5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

Our smorgasbord of sumptuous reviews this week includes Anahid Nersessian on Ashton Politanoff’s Dad Had a Bad Day, Peter Beinart on Akbar Shahid Ahmed’s Crossing the Red Line, Jennifer Wilson on Lars Anderson’s Brady, Sanjena Sathian on Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon, and Jeff

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The New Yorker

Free quota

“Narrow Escape,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fiction by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in English for the first time: The police lieutenant appeared to be writing down exactly what Gleb was telling him, but relying upon completely different words.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn·Sep 27, 2026·14 min read

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Literary Hub

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Gloria Steinem’s An Unexpected Life, Naomi Alderman’s The Strangers, Chuck Klosterman’s Rock*, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. *

Book Marks·Sep 25, 2026

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Literary Hub

Lit Hub Weekly: September 21 – 25, 2026

During the season of big books, how do you choose one to read? With a flowchart, obviously. | Lit Hub Ed Simon explores the limits of language to understand why “pain makes poor poets out of all of us.” |

Lit Hub Daily·Sep 26, 2026

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Public Books

The Treachery of Machine Realism

“The bombed elementary school in Iran appears to have become a target thanks to satellite imaging. In this case, what the image represented — and to who — was a matter of life and death.” The post The Treachery of Machine Realism appeared first on Public Books.

Morgan Barry·Sep 23, 2026

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The Paris Review

“Do You Think This Conversation Is Going Well?” and Other Pickup Lines

“The dating app has engineered what one might call an Enneagrammatical system of bookish star signs.”

Gemma Sieff·Sep 25, 2026

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The Paris Review

John Berger, Death’s Secretary: A Conversation with Tom Overton

“The first letter I sent to him was about a print that he’d made, which was in the archive—a Chagall-inspired Virgin Mary standing on a donkey.”

Scott Schomburg·Sep 24, 2026