Book Reviews

The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper that Changed American Culture 

Tricia Romano. Public Affairs, 2024. 571 pages. $35.00.

Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It 

Christof Koch. Basic Books, 2024. 288 pages. $30.00.

Small Scale Sinners: Stories 

Mahreen Sohail. A Public Space Books, 2025. 136 pages. $20.00.

Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy

Daniel Okrent. Yale University Press, 2026. 297 pages. $35.00.

America, América: A New History of the New World 

Greg Grandin. Penguin Press, 2025. 768 pages. $35.00.

Every Living Thing

Jason Roberts. Random House, 2024. 432 pages. $36.99.

Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World

Julia Cooke. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2026. 448 pages. $34.00.

The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History 

Odd Arne Westad. Henry Holt, 2026. 256 pages. $27.99.

The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War

James Shapiro. Penguin Press, 2024. 358 pages. $30.00.

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Kathleen DuVal. Penguin Random House, 2025. 752 pages. $25.00.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. One World, 2024. 496 pages. $20.94.

Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World

Guru Madhavan. W. W. Norton & Company, 2024. 384 pages. $22.99.