Why were our cities and their economies so vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic? Two Harvard economists take stock of the issues plaguing American cities (or, as they put it, the “demons” that often “accompany density”), including healthcare, affordable housing, education, class disparities and more. The authors approach the issues from different political angles and imagine what cities might look like in the future.
Penguin Press, September 7 | Read our review
Even before the extent of the pandemic’s destruction became clear, “there was every reason to believe that 2020 could be tumultuous,” Tooze writes. He tends to take into account the big defining events of his time – the 2008 financial crash, world affairs after WWI – and here investigates the economic response to the pandemic. As our reviewer put it: “The great service of this book is that it challenges us to consider how our institutions and systems, and the assumptions, positions and divisions that underpin them, leave us ill-prepared for the next crisis. “
Viking, September 7 | Read our review
Tell us: which books are you most looking forward to reading this season?
Long before #MeToo became a global movement, Burke mobilized women around these two words. Her memories open in 2017, when she realizes the hashtag has taken off on Facebook, pushed by strangers with a different set of goals than she’s been working for years. “It can’t happen,” she told a friend. “You all know that if these white women start using this hashtag, and it becomes popular, they’ll never believe that a black woman in her 40s from the Bronx built a movement for it. same purposes, using those exact words, for years now. To read “Unbound” is to believe it and understand how Burke used empathy and transparency to pave the way for change.
Iron, September 14 | Read our interview with Burke
‘Danger, ‘by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
In two previous books, “Fear” and “Rage,” Woodward probed the turmoil of the Trump presidency. Now he and Costa are focused on the transition from Trump’s White House to the Biden administration. They interviewed hundreds of people for this account, which covers the November election, the January 6 Capitol uprising and the challenges Biden faced in the first months of his presidency.
Simon & Schuster, September 21
Abedin, a longtime political insider, has often been overshadowed by her connections with two politicians: Hillary Clinton, for whom she worked as a high-level assistant, and former Rep. Anthony Weiner, her ex-husband. “This journey has taken me through exhilarating milestones and devastating setbacks. I walked both with great pride and in crushing shame ”, Abedin said. Hers is a life for which she is “extremely grateful and a story I look forward to sharing.”
Scribner, November 2
This book is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning project published in the New York Times Magazine, which seeks to place the “consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” and includes new essays, poems and works of fiction.
One World Press, November 16
