In 2002, Swiss author and theater director Blubacher received a grant for a three-month residency at Villa Aurora, a 7,000-square-foot “Spanish colonial revival villa” in Pacific Palisades that was Thomas Mann’s house in the 1940s. That neighborhood, west of Beverly Hills, is now home to wealthy residents, many of them in the entertainment business. Sixty years before Blubacher’s arrival, the then-sleepy Palisades was where émigrés from Austria and Germany, including Mann, came to escape the Nazis and pursue a career in Hollywood. Blubacher’s objective during his residency and in this informative book is to investigate “the period when Pacific Palisades became ‘Weimar under the palms,’” when some of “the Weimar Republic’s most prominent cultural figures found their way here.” Among the figures presented in the book are the director Ernst Lubitsch, “who would become one of the most influential Germans in Hollywood” in the 1930s and 1940s; fellow directors Fritz Lang and Douglas Sirk; composers such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Hans Salter; and lesser-known figures such as Lotte Mosbacher, best known today as the “aged Holocaust survivor who recognizes the Nazi war criminal Dr. Christian Szell” in John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man. Some of the stories Blubacher shares are no less chilling for being expected, such as when Marlene Dietrich returned to Germany in 1945 to learn the fate of older sister Elisabeth and discovered that Elisabeth and her husband “had run a cinema at the Belsen barracks, where the murderers went for entertainment. Dietrich disowned her sister for the rest of her life.” But others are lighter and provide a welcome respite, as when Blubacher mentions that when Mann was taken around to many studios on his arrival in Hollywood, one of them was Disney, “where he was shown a Mickey Mouse film.”

The late philosopher Roland Barthes had a fear of heights and a hatred of mountains. Had he been around to read McPherson’s book, he might have reconsidered: Seeing from up high can yield awe, and while “awe often carries an undercurrent of fear,” it can provoke some, if you will, elevated thoughts. It can also yield awareness of what surveyors call “ground truth,” a point that McPherson, author of Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat, addresses with his account of John B. Bachelder. An artist who arrived at the Gettysburg battlefield two days after the fighting there had stopped, Bachelder drew an aerial-perspective map that was so detailed that, after publication in 1864, thousands of military officers on both sides scrutinized it; in the end, after collating their findings, “only a single regiment was moved.” From there McPherson moves on to explore the 19th-century “mania” for bird’s-eye-view maps made by artists who “had learned well the perspective drawing of Renaissance masters.” McPherson darts from subject to subject, from the workings of aerial intelligence in modern spycraft to the AI targeting systems being used to bombard Gaza and the proliferation of drones. The narrative is thus rather diffuse—he himself admits to “attempting to keep many topics in view”—and the writing can sometimes drift into the purply abstract (“What is the length of a feeling? Totality lasted minutes, or an eternity, or was nothing at all.”) And while there are better books and articles on perception from above, including Barry Lopez’s peerless essay “Flight” and William Langewiesche’s Inside the Sky, McPherson’s book has some fine moments, perhaps most memorably his slog up a Texas mountain to look at a clock that’s meant to tick away for the next 10,000 years, taking a long view indeed.

The book opens as the unnamed narrator reflects on how she has lost herself. In trying for years to meet everyone else’s needs, she has forgotten about what truly matters to her, and she resolves to take a new approach to finding happiness. Then the story introduces its other main character, “the princess,” who has just recently married “the prince.” As they begin what is supposed to be a fairytale life, not everything is as easy as they expected. The book alternates between the perspectives of the princess and the narrator, both women giving birth to a son and a daughter. The princess’s children are called simply “the heirs,” while the narrator’s are her boy and her girl, never receiving proper names. As the women learn to care for their children, they realize they can’t devote as much time to their professions as they’d hoped, and they must adjust either their parenting strategies or their career goals. The husbands are busy trying to earn enough to support their families, but the children are hard work, and arguments between the spouses become frequent. As both marriages spiral further away from their romantic beginnings, the question at the heart of the story is whether the expectations on women to be perfect mothers are simply too much. Writing in haunting, introspective prose, the author captures the essence of early motherhood, from the hazy months of sleep-deprivation to the angst many feel about juggling careers with children. By alternating first-person narration with the story of the princess, the author also highlights how the lives of others often look more idyllic from the outside. The book is partially a commentary on the lack of support women receive when they become mothers, but it’s also an examination of how lack of communication in marriage can lead to deep fissures. While this poetic tale feels more like an allegory than a plot-driven novel, light on setting and character details, the insight into modern parenting is sufficiently insightful that the book becomes compelling.

When it first became popular, Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was often associated with minimalism, as she instructed de-clutterers to keep only things that “spark joy.” At the same time, her guidance to thank objects for their service was a point of puzzlement: Do material goods and personal surroundings really matter? In Kondo’s new book, she answers with a resounding yes, an affirmation rooted in the foundational values of Japanese culture. Beginning with superficial, highly visible aspects of Japanese popular culture, such as kawaii and otaku fandom, she highlights how attachment to adorable things and cherished objects can help one understand and express their personal identity. She soon moves into more private spheres and practices, reflecting on seeking creative inspiration at hot spring baths, the intentionality of Japanese hospitality, and the consideration poured into preparing food. Ultimately, she arrives at specifically Japanese spiritual matters, exploring carefully constructed Shinto shrine grounds and serenely deliberate gardens to find stillness and harmony with nature. Each reflection includes a historical explication of the concept, complimented by Kondo’s experiences—whether exclaiming over sakura (a flowering cherry tree), making her children’s bentos, or working as a shrine maiden—and how that concept might relate to “tidying up” one’s life. Kondo’s years of living in the U.S. have given her an acute understanding of her identity as a Japanese person, and sharing that cross-cultural perspective is meaningful in itself. For those compelled by Kondo, her book reveals the underpinnings of her organizational philosophy with refreshing thoroughness. Though the book’s intricate entries are not for true newcomers to Japan seeking a surface-level survey, Kondo’s compendium will delight those hoping to appreciate Japanese cultural touchstones that they’ve encountered more deeply.

Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.