For her new book, “Salvage,” the Trinidadian-born writer Dionne Brand rereads classic English novels, teasing out evidence of the ravages of colonialism.
Aaron Robertson’s grandparents had a farm in Promise Land, Tenn. In a new book, he explores the history and meaning of such utopian communities for African Americans.
Weeding, or culling old, damaged or outdated books, is standard practice in libraries. But in some cases it is being used to remove books because of the viewpoint they express.
Thousands of books have been publicly challenged and removed from libraries in the past couple of years. Elizabeth Harris, who covers books and the publishing industry for The New York Times, explains how books are being pulled from libraries in a quiet process called weeding. Weeding normally allows librarians to keep collections current, but some lawsuits argue that it has been used instead to remove books for content about racism, sexuality and gender.
Transported to safe haven in England as a Jewish child in 1938, she explored themes of displacement with penetrating wit in autobiographical fiction like “Other People’s Houses.”
Tipped off by the detective Frank Serpico, he wrote an explosive series on police corruption in New York City, sparking an investigation by the Knapp commission.
In “The Hidden Globe,” the journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian examines the rise of spaces where wealthy countries and companies bend rules and regulations to their advantage.