“Ideas mattered,” Louis Menand writes in his new book, explaining the rise of American culture in the years after World War II. They still do, which is why big ideas underpin a lot of this week’s recommended titles, from astrophysics and the nature of scientific celebrity (in Charles Seife’s “Hawking Hawking”) to the pandemic and historical reactions to catastrophe (in Niall Ferguson’s “Doom”). There’s a look at the causes and consequences of misogynist violence (in Jacqueline Rose’s “On Violence and On Violence Against Women”) and a couple of takes on artistic success (in Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel “The Plot,” and in Menand’s own book, “The Free World”).
New York Times: 11 new books we recommend this week
This photo taken on Jan. 2, 2021 shows people reading books in a library with a mirrored ceiling in Shaoyang, in China's central Hunan province.
