Aaron Robertson

Aug 28, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Abi Maxwell |Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson

Abi Maxwell. Knopf, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593-53584-4 “I’d felt detached from my body as far back as I could remember,” writes novelist Maxwell (The Lake People) in the opening paragraphs of this captivating family memoir. From there, she unspools the story of her trans daughter, Greta, who was born after Maxwell and her husband settled down in Gilford, the conservative New Hampshire lake town where Maxwell grew up. At age six, Greta began asking to wear pink sneakers and dresses.

Aug 28, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie

Comforting Myths: Concerning the Political in Art In this trenchant treatise, Lebanese American novelist Alameddine (The Wrong End of the Telescope) pushes back against the argument that “art should be separate from politics.” He contends that all art is political and that writing only appears apolitical if it “reinforces the dominant society’s values.” For instance, Alameddine argues that John Updike’s decision to write about “stultifying suburbia” at the height of the Vietnam War should be...

Aug 22, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie

David Graeber. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-0-374-61022-7This brilliant posthumous collection of essays by, and interviews with, anthropologist Graeber (The Dawn of Everything) serves as a revealing portrait of Graeber himself. In the interviews, he discusses his childhood as the son of lefty radicals, his teenage political coming-of-age, and his transformation into a public intellectual during the 2008 Occupy protests.

Aug 22, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie

Justene Hill Edwards. Norton, $29.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-324-07385-7America’s racial wealth gap can be traced to the collapse of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company in 1874, according to this ingenious work of financial sleuthing.

Aug 20, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Emily Witt |Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson

Emily Witt. Pantheon, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-0-593-31764-8New Yorker staff writer Witt (Nollywood) delivers an arresting memoir rife with techno music, drugs, and the blush of new romance. In 2013, after quitting antidepressants, Witt decided to try “as many psychedelic drugs as possible,” her curiosity piqued by shifting social attitudes toward the substances.