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We’re all in this together. That might be the message uniting this week’s recommended books, all but one of which feature group portraits or stories of friendships. (The sole exception, Barry Lopez’s “Horizon,” takes the environmentalist’s long view to arrive at essentially the same conclusion.) There’s Susan Choi’s novel “Trust Exercise,” about classmates at a performing arts high school. Miriam Toews’s novel “Women Talking,” about Mennonite victims of sexual violence. Nell Freudenberger’s novel “Lost and Wanted,” which views a remembered friendship through the lens of science. In “Women’s Work,” Megan K. Stack turns the microscope on herself, and her class privilege, to explore her relationship to the women she hired as domestic help when she lived overseas. There’s also Leo Damrosch’s great group biography of the Club — the 18th-century British intellectuals who met weekly for food, drink and conversation that nurtured their creative genius. (They saved it for more exciting things than their club’s name.) Finally, Clive Thompson examines the culture of Silicon Valley coders and Pitchaya Sudbanthad traces several generations of Thai characters in his debut novel, “Bangkok Wakes to Rain.” Read it, or any of this week’s titles, with a book group.
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Source: New York Times
