O’Brien, a financial journalist and assistant opinion editor at the Guardian, debuts with a smart examination of private equity. This secretive industry, she explains, claims to unlock the full earning potential of mismanaged companies for the benefit of investors but in reality weakens governments and widens the chasm between rich and poor. She traces private equity’s origins to the 1970s, as an attempt to revive stagnant Western economies. Its early adopters included economic policy advisers to U.S. president Ronald Reagan and U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Case studies reveal how private equity hobbles essential sectors—including British nursing homes, Danish housing, and Kenyan hospitals—while laundering money for billionaires, pension funds, and autocrats thanks to regulatory loopholes. Elsewhere, O’Brien examines the resulting backlash as well as the futility of individual opposition—whether from outraged customers of privatized water companies in Northern England or short sellers on Wall Street who dared to take on Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm. Much has been written about private equity’s harms to American consumers, workers, and taxpayers; O’Brien’s investigation widens the scope to the entire Western economic system, exposing a global conspiracy in a narrative that has all the stakes and most of the accessibility of spy fiction. Readers will be entertained and enlightened. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larson’s pandemic-era stint as a grocery worker into a rallying cry against corporate greed. In the fall of 2020, with her career prospects in teaching and journalism stalled, Larson took a cashier/supervisor job at TGS, a nonunion store in Utah, hoping it might also remedy her feelings of isolation. The job proved (mostly) fulfilling, but Larson soon discovered that her colleagues made substandard wages and suffered from health problems they couldn’t afford to address. Mid-pandemic corporate cutbacks increased pressure and stress to the point that some of Larson’s coworkers wore diapers to eliminate the need for bathroom breaks. As a former organizer at a nonprofit, Larson asked herself, “What might responsibility and solidarity look like at TGS?” She details taking small but subversive steps—like allowing parking lot workers to wear headphones despite the store policy—to make her colleagues’ lives easier, all the while “run[ning] into the barrier of my own exhaustion and pain.” Dotting her empathetic account with historical tidbits about the evolution of customer service and American productivity, Larson offers a firm rebuke of late capitalism. It’s essential reading. Agent: Ayla Zuraw-Friedland, Frances Goldin Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Abraham Lincoln’s much maligned wife had her mental troubles but was also a smart political operator and loving helpmeet, according to this vivid debut biography. Journalist Romano explores Mary Todd Lincoln’s many issues: her volatile temperament, her extravagant shopping expeditions that generated negative press coverage during wartime, her unseemly lobbying for government appointments for cronies, and, later in life, her unhinged grief at losing three sons and a husband, which made her prey to charlatan spiritualists. But, Romano contends, Mary was a shrewd promoter of Lincoln’s ambitions—she advised him to refuse a post as Oregon’s territorial governor that would have scotched his presidential hopes—who, contrary to critics’ assertions, fully supported his opposition to slavery. Romano devotes much space to demolishing the conventional historiography that Lincoln and Mary’s relationship was an agonizing ordeal; instead, she paints them as well-matched—“he learned how to defuse her tantrums; she was adept at pulling him out of his funks.” Later chapters recap how Mary adroitly marshaled the public sympathy needed to regain her freedom after her son had her committed in 1875. Romano is sometimes too quick with pat psychotherapeutic rationales for Mary’s questionable choices. (“Shopping filled an emotional void... [it] gave her a feeling of power and control.”) Still, this revealing study dramatically recasts a proverbial ball and chain as a dynamic and constructive figure. (May)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Former San Francisco Standard editor-in-chief Weber’s enlightening debut traces the tech industry’s influence over three decades of San Francisco’s booms and busts. The author begins his survey in 1990 during the early, idyllic days of the internet when “a small but growing cohort... believed computers could change the world for the better” and created nascent online communities via mailing lists and forums. From there, Weber tracks how this utopian dream of “the Internet as a liberating tool of personal empowerment” turned into a roller-coaster ride of economic excess and devastation, from the dot-com bubble and its 2000–2002 deflation, which saw “some thirty thousand people” move out of San Francisco, through the second internet boom of the mid-2010s, centered on venture capital–funded start-ups, to the postpandemic “doom loop” of office closures that resulted in empty storefronts and hollowed-out business corridors. Weber tracks how these fluctuations affected the city’s habitability, character, and politics, including skyrocketing rents and the growing influence of the tech industry on government and media. He particularly focuses on San Francisco’s ongoing issues with homelessness, which became a cause célèbre for right-wing tech titans like Elon Musk and David Sacks. With a new “revival” occurring in San Francisco due to the rise of AI, this is a timely cautionary tale about what tech cannot fix. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Psychologist Saxbe debuts with a compassionate examination of how fatherhood changes men’s minds and bodies. Noting that active fathers are rare in the animal kingdom, where the males of only 5% to 10% of mammal species take part in caring for their young, Saxbe theorizes that involved dads are a crucial part of humanity’s success. New fathers can experience hormonal shifts leading to perinatal depression, a phenomenon that, though it’s lesser-known than women’s postpartum depression, is equally important to treat, according to the author. In addition to affecting men’s quality of life, depression and anxiety during their infant’s early days can impair bonding and children’s long-term well-being. Fatherhood impacts physical health, too: the “dad bod” can be traced to sleep disruptions, hormonal shifts, and mood changes. But fatherhood also leads to positive changes. For instance, when fathers regularly engage in physical play, their children are more likely to be confident and curious and to follow rules. The role of fatherhood has shifted in recent decades, meaning many of today’s dads may not have grown up with healthy models, Saxbe writes, but men who choose to challenge ingrained cultural stereotypes surrounding masculinity and care work are often rewarded with more meaningful lives. Smart and uplifting, this is a powerful resource for dads and dads-to-be. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

“The garbageman is the Sisyphus of our consumer society, condemned to go from house to house picking up bags, swept along day after day in the never-ending flow of refuse we produce,” writes Montréal sanitation worker Pare-Poupart in his bewitching debut memoir. Though he originally became a garbageman in 2003 to pay for college, Pare-Poupart soon developed an addiction to the physicality of the job—he describes wrestling bags filled with heavy construction debris and trying to tame recycling and compost pickups (“Want to know what a city smelled like during the Middle Ages? Take a shower in compost bin juice”)—and kept at it for the following 20 years. He details sweet encounters with kids who idolize his work and outlines how the job informed his conversion to freeganism, a waste-reducing lifestyle he embraced after witnessing the sheer volume of trash people produce. In addition to his own musings, Pare-Poupart shares anecdotes about his eccentric compatriots, including Beaujeunehomme, who often shows up to work drunk, and Michel (aka Spandex), who speaks only to the garbage. Enlightening, unpretentious, and gently political, Pare-Poupart’s fascinating account will help readers view their garbage in a whole new light. It’s a treasure. Photos. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

A tidal wave of fakery, hypocrisy, and cheating is eroding society’s moral fiber, according to this earnest if underwhelming investigation. Miller (The Character Gap), a Wake Forest ethics professor, surveys a panorama of fraud, pretense, and BS, now supercharged by the internet. This includes video deepfakes, adultery websites like Ashley Madison, college students’ ubiquitous use of AI to write papers, conspiracy theories shared over social media (though this isn’t technically dishonesty, Miller contends, if the theorist genuinely believes the hoax), and pastors who preach moral purity while indulging in extramarital hookups and plagiarizing sermons. Along the way, Miller explores the psychology and philosophy of honesty, noting that people lie when the truth is an impediment to their goals, though not especially frequently (studies show the average person tells between one and two lies per day, but a few prolific liars bring up the average). With technology amplifying dishonesty’s impact, the author calls for guardrails ranging from punishments for manipulating and disseminating individuals’ images without their permission to generally promoting a culture where people (especially public figures, like celebrities) call out BS. Miller’s gently moralistic take on the subject mainly reiterates basic truisms—honesty is the right thing to do to avoid hurting others—in stolid prose, offering few new insights. The result is a dry, prosaic defense of honesty as the best policy. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this solid entry in the World of Art series, art historian Schwartz (Rembrandt’s Universe) surveys the context, systems, and styles of 17th-century Dutch painting. He attributes the abundance of Dutch artists during the period partly to the fact that the Netherlands was more urbanized than many other parts of Europe, with an abundance of cities where wealthy households and institutions were in need of decoration. He explains that most painters received work via patronage from members of the Dutch aristocracy, churches, local governments, and civic institutions like hospitals (commissions usually came through family or personal connections, though art dealers also made sales). During the second half of the century, as wealth became concentrated in fewer hands, Dutch painters competed more fiercely, leading to masterpieces but also causing some artists—including greats like Rembrandt and Vermeer—to fall on hard times. The economic situation also shaped how artists painted, the author observes, noting that limited color tones and loose brushstrokes allowed painters to “increase productivity and lower costs.” Devoting relatively little space to the superstars of Dutch art, the author takes a welcome look at overlooked figures like Adriaen van der Werff, who used a “fine brush” style to depict religious scenes, and Hollanders Willem van de Velde de Oude, a once prominent painter of seascapes. Art students will especially benefit from this comprehensive overview. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this fizzy memoir, travel writer Ruiz (12 Trips in 12 Months) recounts the year she spent traveling after breaking up with her boyfriend at age 35. She writes of arriving in Egypt immediately after the split, where visits to the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings prompted reflections on grief and resilience, while conversations with a local tour guide who had problems with her ex reminded Ruiz “that love and heartbreak exist everywhere, no matter what language you speak.” Later, a trip to Japan introduced her to the concept of kintsugi—repairing broken pottery with gold—which served as a metaphor for embracing one’s emotional scars. Ruiz pairs these observations with lively travel writing, offering vivid descriptions of historical sites, foods, and local color. The narrative is most involving when Ruiz sticks to chronicling her post-breakup missteps and hurdles; less effective are her sometimes-clumsy efforts to extract advice from her experiences. (Of deciding to ride a horse up a volcano in Guatemala instead of walking, she writes, “Accepting help when you need it is a strength too. The most important thing is to keep finding a way forward.”) Still, readers seeking to start over should find some inspiration here. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

This richly layered portrait of the 19th-century frontier from historian Nelson (Saving Yellowstone) spotlights figures whose complex lives embody an era of “chaotic and unstable... transformation.” They include Jim Beckworth, son of an enslaved woman and a white father, who spent years living as a member of an Apsaalooke community because a grieving mother insisted he was her dead son; Maria Gertrudis Barcelo, a Hispana woman who grew rich playing cards and whose “ability to assess the rapidly changing geopolitics of Nuevo Mexico” brought her fame and influence; and Little Wolf, a Northern Cheyenne “master strategist” who led his people on a thrilling flight for freedom, but turned to alcohol when he fell short. Nelson weaves her subjects’ lives together—they often quite literally cross paths—while simultaneously showing how their stories were changed or erased in favor of a more clear-cut frontier myth of white male dominance. Along the way, she highlights moments where Americans could have achieved a more just future—for instance, California missed an opportunity to write “full citizenship for all comers” into its constitution—while also offering vibrant details of daily life, like ruminative scenes where Sacajawea forages for wild licorice and artichokes and, later on, famously insists that she get to see the ocean. This complicated, sprawling epic is untamed in a good way. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink