CONTENTS Publisher’s Note . vii Complete Annotated List of Contents . ix Contributing Reviewers . xxix 21 Lessons for the 21st Century—Yuval Noah Harari . .1 The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Stuart Turton . .6 All We Ever Wanted—Emily Giffi n . 11 American Histories—John Edgar Wideman . 15 American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin—Terrance Hayes . 19 An American Marriage—Tayari Jones . 23 Asymmetry—Lisa Halliday . 28 Baby Teeth—Zoje Stage . 32 Back Talk—Danielle Lazarin . 36 Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup—John Carreyrou . 40 Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”—Zora Neale Hurston . 45 Beastie Boys Book—Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz . 50 Bellewether—Susanna Kearsley . 54 Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found—Gilbert King . 58 The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table—Rick Bragg . 62 Brass—Xhenet Aliu . 66 Brother—David Chariandy . 70 Call Me American—Abdi Nor Iftin with Max Alexander . 75 Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)— Rebecca Solnit . 79 Calypso—David Sedaris . 83 A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety—Donald Hall . 88 The Carrying—Ada Limón . 92 Churchill: Walking with Destiny—Andrew Roberts . 97 Circe—Madeline Miller . 102 Clock Dance—Anne Tyler . 106 The Day the Sun Died—Yan Lianke . 111 The Death of Mrs. Westaway—Ruth Ware . 115 The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast— Michael Scott Moore. 119 Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan— Steve Coll . 124 iii MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2019 Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America— Beth Macy . 129 Educated—Tara Westover . 134 The Emissary—Yoko Tawada . 139 Empire of Sand—Tasha Suri . 144 Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance— Alex Hutchinson . 148 Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress— Steven Pinker . 153 Eternal Life—Dara Horn . 158 Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World—Eileen McNamara . 162 A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America—T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong . 166 Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind— Michael Massing . 171 The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century—Kirk Wallace Johnson . 176 Feel Free—Zadie Smith . 181 The Female Persuasion—Meg Wolitzer . 185 Fight No More—Lydia Millet . 189 The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq—C. J. Chivers . 194 Flights—Olga Tokarczuk . 199 Florida—Lauren Groff . 203 Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology—Sands Hall . 207 The Flying Mountain—Christoph Ransmayr . 212 Force of Nature—Jane Harper . 216 Frankenstein in Baghdad—Ahmed Saadawi . 221 The Friend—Sigrid Nunez . 225 From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia— Michael McFaul . 229 Fruit of the Drunken Tree—Ingrid Rojas Contreras . 234 Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times—Alan Walker . 239 The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny beyond Earth—Michio Kaku . 244 The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After— Clemantine Wamariya with Elizabeth Weil . 249 Girls Burn Brighter—Shobha Rao . 254 Give Me Your Hand—Megan Abbott . 258 God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State— Lawrence Wright . 262 The Great Alone—Kristin Hannah . 266 iv CONTENTS Grist Mill Road—Christopher J. Yates . 271 Heads of the Colored People—Nafi ssa Thompson-Spires . 276 A History of Judaism—Martin Goodman. 280 Home after Dark—David Small . 285 How Hard Can It Be?—Allison Pearson . 289 How Long ’til Black Future Month?—N. K. Jemisin . 294 How to Be Safe—Tom McAllister . 298 How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence— Michael Pollan . 302 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel—Alexander Chee . 307 I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer—Michelle McNamara . 311 The Immortalists—Chloe Benjamin . 316 In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin— Lindsey Hilsum . 321 Indecency—Justin Phillip Reed . 326 Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man—Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic . 330 Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness—Alisa Roth . 335 Junk—Tommy Pico . 340 The Kiss Quotient—Helen Hoang . 345 v CONTENTS Complete Annotated List of Contents . vii The Labyrinth of the Spirits—Carlos Ruiz Zafón . 351 Lake Success—Gary Shteyngart . 355 The Largesse of the Sea Maiden—Denis Johnson . 359 Last Stories—William Trevor . 363 Lawn Boy—Jonathan Evison . 368 Leadership in Turbulent Times—Doris Kearns Goodwin . 372 The Library Book—Susan Orlean . 377 The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife 1965–2005—Zachary Leader . 382 The Life to Come—Michelle de Kretser . 387 Little—Edward Carey . 392 Look Alive Out There—Sloane Crosley . 396 A Lucky Man—Jamel Brinkley . 401 The Mars Room—Rachel Kushner . 406 The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War—Benn Steil . 410 The Maze at Windermere—Gregory Blake Smith . 415 The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror—Daniel Mallory Ortberg . 420 Milkman—Anna Burns . 424 The Monk of Mokha—Dave Eggers . 429 A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History—Jeanne Theoharis . 434 A Necessary Evil—Abir Mukherjee . 438 The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke—Jeff rey C. Stewart . 443 Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture—Roxane Gay. 447 November Road—Lou Berney . 451 The Other Woman—Sandie Jones . 456 Our House—Louise Candlish . 460 The Overstory—Richard Powers . 464 The Perfect Mother—Aimee Molloy . 469 The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World— Simon Winchester . 474 Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces—Michael Chabon . 479 Promise Not to Tell—Jayne Ann Krentz . 483 The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath—Leslie Jamison . 487 Reporter—Seymour M. Hersh . 492 iii MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2019 The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World— Steve Brusatte . 498 The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam— Max Boot . 502 Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon—Robert Kurson . 507 Room to Dream—David Lynch and Kristine McKenna . 512 Rust & Stardust—T. Greenwood . ..