THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 3TO SUBSCRIBEto the Book Review by mail, visit nytimes.com/getbookreview or call 1-800-631-
Book Review AUGUST 9, 2020
Fiction
7 Romance
Reviewed by Olivia Waite
9 KINGS COUNTY
By David Goodwillie
Reviewed by Adelle Waldman
17 FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER
By Rachel Beanland
Reviewed by Allegra Goodman
17 LAKE LIFE
By David James Poissant
Reviewed by Jean Thompson
Nonfiction
1CASTE
The Origins of Our Discontents
By Isabel Wilkerson
Reviewed by Kwame Anthony Appiah
8 THE VAPORS
A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and
the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s
Forgotten Capital of Vice
By David Hill
Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
10 THE BEAUTY OF LIVING
E.E. Cummings in the Great War
By J. Alison Rosenblitt
Reviewed by David Bromwich
11 FALSE ALARM
How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions,
Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet
By Bjorn Lomborg
Reviewed by Joseph E. Stiglitz
12 WAITING FOR AN ECHO
The Madness of American Incarceration
By Christine Montross
Reviewed by Justin Driver
14 THE RULES OF CONTAGION
Why Things Spread — and Why They Stop
By Adam Kucharski
Reviewed by Mark Honigsbaum
14 RAISING A RARE GIRL
A Memoir
By Heather Lanier
Reviewed by Kate Braestrup15 TO START A WAR
How the Bush Administration Took America
Into Iraq
By Robert Draper
Reviewed by Jacob Heilbrunn22 The Shortlist
Literary Memoirs
Reviewed by Michael HaineyChildren’s Books
18 Novels
Nicola Yoon reviews “The Voting Booth,” by
Brandy Colbert. Jennifer Mathieu reviews
“Dress Coded,” by Carrie Firestone.Features
6 By the Book
Edmund White13 Essay
Camus’s Inoculation Against Hate
By Laura Marris23 Off the Shelf
By Amitava KumarEtc.
4 New & Noteworthy
5 Letters
19 Best-Seller Lists
19 Editors’ Choice
20 Inside the List
20 Paperback RowThe All-in-One Resource
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Organizing and
Maintaining Your Space
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Provide[s] the secret sauce you need
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“You can’t get it wrong with
Right at Home. Buy it, read it, and sink
into the zen of an orderly space.”
—JONATHAN ADLER