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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
24 Books to Read This Summer
Oh, how I love to see a seasonal reading list that thinks beyond frontlist! The Atlantic offers up a refreshing spin on the summer reading list with 24 recommendations that range from cult classics to buzzy new releases, one-sitting page-turners to doorstoppers that might take you the whole season to finish. R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, the virtually indisputable most-anticipated book of summer, makes an appearance, as does one of my longtime faves, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (you might think you don’t want to read a biography of cancer, but I promise you’re wrong). It’s a list with real range that—more important—understands that most readers don’t live and die by the new release shelf, and it even introduced me to a few books I hadn’t heard of before.
The Politics of Dressing an American Girl
American Girl books were a staple of my childhood in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but I’ve never thought of them as more than vehicles for selling expensive dolls. This deep dive into the making of Addy, the series’ first Black character, changed all that. Jaha Nailah Avery speaks with the series author and historians who served on the advisory board (there was an advisory board! of historians!) to explore why they chose for the first Black American Girl to be enslaved and what her clothing is meant to communicate about her life. I had no idea that such care and detail went into the planning the American Girl books, and it’s wonderful to see the folks who made it happen receive some long overdue recognition.
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