New York Review of Books Review

AMERICAN MOONSHOT: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, by Douglas Brinkley. (Harper/ HarperCollins, $35.) In his study of the politics behind Apollo ll's launch, Brinkley fits the space program into a wider American social context. He also asks whether the program was worth the tens of billions it cost, and argues that for its technological advances alone, it was. ORIGINAL PRIN, by Randy Boyagoda. (John Metcalf/Biblioasis, paper, $14.95.) This highly original novel traces an unexceptional professor's path to becoming a suicide bomber. The comedy of literary and cultural references involves unfunny matters like cancer, a crisis of faith and Islamic terrorism, as well as easier comic subjects like juice-box fatherhood and academia. BIG SKY, by Kate Atkinson. (Little, Brown, $28.) After a nine-year absence, Atkinson's laconic private eye, Jackson Brodie, returns to deliver his idiosyncratic brand of justice to crime victims in a case involving human trafficking. THE PLAZA: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel, by Julie Satow. (Twelve, $29.) Satow's gossip-stuffed tale traces the history of one of New York's most iconic landmarks, the imposing white chateau at the corner of 59th and Fifth. THE WHITE DEVILS DAUGHTERS: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown, by Julia Flynn Siler. (Knopf, $28.95.) From the Gold Rush to the 1930s, a sex slave trade flourished in San Francisco's Chinatown. Siler's colorful history includes portraits of the determined women who helped thousands of Chinese girls escape to freedom. ORANGE WORLD: And Other Stories, by Karen Russell. (Knopf, $25.95.) Florida is the original or adopted home of some of America's most inventive fiction writers, Russell prominent among them. Her new collection is a feat of literary alchemy, channeling her home state's weirdness into unexpectedly affecting fantastical scenarios and landscapes. STRANGERS AND COUSINS, by Leah Hager Cohen. (Riverhead, $27.) Cheerful and lively, Cohen's new novel - set at an anarchic family gathering in rural New York - packs a lot of themes into its satisfyingly simple frame. As in a Shakespearean comedy, disparate relationships are resolved and familial love prevails. WAR AND PEACE: FDR's Final Odyssey, D-Day to Yalta, 19431945, by Nigel Hamilton. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30.) The final volume in the "F.D.R. at War" trilogy presents a heroic Roosevelt fending off myopic advisers to lead the Allies to victory. ASSAD OR WE BURN THE COUNTRY: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria, by Sam Dagher. (Little, Brown, $29.) Dagher draws on history, interviews and his own experience as a reporter in Syria to depict an utterly ruthless regime. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books