The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium, Juan Pimentel, translated by Peter Mason, Harvard, 2017.
One of the great books on Natural History, magnificently researched, philosophical and panoramic, inventive and engaged—all this in an inspired and seamless translation.
James Baldwin, Collected Essays, Library of America, 1998, tenth printing.
If you are an American, if you are a citizen of the world, if you have the courage to face the truth and long to live fully awake, read Baldwin!
The Country That Was Home: A Memoir of Syria, Alia Malek, Nation Books, 2017.
A brilliant journalist’s profoundly considered political and family history of the black hole Syria has become—the perfect companion to Marwa Al Sabouni’s marvelous A Battle For Home (Thames and Hudson, 2016).
Where Song Began, Tim Low, Yale University Press, 2017.
If you are turned on by the knowledge that crocodiles and turtles are closer to parrots than alligators and that some parrots are smarter than primates (they don’t HAVE to make tools, duh, because they have…beaks!) this book is irresistible.