Lit Hub's Book Marks Highlights Five New Reviews

Lit Hub's Book Marks service has published its weekly selection of notable book reviews. The five featured critiques cover works of fiction and non-fiction, including a novel about suburban masculinity, a political analysis of the Biden administration's Gaza policy, a biography of Tom Brady, a novel about Korean education, and a new work by China Miéville.

Anahid Nersessian reviews Ashton Politanoff's novel Dad Had a Bad Day for the New York Review of Books. The book follows Ned, a stay-at-home dad in a sexless marriage who becomes immersed in the 'manosphere' culture of self-optimization. Nersessian writes that the novel explores masculinity as 'an inheritance of anguish and misadventure.' Politanoff, a former Division I tennis player, uses terse prose filled with sports slang. The reviewer notes the book shares thematic ground with Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Yasmin Zaher's The Coin in testing 'the boundary between self-care and self-destruction.'

A Political Reckoning

Peter Beinart examines Akbar Shahid Ahmed's Crossing the Red Line in The New York Times Book Review. The book analyzes President Joe Biden and his advisors' response to Israel's war in Gaza. Beinart calls it an 'indispensable new book' that documents decisions which, according to 'leading human rights organizations and legal scholars,' now constitute a genocide. The review states the work illuminates the 'habits of mind' within the Democratic foreign-policy establishment. It links current party insurgency over Gaza to historical backlashes against the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

The Price of Football Greatness

Jennifer Wilson reviews Lars Anderson's biography Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness for The New Yorker. The book details the life and career of football legend Tom Brady, including his divorce from model Gisele Bündchen. Wilson notes the biography is 'surprisingly intimate' despite Anderson not having direct access to the couple. It opens with their first date at the West Village wine bar Turks & Frogs in 2006. Anderson employs vivid descriptions, writing that Bündchen's eyes were 'the mossy green of a primeval forest' while Brady's were 'the glacial blue of a winter sky.'

This Week's Reviewed Books

The compilation also includes Sanjena Sathian's review of Min Jin Lee's novel American Hagwon and Jeff VanderMeer's review of China Miéville's The Rouse. The source text does not provide excerpts or details for these final two reviews. The weekly list is presented as a 'smorgasbord of sumptuous reviews' by the Book Marks editorial team.