What can history teach us about who we are today? It’s a question of enormous scope, but one that the authors of this month’s best books tackle with honesty and care. In her highly anticipated book Caste, journalist Isabel Wilkerson outlines a new framework to understand social hierarchy in the United States. In their twisty novels, Daisy Johnson and Charlotte McConaghy examine what makes people run away from the lives they once led. And in a sweeping collection of Native poetry, the voices of more than 160 poets demonstrate the evolution of Native literature. These books, among several others, pose crucial questions about how the past shapes the present.
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A woman reads a book on July 3, 2020 in Wildwood, New Jersey.
