A selection of summaries from The New York Times Book Review:
New this week:
Other WRAL Top Stories
FACTFULNESS, By Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund. (Flatiron, $27.99.) Rosling, who died last year, was an expert on international health who lamented the information bubbles that he feared surrounded too many of us. Burst them, he argues in this book, and our general pessimism about the state of the world will also ease — things are much better than they seem.
NEAPOLITAN CHRONICLES, By Anna Maria Ortese. (New Vessel, paper, $16.95.) This collection of writing and reportage about Naples was a major inspiration for Elena Ferrante. Ortese’s portrait of the Italian city just after World War II is of a place of poverty and desperation.
LEAR, By Harold Bloom. (Scribner, $24.) Bloom’s understanding of Lear as a character has shifted with age, allowing him to appreciate aspects of the old king he couldn’t see at 17 or 40. This focused study showcases the erudition of one of our most eminent Shakespeare scholars.
THE KREMLIN BALL, By Curzio Malaparte. (New York Review, paper, $15.95.) This is a glimpse of 1920s Moscow, among the Soviet high society. It’s the aftertaste of the revolution. Published posthumously, Malaparte’s court chronicle captures Stalin as the surveyor of every intrigue and scandal from his nightly opera box.
THE VIEW FROM FLYOVER COUNTRY, By Sarah Kendzior. (Flatiron, paper, $12.99.) A St. Louis-based journalist, Kendzior has been called “a Cassandra in Trumpland,” analyzing in these short essays the social trends and discontent in Middle America that built the president’s base.