6 New Paperbacks to Read This Week

LAST CALL AT THE HOTEL IMPERIAL: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War, by Deborah Cohen

This ensemble biography critically examines the entwined friendships and careers of four influential American journalists — John Gunther, H.R. Knickerbocker, James Vincent Sheean and Dorothy Thompson — who took Europe by storm before World War II.

THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES, by Elif Shafak

This novel jumps from contemporary London to Cyprus in 1974 and the early 2000s. It is also narrated, in part, from the perspective of a fig tree. But as it tells the story of its Greek-Turkish teenage protagonist, its unconventional structure reveals familiar themes of identity, grief and grappling with family history.

VAGINA OBSCURA: An Anatomical Voyage, by Rachel E. Gross

“If the vulva as a whole is an underappreciated city,” Gross writes, “the clitoris is a local roadside bar.” In this account, she explores and celebrates female anatomy from medical, social and historical perspectives, drawing on the stories of health workers, researchers and women from around the world.

DROWNING PRACTICE, by Mike Meginnis

One night, every person across the world has a shared dream that a flood in November will wash away all life on the planet. As everyone adapts to this news, Lyd and her teenage daughter, Mott, embark on a road trip. But Lyd’s controlling ex-husband works for the C.I.A. and is looking for them.

THE BRAIN IN SEARCH OF ITSELF: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron, by Benjamin Ehrlich

This deeply researched biography of Ramón y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience, gathers every detail of his life, from his abusive childhood in the Aragonese highlands to the obsessive nature that fueled his scientific discoveries.

TRUE BIZ, by Sara Novic

The students at a fictional high school for the deaf in postindustrial Ohio grapple with individual crises and their relationship to their community when they learn of the school’s looming closure. Our reviewer, Maile Meloy, praised this story for being “tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged.”