidence, of the lives of seven individuals from different social classes: newly freed slave Petrinus; wealthy businesswoman and property lessor Julia Felix; “the garum ‘fish sauce’ magnate” Aulus Umbricius Scaurus; formerly enslaved shop owner Umbricia Fortunata; innkeeper Euxinus; Amisusius, a priest in the cult of Isis; and politician Gaius Cuspius Pansa. Venner packs her narrative with fascinating details of everyday life and lovingly describes the homes of her protagonists, from the statues and elaborate frescos that graced the walls of the wealthy, to the cramped, shared sleeping quarters designated for the enslaved. Each chapter, labeled with the hour of the day, begins with references to the changes in atmosphere that grow increasingly unsettling as the eruption nears. Venner’s chronicle builds to the chaotic flight from the city by the fortunate few and the varying fates of those who waited too long to leave. Roman history buffs will want to check this out. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

This slippery account from journalist Trethewey (Mothers of the Mind) seeks to reevaluate Sydney Bowles Mitford, the mother of the six “eccentric” Mitford sisters. Trethewey pushes back against previous depictions—some penned by her own daughters—that cast Sydney (1880–1963) as foolish or cold, while also wrestling with the implications of her lifelong support for Hitler. Beginning with her youth spent in thrall to her “charismatic, self-made” father, Trethewey paints Sydney as stubborn but loving. She tracks Sydney into marriage—to the irascible David “Farve” Mitford—and early motherhood, attempting to show that the Mitford home was mostly happy by favoring the more upbeat recollections of the younger daughters as opposed to elder girls’ discontent, and humanizing the well-heeled family by poking fun at Farve’s poor business insticts. But as WWII looms, the author’s insistent evenhandedness begins to strain—Sydney’s open support for Hitler is chalked up to a fundamental naivete, though elsewhere the author defends her shrewdness. Throughout, this history presupposes a false binary between good parenting and bad politics, and between the readers’ capacity for censure and sympathy. Trethewey’s central argument, that Sydney’s “maverick inheritance” and “genuine devotion” had a powerful effect on her daughters, tracks—but the notion that Sydney herself “had the potential to be a rebel” is not convincing. It’s an uneven attempt at an unnecessary reclamation. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Mezrich (Breaking Twitter) offers a gripping investigation into a 2022 cheating scandal that stunned the competitive chess world. The book opens with the now infamous upset at America’s “most prestigious” tournament, the Sinquefield Cup, in which 19-year-old “enfant terrible” Hans Niemann beat world champion Magnus Carlsen, leading Carlsen to accuse Niemann of cheating. The author traces the two players’ divergent ascents—Carlsen became the youngest ever grandmaster at age 13 with the support of a committed father; while alienated, struggling Niemann became “notorious for baiting... his opponents.” The author also tracks the growth of Chess.com from an upstart gaming site dismissed by Peter Thiel (“There’s no money in chess”) to a billion-dollar valuation. The two threads combine as Mezrich traces Niemann’s response to the post-Sinquefield fallout, which evolved from public boasts (“It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me”) to defiant paranoia, as he comes to believe Carlsen and Chess.com, who had just struck an $80 million deal, conspired “to destroy him.” While Niemann admitted to cheating in online games—he had once been caught by Chess.com’s algorithm and suspended—he maintained that his over-the-board games were legit. The controversy deliciously spirals to include hotheaded interviews, threats in parking lots, and a staggering $100 million lawsuit. It’s an epic, swirling melodrama of hubris, money, and tech. (June)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink