A reader asked recently whether I’m in the habit of consuming literary “palate cleansers,” as a way to clear my mind between heavy books. It’s a good question, and the answer is a qualified yes: Unless I’m tearing through all the works of a particular author — something I did more of when I was younger — I’m often inclined to follow a long novel or ambitious biography with writing that’s quick and digestible and that requires a different set of critical faculties (or none at all). Sometimes that might be a thriller or mystery, other times it might be poetry or short stories or essays; anything is fair game, really, so long as it resets my brain’s odometer before I start the next trip.
If you’re on the hunt for a good book to reset your own brain, might I suggest Maggie Millner’s “Couplets: A Love Story”? It’s a story of romantic attachment and romantic betrayal told almost entirely in rhymed couplets, and it’s a balancing act of such sly virtuosity that it may give you vertigo. Also up this week: a novel about Medusa, a noir mystery about sisters on the hunt for their estranged brother’s killer and, in nonfiction, everything from a look at classified documents to a study of Hammerstein’s Broadway. Happy reading.
—Gregory Cowles
THE DECLASSIFICATION ENGINE:
What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets
Matthew Connelly
Classified documents have been turning up in politicians’ homes — but Connelly shows that the most egregious hoarder of classified material is the government itself, thanks to an obsession with secrecy that began during World War II and has now spun out of control.
Credit...“Connelly has defined an existential crisis: the suppression of American history. ... ‘The Declassification Engine’ makes the case that the culture of secrecy diminishes democracy. And it has now become a culture of destruction as well.”
From Tim Weiner’s review
Pantheon | $32.50
STONE BLIND
Natalie Haynes
Haynes, a classicist and a comedian, puts her abundant gifts to work in this cheeky retelling of Medusa’s story, in which the infamous snake-haired Gorgon is revealed to be much less monstrous than the lusty, fast-talking gods and goddesses who populate her universe.
Credit...“By the time I finished this otherworldly cri de coeur, I felt both wiser for it and glad that it had been written. I was also riled up enough to wonder if I was too old to get my first tattoo.”
From Lucinda Rosenfeld’s review
Harper/HarperCollins | $30
LIVES OF THE WIVES:
Five Literary Marriages
Carmela Ciuraru
The relationships at the center of Ciuraru’s lively and absorbing new literary history vary widely, but are united by questions of ego and agency, competition and resentment. In most cases, unsurprisingly, the female creative got the short end of the stick.
Credit...“Reading her five portraits of these conveniently deceased figures and their fraught unions feels a bit like chasing fistfuls of candy with slugs of vinegar. The sweetness comes by way of all the fabulous dishing and tidbits of gossip.”
From Hermione Hoby’s review
Harper/HarperCollins | $29.99
COUPLETS:
A Love Story
Maggie Millner
Millner’s exhilarating debut, a straightforward collection of rhyming poetry that can also be viewed as a novel in verse, breathes new life into an old form to tell the story of a romance that catches its heroine off guard. The story is simple: Girl meets girl, and the straight and narrow goes Tilt-a-Whirl.
Credit...“Her ars poetica is the real love story: Millner writes about lovers, and love unrequited, but, most of all, loving herself as a writer.”
From Adrienne Raphel’s review
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $25
AGAINST THE WORLD:
Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars
Tara Zahra
In this original, ambitious history, Zahra homes in on the early 20th century to show, with a fascinating cast of nationalists, pacifists and reactionaries, how globalization prompted resistance and genuine suffering from the outset.
Credit...“Rich and surprising. She doesn’t rely on the syntheses of other scholars, examining instead how people understood events as they unfolded in real time. Her searching book reminds us that a view from 10,000 feet doesn’t always capture what’s actually happening on the ground.”
From Jennifer Szalai’s review
Norton | $35
THE AFTERMATH:
The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America
Philip Bump
In an ambitious volume replete (perhaps overloaded) with charts and statistics, a Washington Post columnist aims to debunk myths about baby boomers as a voting, spending and ideological bloc.
Credit...“Dividing populations into age blocs is of limited utility, except for pollsters and planners — the young boomers needed more schools, and soon they’ll need more eldercare — but also a source of entertainment, a great American pastime like any other typology.”
From Alexandra Jacobs’s review
Viking | $30
PIRATE ENLIGHTENMENT:
Or the Real Libertalia
David Graeber
In his slim final book, Graeber, the leftist anthropologist who died prematurely in 2020, delves into the history of pirate communities on Madagascar, attempting to sort truth from legend with characteristically eloquent and provocative speculation.
Credit...“Graeber was a highly original thinker and a wonderful writer. Most of all he was someone who sought out challenging problems and set about trying to solve them. In this case, he may well have been right ... but as he admits there is simply not enough evidence to know.”
From Peter Frankopan’s review
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $27
NO HOME FOR KILLERS
E.A. Aymar
The Peña siblings haven’t spoken in years, but after Markus is murdered his sisters decide to investigate. What could have been a routine mystery settles instead into an affecting tale of what we do for those we love.
Credit...“Nervy noir. ... When Markus is discovered murdered in his Baltimore home, the suspect list is long and doesn’t exclude his sisters.”
From Sarah Weinman’s crime column
Thomas & Mercer | Paperback, $16.99
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II AND THE INVENTION OF THE MUSICAL
Laurie Winer
Part biography, part analysis, this admirable book presents its subject as a likable man whose career, along with that of his protégé Stephen Sondheim, illuminates the evolution of the American musical.
Credit...“Winer does a commendable job of painting Hammerstein’s bustling milieu. She’s particularly good on the subject of early vaudeville, and how its modest, raffish expectations fostered the birth of solider and more serious musical entertainment.”
From Brad Leithauser’s review
Yale University | $32.50