Our recommended books this week are evenly balanced between questions of race and space. First, the cosmos: In “The Sirens of Mars,” the planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson evokes the wonders of her work looking for life on other worlds; in “The End of Everything,” the theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack asks what science can teach us about the likely end of the universe; and in “The Smallest Lights in the Universe,” the astrophysicist Sara Seager balances an account of her scientific career with a memoir of grief and young widowhood. On the subject of race, Seyward Darby (“Sisters in Hate”) and Edward Ball (“Life of a Klansman”) both probe America’s troubled legacy of white supremacy, while Martha S. Jones (“Vanguard”) celebrates the Black women who have persevered in the cause of equal justice.
New York Times: 9 new books we recommend this week
Bookshelves of library books stand reflected in the media center of the Newfield Elementary School on August 31, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut.
