N8 Books Boston Sunday Globe JULY 5, 2020 Books Bonfire of the Republicans

Lookingbackatthe incendiary politics of the ’90s

BURNING DOWN BY DAVID M. SHRIBMAN THE HOUSE: GLOBE CORRESPONDENT Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a ewt Gingrich was a white tornado Speaker, and the that roared through Washington at Rise of the New the end of the 20th century, blowing Republican the roof off the Capitol, rearranging Party the furniture of the House, upending By Julian E. the customs of American public life. Zelizer There was life in Washington circles Penguin Press, before Gingrich and then there was 356 pages, $30 Nlife after Gingrich, and there is little resemblance between the two. He changed the tone and timbre of American civic life. He introduced character assassination into con- temporary American politics. He thrust ideological dis- cipline onto party politics. He forced a House speaker from office. He repelled the accommodationist impulse that had existed for decades from the Republican play- book. He ended the Democrats’ 40-year rule of the House. He won the speakership. He also left the speak- ership in disgrace. Julian E. Zelizer has taken on the task of describing, examining, and analyzing the rebel from Georgia. Zeliz- er holds an endowed chair in history at Princeton but writes like a journalist. (A whisper to the faculty lounge: That is a compliment, not a disparagement.) His book has color and forward momentum. His story has drama and life lessons. His subject is, depending on your point of view, either heroic or odious. One way or another, no one can argue with Zelizer’s thesis that Gingrich changed American politics. “The new Washington was rougher, less stable,” he writes. “In the new Washington, almost anything was permissible. In partisan politics, it was almost impossi- ble to go too far.” Zelizer has the great insight of comprehending Ging- rich’s great insight: that the post-Watergate “reforms” calling for greater attention to ethical issues, greater

ISABELLE CARDINAL FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE ZELIZER, Page N9

Our imaginary BIBLIOPHILES friend Poetry, politics, and ‘Candy Crush’ Twitter’s favorite BY AMY SUTHERLAND | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT aristocrat tells her story n “Pelosi,” longtime political reporter Molly Ball charts the path that led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to become one of the most By Amy Pedulla powerful people in American politics. Ball has covered Washington GLOBE CORRESPONDENT politics for Politico, The Atlantic, and currently for Time magazine. “I’m trying to be quiet and gather strength to be a I voice of encouragement for you loons, who somehow She is an analyst for CNN and a regular on the PBS program need me and somehow found me,” tweeted Duchess “Washington Week.” She lives in northern Virginia with her family. Goldblatt in early June. If you don’t know who Duchess Goldblatt is: jump in BOOKS: What are you reading current- which is about millennial politicians. the pool. The water’s warm. Nobody else does, either. ly? The writing is so evocative and the de- This month sees the publication of “Becoming Duch- BALL: To be totally honest, between scriptions of people are really fun. The ess Goldblatt,” an anonymously working from home, home-schooling other one is Olga Khazan’s “Weird,” penned memoir chronicling the BECOMING three kids, and doing a virtual book which is a social science-y book about conception and history of Goldb- DUCHESS tour, I haven’t had much time for how being different can be an asset in latt the everyman’s 81-year old GOLDBLATT reading. I’ve been digging into the life. She also writes about being a therapist, self-help guru, inspira- By Anonymous new Hilary Mantel, “The Mirror & the nerdy Russian Jewish immigrant in tional tweeter, and, as Duchess Houghton Light.” I love her. I’m not usually into Texas. She’s hilarious. would have it, “One of the most im- Mifflin Harcourt, historical fiction, but her trilogy tran- portant voices in American letters.” 240 pages, $24 scends genre. I like good books regard- BOOKS: Do you read many books The Duchess was born in the less of genre. I’m not into science fic- about politics? wake of the writer’s own painful di- tion but I love Margaret Atwood, and BALL: I actually don’t. I mostly read lit- vorce and series of rather traumat- a few years ago I got into the South erary fiction and nonfiction. Politics is ic family events (raising a son as a American writer Jose Saramago, my day job and I need an escape but I single parent, losing her father to terminal illness, the whose books are kind of science fic- did read Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Po- disappearance of her troubled older brother). After the tion-y. larized” just before the pandemic hit. divorce, the writer discusses getting onto social media That is phenomenal. with a friend (we can assume this conversation hap- BOOKS: What was your last best read pened in the mid aughts). “I wouldn’t mind seeing what before the pandemic began? BOOKS: What kind of nonfiction books people are up to,” she told her friend, “as long as they ‘What blew my mind my BALL: The last couple of books I was are you drawn to? can’t see me.” An online avatar is born: Duchess Goldb- freshman year was discovering reading when this hit were books by BALL: I love nonfiction novels. “Behind latt, illustrated by a 17th-century painting titled “Por- friends. My colleague Charlotte Alter’s the Beautiful Forevers” by Katherine GOLDBLATT, Page N9 “Paradise Lost.” ’ “The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For,” BIBLIOPHILES, Page N9 JULY 5, 2020 Boston Sunday Globe Books N9 The incendiary politics of the ’90s uZELIZER ing so it was clear — even to those of Continued from Page N8 us in the press gallery, chronicling this openness on Capitol Hill, and greater vital episode in American history — opportunities for backbenchers to flex that, as Zelizer puts it, “the conserva- their muscles could be directed at the tive movement was reshaping the po- very Democrats who enacted those re- litical landscape, turning politicians forms and could be weaponized in cre- into villains in the public imagination ative and cruel ways. through their campaign to delegiti- The same elements of Republican mize the federal government.” rule that the Democrats deplored — In short, this was far more than promiscuous ties with lobbyists, de- just Newt being Newt. pendence on corporate contributions, This is a remarkable, riveting story, fealty to special interests — were the one with broad consequences, even if very elements of post-Watergate Dem- it is true (and it is) that though “Ging- ocratic rule. Gingrich understood rich liked to present himself as a big- that, exploited that, and rode that to idea man,” as Zelizer argues, “the power. truth is that his contributions as a par- Zelizer describes Gingrich as “ex- tisan tactician were far more impor- traordinarily arrogant, totally self-ab- tant than anything he did in terms of sorbed, and brutally ruthless.” In Con- policy.” gress he was an agitator, not a legisla- One quibble, and it is structural tor. He understood that in an era of rather than factual: Zelizer focuses impatience with government it was ef- with near-microscopic detail on the fective to portray the House Demo- fall of Speaker Wright and Gingrich’s crats as part of the permanent politi- role in thrusting him from office. Fair cal establishment. He considered bi- enough. It probably was, as Zelizer partisanship a trap. He took on not puts it in the last sentence of this read- only the Democrats but also the capi- able volume, the beginning of the end tal’s many totems and its multiple ta- of American political civility, for “its boos. His mantra: “Conflict equals ex- shadow looms large and grows longer SENGCHOY INTHACHACK/STOCK.ADOBE.COM posure equals power.” with each passing day.” Gingrich mastered conflict, he But the Wright episode is only part sought public exposure, and he won of the story. There is far more. It is on- power. It was an astonishing achieve- ly on the eighth-to-the-last page of this LESSONS IN POWER ment. It is impossible today, at the dis- book that Zelizer introduces the Con- tance of a quarter-century, to compre- tract with America, the founding doc- hend the permanence and the perva- ument of the new GOP Congress of Lacy Crawford’s memoir ‘Notes on a Silencing’ siveness of the Democratic rule on the 1995. The reader learns almost noth- Hill that Gingrich assailed. It was ing specific, or even general, about examines a long-buried crime at St. Paul’s School complete and unyielding. It ended up what the Gingrich revolution wrought being a juicy target for an opportunist in the years in which he was speaker. By Kerri Arsenault NOTES ON A SILENCING: A Memoir predatory way, she’s unsure what to with a mission. Nor anything about Gingrich’s fall GLOBE CORRESPONDENT By Lacy Crawford do. She begins to sense danger in ev- So Gingrich took on Speaker from grace, and from power. Zelizer acy Crawford’s story is as Little, Brown, 392 pages, $28 ery man. Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., of Cambridge, skims lightly over the relationship common as a housefly. When Crawford returns to school and then set his sights on a series of Gingrich had, or has, with Donald J. As a 15-year-old girl, she she is whiplashed by whispered other Democratic mastodons, eventu- Trump. L was sexually assaulted. scorn and ostracized by friends “gid- ally targeting O’Neill’s florid, oleagi- Perhaps that is fodder for another Two older male students which she finds herself. dy with hate.” In response, she leans nous successor, Jim Wright of Texas. book. If Gingrich, the onetime college at St. Paul’s, the elite boarding school To reveal the assault, she believes, into schoolwork and makes herself “When he looked around the House at professor, had an attentive student, it Crawford attended at the time, lured will ruin a future she had just begun “as silent and as slender” as she can the senior Democrats and Republi- was the man who today sits in the her to their room and forced their to see. She isn’t completely wrong. until her invisibility is almost com- cans,” Zelizer writes, “he did so with Oval Office. penises down her throat. Her abus- When she finally tells her parents plete. The rigor and elegance of disdain, pleased to have gotten under ers went unpunished. Even after from St. Paul’s, their reaction is Crawford’s sentences, even while their skin.” Soon people like Phyllis David Shribman, who teaches at they bragged about their assault. swift. “We are going to bring you writing about such painful things, Schlafly, the conservative activist and McGill University’s Max Bell School of Even after Crawford told her parents home,” they say, but Crawford pro- lifts this memoir into literary theorist, were saying that Gingrich Public Policy, was Washington bureau and her parents told St. Paul’s. Even tests. She wants to be unnoticed, heights. “I could do nothing about it was “one of the top strategists of the chief of The Boston Globe during the after she contracted herpes from the take her final exams, and live up to except hoist up my book bag and conservative movement.” Gingrich ascendancy. One of the attack. Even after decades. Crawford the discipline she had lived all her walk away, sporting my freckles and He was on his way — to destroy the elements of his 1995 Pulitzer Prize was scapegoated, shunned. She ab- life. Her parents comply. a hankering for the Ivy League.” Democrats’ rule and to install himself was his analysis of the Gingrich sorbed the blame, became de- The book underscores the compli- St. Paul’s does not report the as- and his allies in their place. And by do- phenomenon. pressed, took Prozac. She was si- cated and oppressive machinations sault to the local police, which they lenced: by the school, the law, her of a young girl’s sexuality. For the are required to do. The boys’ varsity parents, threats, time. So what family holiday photo, her mother lacrosse coach asks the team to visit makes her story special? Its very or- buys Crawford a black velvet dress the infirmary if they were intimate dinariness. (One in approximately “belted tightly at the waist.” When with Crawford. In fact, the team Twitter’s favorite six females is the victim of rape or at- Crawford models it, her parents are knows about Crawford’s herpes be- tempted rape in the United States, agog at her body’s development, fore she does. Calls to St. Paul’s go most of which occur before the age of made evident by the fit of the dress. unreturned and the school threatens aristocrat tells her story 25.) “Oh” her mother said with a pursed her with unfounded and absurd ac- In “Notes on a Silencing,” Craw- pause. “It’s just that it’s inappropri- cusations unless and until her family ford lays bare the impact of violence ate for a girl your age to have breasts rescinds its claims. Even her injury on identity. She navigates her trau- that large. Maybe we could try an- — herpes — adds to the silencing, be- uGOLDBLATT mentary around the entire produc- ma surgically by trying to establish other dress?” Soon after, the family cause it’s a lifelong secret you can’t Continued from Page N8 tion. the parameters of its lexicon — was it drives to St. Louis from Chicago to see. Again and again and again, for trait of an Elderly Lady,” resplen- “I’m the one who knows she’s re- rape, assault, aggravated assault, ag- visit Crawford’s grandparents for as long as there is nobody to blame dent in an Elizabethan ruff. ally making fun of me,” she writes in gravated felonious assault, inter- Thanksgiving. Crawford brings her or to call to account, Crawford The writer goes to great lengths the memoir, “and it always makes course, nonconsensual sex? — then Walkman, a pillow, and the remains blames herself. Until she wrote this in the book to demarcate herself me laugh to myself, even though interrogating the terms in which to of her baby blanket “Nigh Nigh” book: at last, the story of her own de- from the Duchess. Goldblatt is an I’m, technically, the one doing it.” As define herself, as so many sexual as- along for the ride. “Much too old for sign. alter ego, someone onto whom she much as the Duchess and the writer sault victims do. Crawford pries that stuff,” her grandmother com- For a place that carried many se- can project her pain and have it are not the same, a lot of biography open the underpinnings of her child- ments upon seeing the tattered crets, St. Paul’s had no locks on the come back in the form of jokes. An and fiction get dropped in a cocktail hood, which operated in the taxono- cloth. When she carries her things dorm room doors, leaving its most obvious model is Dorothy Parker, shaker and poured over Twitter: my of wealth and privilege. “We were into the house upon returning home, valuable cargo — the students — ex- but in a way the writer’s creative “For my visit to the Dorothy Parker blessed with excellence and excel- Crawford can’t locate Nigh Nigh. She posed. But with the help of therapy, nimbleness and insistence on ano- Academy, I’m trying to choose one of lently blessed,” she writes, imbued never sees it again. detectives, records she thought lost nymity brings to mind someone the more joyful Christmas carols “with the Calvinistic confidence that Crawford is made to feel simulta- to time, and a new case brought to more like Lee Israel. (The reviewer about the divorce discovery pro- is actually a threat: if you do not be- neously promiscuous and infantile, the fore, Crawford is forcing the un- would like to say: I would hope the cess.” come spectacular, it means you are with no consideration of the liminal checked power of an elite institution Duchess takes this as a complement Through the course of the mem- not us.” Hers is a “goodly heritage” of space she is actually in. This refrac- to answer for their violations and the and not a slight, Your Grace.) oir the writer, perhaps more than “rigorously enforced manners” with tion is part of the same old tropes of victims they shoved into silent hall- “Duchess could say things I Duchess, learns to be honest about blue ribbons pinned to a bulletin women being expected to be both ways of despair. would never say,” she writes. Or as her past and the pain in it: “My fa- board of upper-class advantage. “Ev- Madonna and whore, virginal and she has tweeted, “I’m fictional, but ther’s memory is a blessing and a erything was coded,” she thinks, but sexual all at once, or one or the other, Kerri Arsenault is the book review my love is real.” And later “My love balm. When the Duchess is at her she is still too naïve to know the while being slut-shamed or pedes- editor at Orion Magazine, is real. I had it tested.” best, he’s alive again.” And she ad- codes. For her there is, as Jean-Paul taled for either role. This grab bag of contributing editor at Lit Hub, and Her proclamations sound like mits that part of anonymity is self- Sartre wrote and whom she began expectations feeds into Crawford’s her first book, Mill Town (St. pithy lines from a standup special — preservation: “If people can’t find reading at the time, Huis Clos,“No confusion and shame, so that when a Martin’s Press), will be published in that is, if the comedian was God you, they can’t break your heart.” Exit” for the existential crisis in male family friend gropes her in a September. and if God was an 81-year-old wom- Originally used as a tool to deal an from the 17th century. “I’d al- with her own trauma, over time the ways thought siblings were about Duchess has mutated into some- the worst thing you could ever do to thing more like a movement. Duch- a kid.” Or: “Nobody ever gets any- ess Goldblatt is a kind of way to re- Poetry, politics, and ‘Candy Crush’ thing they want in life, Lucy never write the ways we treat ourselves got to be in the nightclub act, Ethel and the people around us. The writ- uBIBLIOPHILES BOOKS: Did you read any biogra- BOOKS: Which poets do you read deserved better than Fred. Sure, Lu- er admits to a very famous friend Continued from Page N8 phies as background for your own now? cy and Ethel got fired from the can- she meets at one point in the book Boo is one of my favorite books of book? BALL: I have a couple of shelves in dy factory but it was a terrible job that the Duchess “whispers” little all time. That’s such a deeply re- BALL: There’s a great biography of my home library that I will dip into anyway.” prayers to each of her followers. searched book. “Random Family” one of Pelosi’s political role mod- to soothe my mind. I always go What’s most astonishing is the The writer articulates near the by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is anoth- els, Philip Burton, “A Rage for Jus- back to Philip Larkin. I have a lot of relationship Duchess has with her end that there must be a holy con- er all-time favorite. It’s like 900 tice” by John Jacobs. He’s a fasci- his poems memorized and recite community (upward of 25,000 fol- tract between the reader and the pages long but it’s so riveting. nating character. Another friend them to myself when I can’t sleep. I lowers on Twitter at last count). Duchess. She only exists if they be- of mine, Sally Bedell Smith, has also go back to Merrill. A.E Stall- They find her amusing, comforting, lieve in her. “Every day of my life I BOOKS: Who are your favorite nov- written a number of great biogra- ings is a poet I like who’s working assuring. One writes: “You make am real and you are fictional. You elists? phies. I read her book about today. She’s American but lives in even the loneliest feel important, only exist for me inside my mind. BALL: Growing up, my favorite Prince Charles, which is really in- Greece. She’s a formalist but does thank you.” Indeed, the Duchess re- Isn’t that fiction?” writer was James Jones, who teresting even for someone who’s some interesting things with the plies to every single comment and It’s loving the bizarre and cher- wrote “From Here to Eternity.” As not at all interested in British roy- form. tweet directed at her. She reads ev- ishing the weird that Goldblatt does an adult I’ve gravitated to more alty. erything, and responds to every- best. And it’s why so many people women writers. I devoured the El- BOOKS: What do you read for a thing. Her followers are as faithful trust her to tell them how to live, ena Ferrante books. I love Alice BOOKS: What else do you read? guilty pleasure? to her as she is to them. how to treat themselves with more Munro. My favorite book of the BALL: I was an English major in BALL: I don’t read for a guilty plea- Another commenter writes: “I compassion, how to treat each other last 10 years was “Netherland” by college and read poetry almost ex- sure. My guilty pleasure is “Candy was scrolling through your feed, as I better, too. Joseph O’Neill. It’s about cricket clusively though I took a class on Crush.” sometimes do, looking for comfort. “Don’t let anybody shame you for and 9/11, two subjects that inter- Joseph Conrad that changed my It cheered me up to see the entries your love of an imaginary friend,” est me barely at all, but it’s so life. My thesis was on James Mer- Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for the Duchess Goldblatt Dog she writes. “Religions have been beautifully written. I picked it up rill. What blew my mind my fresh- @GlobeBiblio. Amy Sutherland is show” One can almost picture founded on less.” because it was on Barack Obama’s man year was discovering “Para- the author, most recently, of Duchess Goldblatt as a character in reading list. I’m not necessarily an dise Lost.” I became obsessed with “Rescuing Penny Jane'' and she can Christopher Guest’s film “Best in Amy Pedulla is a writer and radio Obama fan but he has a good taste Milton. “Paradise Lost” is still one be reached at Show.” There’s an air of the mocku- producer. in writing. of my favorites. [email protected]. N10 Books Boston Sunday Globe JULY 5, 2020 The Fine Print

BOOKINGS THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK | KATE TUTTLE name) she is Caldwell’s buddy and inspiration, a fellow fan of dogs and words. “I live in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood for hippies,” Gail Caldwell on friendship, said Caldwell, a Cambridge resident and formerly The events listed are virtu- the Globe’s chief book critic. “As a single woman in al author readings and ap- feminism, and survival her sixties, milling about my house with my dog pearances. To attend these and my garden, Tyler was a subject to me of events please visit the such transformative joy and victory and jaw- bookstores’ websites. Gail Caldwell had already written three memoirs. “I dropping amazement.” Now 10, the girl lis- always say I’ll never do this again,” she said. “But then, tened to Caldwell read every word of the book SUNDAY I’m a writer. So something starts to happen.” about her, and approved. She’s not old enough Elin Kelsey (“A Last Good- Her latest book, “Bright Precious Thing,” began as a yet to read the whole book. bye”) reads at 10:30 a.m. series of essays, touching on friendship, feminism, and The other great love in the book is for at Brookline Booksmith. survival. She wrote, Caldwell said, “from my late sixties dogs. “I have this profound respect for hu- MONDAY looking back into the late ’60s. I started to see the man-animal relationships,” she said. “Our Stephanie Burt (“After Cal- paths that I had taken as much more defined by my relationship to nature and what it teaches limachus: Poems”) is in gender and my experience with the early women’s us about death and rebirth: that matters to conversation with Univer- movement than I had ever really written about.” me more and more and everything else mat- sity of Chicago professor The shorter pieces she was writing gained urgency ters less and less as I age.” Mark Payne at 7 p.m. at during and after the 2016 election. “I felt the way writ- Gail Caldwell will be in conversation with Glo- Harvard Book Store... ers often feel, which is utterly helpless,” she said. “The ria Steinem at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7, Charlotte Pence (“Code”) only thing I had is my voice.” at a virtual event hosted by Harvard is in conversation with Although the book travels down some dark Book Store. See www.harvard.com for John Skoyles and Gail Ma- roads — including more than one experience while details. zur (“Land’s End”) at 7 hitchhiking — there is a sweetness at its heart, pri- p.m. at Brookline Book- marily due to the relationship Caldwell describes Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and smith. with a neighbor child who has become her dear critic, can be reached at TUESDAY friend. “This amazing child! She fell into my life,” [email protected]. Gail Caldwell (“Bright Pre- Caldwell said. Dubbed Tyler in the book (not her real DAVID WILSON FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE cious Thing: A Memoir”) is in conversation with Gloria Steinem (“The Truth Will NEW ENGLAND LITERARY NEWS | NINA MACLAUGHLIN Set You Free, But First It Medical memoir Will Piss You Off”) at 7 “I claim no special powers; nor do I know how to p.m. at Harvard Book handle death any better than you,” writes Harvard grad Store... Rory Power (“Burn and ER doctor Michele Harper in her wise and elegant our Bodies Down”) reads debut memoir, “TheBeautyinBreaking” (Riverhead), at 7 p.m. at Brookline which comes out this week. Harper writes of cultivating Booksmith... Meg Mitchell a state of stillness, one that serves her well in the ER, Moore (“Two Truths and a and one she learned in childhood living with an abusive, Lie”) reads at 7 p.m. at Bel- battering father. She writes candidly of what it is to be mont Books. Black in the primarily white medical system, the lie of a WEDNESDAY post-racial America, and a glass ceiling for women that Steven Levy (“Facebook: doesn’t so much shatter as bow. Wrenching scenes are The Inside Story”) is in balanced with Harper’s confident and steadying prose. conversation with Harvard “It is only in silence that horror can persist,” she writes. professor Lawrence Lessig at 7 p.m. at Harvard Book Fellowships and grants Store... Co-authors Joseph The Mass Cultural Council recently announced the Nevins, Suren Moodliar, recipients of its annual artist fellowships for fiction and and Eleni Macrakis (“A creative non-fiction. Out of over 600 applications, the People’s Guide to Greater judges selected 13 Massachusetts-based writers. Seven Boston”) read at 7 p.m. at writers were awarded grants of $15k each, including Brookline Booksmith... Morris Collins of Boston, Kelle Groom of Provincetown, Angie Kim (“Miracle Daniel E. Robb of Amherst, Whitney Scharer of Arling- Creek”) and Lisa Gornick ton, Emily Shelton of Cambridge, Ann Ward of Shutes- (“The Peacock Feast”) read bury, and Linda Woolford of Andover. Six writers were at 7 p.m. at Belmont awarded $1500, including Robert Dall of Cambridge, Books... Danica McKellar Justine Dymond of Belchertown, Amanda L. Giracca of (“The Times Machine!”) Great Barrington, Matthew Muller of Pittsfield, Chivas reads at 7 p.m. at Unlikely Sandage of Northampton, and Alyssa Songsiridej of Story. MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM. COURTESY OF THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES Cambridge. The National Endowment for the Arts also THURSDAY Images from “A People’s Guide to Greater Boston”: Families playing on Neptune Road, a street recently announced their grants awarded to literary arts Eric Swalwell (“Endgame: that abutted Logan Airport. An anti-nuclear power demonstration in Kendall Square in 1974. organizations. In New England, the Boston Book Festi- Inside the Impeachment of val received a $15k grant. Grub Street receives $45k. Donald J. Trump”) is in Radical roadmap And the Telling Room in Portland receives $15k. conversation with Con- “A People’s Guide to Greater Boston” (Universi- gressman Joe Kennedy III ty of California) is not a glossy pit of tired tourist Coming out at 7 p.m. at Harvard Book pap. It’s a history lesson with a point of view, shin- “Want” by Lynn Steger Strong (Henry Holt) Store. ing light on the city’s radical past, highlighting pro- “Last One Out Shut Off the Lights” by Stephanie Soi- FRIDAY tests and movements and the power people of Bos- leau (Little, Brown) Brad Fox (“To Remain ton have had in shaping the place they live. Au- “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” by Alicia Elliott Nameless: A Novel”) is in thors Joseph Nevins, who grew up in Dorchester; (Melville House) conversation with Claire Suren Moodilar, an activist and editor who lives in Messud (“The Emporer’s Chelsea; and Cambridge native and Harvard grad Pick of the week Children”) at 7 p.m. at Eleni Macrakis write of sites like Grove Hall in Dor- Roxie Mack at Broadside Books in Northampton rec- Harvard Book Store. chester, where in June 1967, 50 protestors locked ommends “IHotel” by Karen Tei Yamashita (Coffee SATURDAY themselves in to demand welfare reform and were House): “‘I Hotel’ is a fictional account of the lives of Valerie Bolling (“Let’s SPENCER GRANT pulled out violently by police, leading to three days Asian-American activists in the late 60s and early 70s. Dance!”) reads at 11 a.m. of rioting. Or of the Middle East Nightclub in Cam- Mirroring the fearless experimentalism of the time, Ya- on the Brookline Book- bridge, which used to be home to “Old Mole,” an on the receiving end of unjust forms of power and mashita tells the story using a mix of narrative, drama, smith Instagram. underground newspaper that called itself “a radical those who work to challenge such inequalities” and real and fictionalized documentary passages. The biweekly.” The book is a comprehensive exploration aiming for a place “that is radically inclusive and story, based in many instances on actual incidents, trac- Some events may require of Boston, its neighborhoods, and its nearby democratic and that centers on social and environ- es the intertwined lives of a generation of Chinese, Japa- online registration. Send towns—Waltham, Lynn, Concord, the North and mental justice.” It’s a timely, intelligent, and neces- nese, Pilipino, and Korean revolutionaries. She brings to announcements to South Shores. The book pulls the curtain back on sary guide, one that deepens our understanding of light intriguing parallels between the then-emerging boston.globe. the city’s history of furthering the inequality of a where we live now and reminds us of the power Black Power movement and the Asian activists.” [email protected] at least capitalist world economy and perpetrating violence that regular citizens have to work against powers two weeks before event date. against natural resources. “A people’s perspective and systems that are, now as then, in urgent need Nina MacLaughlin is the author of “Wake, Siren.” She Events are subject to change. privileges the desires, hopes, and struggles of those of change. can be reached at [email protected].

WHAT YOU’RE READING LOCAL BESTSELLERS Eyes on history HARDCOVER PAPERBACK I have recently read two books by local authors. The FICTION FICTION first book is “No Common RIVERHEAD BOOKS 1. The Vanishing Half Brit Bennett 1. Normal People Sally Rooney HOGARTH War,” by Luke Salisbury. He LITTLE BROWN 2. 28 Summers Elin Hilderbrand 2. The Overstory Richard Powers NORTON wrote a novel about two rela- KNOPF 3. A Burning Megha Majumdar 3. Circe Madeline Miller BACK BAY tives who fought with the 24th HARPER 4. The Dutch House Ann Patchett 4. Little Fires Everywhere Celeste Ng PENGUIN N.Y. Volunteers during the Civil PENGUIN PRESS War. The most recent book I 5. Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh 5. Beach Read Emily Henry BERKELEY PUTNAM read is by Glen Johnson (a for- 6. Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens 6. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead ANCHOR 7. American Dirt Jeanine Cummins FLATIRON BOOKS mer Globe reporter) called 7. City of Girls Elizabeth Gilbert RIVERHEAD BOOKS “Window Seat on the World.” 8. Such a Fun Age Kiley Reid PUTNAM 8. Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ANCHOR It’s an invaluable book if you 9. All Adults Here Emma Straub RIVERHEAD BOOKS 9. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles PENGUIN want an understanding of how RIVERHEAD BOOKS 10. Deacon King Kong James McBride 10. The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heath Morris HARPER the State Department practices diplomacy. Mr. Johnson was the official (travel) photogra- NONFICTION pher to Secretary of State John 1. How to Be An Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi ONE WORLD NONFICTION Kerry for four years. 2. The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir John 1. White Fragility Robin DiAngelo BEACON PRESS — Dean Contover, Bolton S&S 2. So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo SEAL PRESS Chelmsford 3. Me and White Supremacy Layla Saad SOURCEBOOKS 3. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Rac- Two from McBride 4. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and ist Ideas in America Ibram X. Kendi BOLD TYPE BOOKS After reading “Deacon King Defiance During the Blitz Erik Larson CROWN 4. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color- 5. Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates ONE WORLD Kong” by James McBride, I blindness Michelle Alexander NEW PRESS “Song Yet Sung.” 6. Untamed Glennon Doyle THE DIAL PRESS read his His 5. Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson ONE WORLD dialogue captures exactly how 7. Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic 6. The Fire Next Time James Baldwin VINTAGE enslaved people, slave owners, Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Chris Wallace 7. Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafete- and slave-catchers must have AVID READER PRESS ria?: And Other Conversations About Race Beverly Daniel Tatum talked — plus an exciting story 8. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art James Nestor RIVERHEAD BASIC BOOKS about a fictional ancestor of BOOKS 8. Born a Crime Trevor Noah ONE WORLD Martin Luther King. 9. What It’s Like to Be a Bird David Allen Sibley KNOPF 9. The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson VINTAGE — Donald Caplin, 10. Educated Tara Westover RANDOM HOUSE 10. The Color of Law Richard Rothenstein LIVERIGHT Waltham

THE NEW ENGLAND INDIE BESTSELLER LIST, AS BROUGHT TO YOU BY INDIEBOUND AND NEIBA, FOR THE WEEK ENDED SUNDAY, JUNE 28. BASED ON REPORTING FROM THE INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS OF THE NEW ENG- Write us at [email protected] to tell us what you are reading LAND INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION AND INDIEBOUND. FOR AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU, VISIT INDIEBOUND.ORG. thesse days.