From Bill Gates to MLK’s mother: Dig into the best books of February
February fiction runs the gamut from a story about women starting over to an allegory about the Arab Spring. In nonfiction, a tripartite biography of Alberta King (mother of Martin Luther King Jr.), Louise Little (mother of Malcolm X), and Berdis Baldwin (mother of James Baldwin) explores the influence they wielded in their sons’ lives. Bill Gates points to high-tech solutions in “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” And two major figures of the stage and screen – playwright Tom Stoppard and director Mike Nichols – are the subjects of outstanding biographies.
Why We Wrote This
Books provide an oasis for contemplation and reflection, as well as the opportunity to commune with well-versed thinkers. Our picks for February touch on life passages, famous lives, and plain talk about climate change.
This month's fiction offerings span the globe – with stories set in Tunisia, Chile, and Britain – while the nonfiction titles tackle climate change and the labor movement.
1. The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson
Anne Youngson follows her charming epistolary novel, “Meet Me at the Museum,” with another soothing, heartening read about the possibility of forging new connections and changing one’s life at any age. Two women, new acquaintances and both at a crossroads in their lives, agree to help a stranger by skippering her narrowboat some 300 miles north along England’s canals. In the course of their adventure, they meet some unusual people and untangle their thoughts about how they want to live going forward. Read the full review here.
Why We Wrote This
Books provide an oasis for contemplation and reflection, as well as the opportunity to commune with well-versed thinkers. Our picks for February touch on life passages, famous lives, and plain talk about climate change.
2. How to Order the Universe by María José Ferrada
When 7-year-old M skips school to accompany her father on his rounds as a traveling salesman in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the two embark on an adventure that alters their lives. Their successful partnership soon deteriorates, and along with it, a way of life. María José Ferrada, whose previous work includes children’s books, imparts a tale that captures a child’s perspective on a world created and disrupted by adults.
3. The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai
In a beautifully written novel that blends poetry with politics, Tunisian author Yamen Manai explores the era that followed the Arab Spring in the 2010s. In an allegorical tale, he writes of a devoted “bee whisperer” who finds one of his hives destroyed. Searching for answers, he ventures beyond his village and discovers a world filled with people with competing interests.
4. My Year Abroad by Chang-rae Lee
Tiller Bardmon, the antihero of “My Year Abroad,” returns to the U.S. from an international escapade. His discombobulating journey becomes an outstanding bildungsroman confronting identity, familial bonds, misplaced loyalty, and consumption culture.
5. The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat
Jenny Lecoat’s World War II novel follows Hedy Bercu, an Austrian Jew who escaped the Nazis in Vienna only to find herself working for them as a translator. Inspired by true events, this sweeping story of humanity and hope celebrates courageous individuals surviving oppression.
6. Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris
This entertaining, illuminating biography of famed director Mike Nichols stays focused on his work, spanning his comedy improvisation duo with Elaine May and his direction of several Neil Simon plays along with movies such as “The Graduate” and “Silkwood.”
7. The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs
This eye-opening debut corrects the erasure of Alberta King (Martin Luther King Jr.’s mother), Louise Little (Malcolm X’s mother), and Berdis Baldwin (James Baldwin’s mother) from the historical record. Each woman was a strong influence on her famous son; all three buried their sons as well.
8. Tom Stoppard: A Life by Hermione Lee
In this near-perfect combination of author and subject, Hermione Lee crafts a biography of one of the greatest living playwrights. Stoppard’s work includes not only plays (“Arcadia”) but also films (“Shakespeare in Love”). The book will surely be the jumping-off point for all future studies of Stoppard.
9. Midnight in Vehicle City by Edward McClelland
Fed up with erratic pay and dangerous working conditions, workers at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, went on strike in late 1936. Edward McClelland vividly recounts how the strikers fought off local law enforcement to maintain control of the plant, enabling the fledgling United Auto Workers to negotiate one of the biggest labor victories in U.S. history.
10. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
Bill Gates offers a clear summary of the climate crisis and argues, unsurprisingly, that technological innovation is the solution to the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. The book is a treat for technophiles, and a crash course for nature lovers on how our civilization works. Still, the book provides little guidance on how to mobilize the political will or the personal resolve to live more sustainably. It is a sobering yet hopeful assessment, and a call to arms.
