God's Stepchildren

This 1924 novel about racial divisions in South Africa over roughly 100 years, from 1820 to 1920, is perceptive and affecting. Some of the language and ideas are outdated and offensive, but if you look to the heart of the book, that is, the people and their relationships, dreams, fears and beliefs, you will find a rich, multigenerational tale. Sarah Gertrude Millin's style is no-nonsense and drills down quickly to the essence of the issue: what is the meaning of identity for a multiracial person? 

Operation Shylock

Philip Roth the writer becomes Philip Roth the character in this novel, bedeviled by an impersonator in Israel. It is a dizzying and exhilarating trip in which, to the author's great credit, both cockamamie ideas and their refutations are equally convincing.

The Revenge of the Analog

Subtitled "Real Things and Why They Matter," David Sax's book argues for the superiority of physical, analog artifacts over their digital counterparts in several areas: for example, Moleskine notebooks, vinyl records, classroom teaching, and print newspapers. It is a necessary argument and, when dovetailed with a book like Tom Hodgkinson's How to be Idle, could form a useful philosophy of turning one's back on the digital world.

Zero Zero Zero

Roberto Saviano caught my attention with Gomorrah, an account of how Naples was fouled by drugs, crime, and pollution, and here he widens his lens to explain international cocaine trafficking. Widens, and helpfully focuses: for example, with microscopic detail on the ways in which drug gangs disguise and ship their product. His form of using traditional explanatory journalism woven with a personal narrative takes some getting used to, but ultimately it succeeds.