Review by New York Times Review
THE FEMALE PERSUASION, by Meg Wolitzer. (Riverhead, $28.) Of all the political threads that permeate Wolitzer's 12th novel, the most interesting is the challenge of intergenerational feminism. But Wolitzer is an infinitely capable creator of human identities as real as the type on this page; people are her politics. AETHERIAL WORLDS: Stories, by Tatyana Tolstaya. Translated by Anya Migdal. (Knopf, $25.95.) Tolstaya's remarkable short stories are all about people haunted by their flashing glimpses of shadow worlds - moments when the dull plastic coating of reality peels back to reveal something vastly more precious underneath. RUSSIAN ROULETTE: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. (Twelve, $30.) Two veterans of Washington political journalism provide a thorough and riveting account of the 2016 election that casts an unfavorable light on both the Democratic and Republican campaigns. This is a book without heroes. GUN LOVE, by Jennifer Clement. (Hogarth, $25.) Clement's novel, her second about the gun trade, unfolds at a Florida trailer park where firearms and people intimately coexist. The imagery is dreamlike, as if to suggest the self-delusion of the novel's real-life counterparts. EDUCATED, by Tara Westover. (Random House, $28.) This harrowing memoir recounts the author's upbringing in a survivalist Idaho family cursed by ideological mania and outlandish physical trauma, as well as her ultimately successful quest to obtain the education denied her as a child. TANGERINE, by Christine Mangan. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $26.99.) In this sinister, sun-drenched thriller, set in the 1950s and rife with echoes of Patricia Highsmith, two college friends - involved in something dark and traumatic during their time at Bennington - get caught up in an even more lurid story when they meet, a year or two later, in Tangiers. NO TURNING BACK: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria, by Rania Abouzeid. (Norton, $26.95.) This narrative of the Syrian war from 2011 through 2016 offers page after page of extraordinary reporting and exquisite prose, rendering its individual subjects with tremendous intimacy. HELLO LIGHTHOUSE, by Sophie Blackall. (Little, Brown, $18.99; ages 4 to 8.) Blackall's illustrated journey through the history of one lighthouse captures themes of steadfastness and change, distance and attachment, and the beauty and tumult of nature. THEY SAY BLUE, by Jillian Tamaki. (Abrams, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) This gorgeous debut picture book from a cartoonist and graphic novelist gets inside the mind of a thoughtful girl who contemplates colors, seasons and time as she questions her world. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Authors Isikoff and Corn are both known for their writing skills and investigative-reporting chops. So put them together, and you have a highly readable book that meticulously pieces together how Russia involved itself in the 2016 election, who the players were, and how successful their complex machinations turned out to be. The authors grab attention in the first chapter, which chronicles Donald Trump's trip to Russia in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant. After that setup, the narrative fills in the background, and there's plenty, including Putin's dislike of and disdain for Hillary Clinton and the Trump family's business and social relationships with Russian oligarchs. Even though many of the facts and incidents discussed here have been well reported, especially to those who feverishly follow all things Trump, this book does an outstanding job of putting the Russia-Trump story into context, separating rumor from fact and adding new information. The way the text builds from the 2016 election to the present covering how those in the Obama administration and the intelligence services dealt with the interference issue (or, in some cases, didn't) makes for thought-provoking reading. A smart, solid, even-handed book that future historians will use as a starting point.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
