Twenty Years, by Sune Engel Rasmussen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). This foreign correspondent’s account of the two decades following the American invasion of Afghanistan uses a kaleidoscope of individual stories to portray how the country was “hollowed out” by “waste, fraud, price gouging, and profiteering.” Two subjects in particular come to the fore: Zahra, an Afghan refugee who returns from Iran after the Taliban is ousted; and Omari, a Talib, who is as motivated by religion as he is by the brutality of the U.S. military. As Rasmussen interweaves the war and his subjects’ stories, he shows how historical events intrude on the quotidian, and examines a foreign intervention in which, he writes, “lessons were rarely learned, mistakes often repeated.”
The Wisdom of Sheep, by Rosamund Young (Penguin). This meditative book reflects on more than four decades of living and working at Kite’s Nest, an organic farm in the Cotswolds, in England. Though Young acknowledges the “unremitting hard work” involved in farming, her anecdotes emphasize its pleasures: the welcome from her herd of sheep after she’s been away; the sight of a field full of frogs, signifying a healthy ecosystem. The farm’s cows, chickens, cats, and sheep “are all individuals with incredibly varied personalities.” Indeed, her stories show them to be subtly emotive—recalcitrant, helpful, blithe, astute. One hen, locked out of the house by mistake, leaps onto the windowsill “and pulls faces at me as I wash the dishes, forcing me to run to the door with profuse apologies.”
What We’re Reading
Illustration by Rose Wong
Discover notable new fiction and nonfiction.
How to Leave the House, by Nathan Newman (Viking). This zippy novel takes place in the course of twenty-four hours on the day before the protagonist—a smart, self-centered, bisexual twenty-three-year-old—is meant to leave for university. The book alternates between chapters about the boy as he attempts to recover an important lost package and about the people he runs into along the way—an insecure ex-boyfriend, a cancer survivor, an elderly neighbor who has recently discovered a dark secret about her dead husband. Sprinkled throughout are wide-ranging cultural references—from Charlie Chaplin to broken phone screens—that nod at humanity’s interconnectedness, and, ultimately, help the boy learn that his is only one among many rich lives.
Woodworm, by Layla Martínez, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott (Two Lines). Vengeance and ghostly visitations undergird this début novel about a young woman and her grandmother who live in a house where they are plagued by what they call “the woodworm”: a “bastard itch that won’t leave you in peace or let you leave others in peace either.” The women’s story is anchored in a long-simmering feud with their wealthier neighbors, which reaches back generations; when a child goes missing, the town’s collective suspicions fall on the granddaughter, and the conflict boils over into the present. Shadowed by the Spanish Civil War and the remarkable cruelty of men, the violent tale unspools into a potent consideration of inherited trauma and the elusiveness of justice.