6 Paperbacks to Read This Week

Shreya Chattopadhyay

Reporting for the Book Desk

The narratives this week include the debut novels of Laura Warrell, Oscar Hokeah and Frederic Gros, as well as a look at the unsavoury side of the American salmon industry.

We recommend six paperbacks.

Oscar Hokeah, "Calling for a blanket dance"

Ever Geimausaddle was born in a corrupt police station. His father, a half Kiowa and half Cherokee, had been beaten to death by corrupt officers. The acclaimed debut novel that our reviewer called "a vital exploration on indigeneity" in contemporary American literature, features different members of Ever Geimausaddle's family who narrate his subsequent life.

The Inheritors, an intimate portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning by Eve Fairbanks

This is an empathetically told history of apartheid South Africa, and the violence that it left behind. It focuses on three individuals from the 1960s until today: Malaika, who was a Black intellectual, Dipuo (her mother), a former antiapartheid campaigner, and Christo (an Afrikaner lawyer).

Laura Warrell, Sweet, Soft, Plenty of Rhythm

The girl could have been his end. Warrell's debut novel, The End's Beginning, begins with the end's beginning. Like the bend in a road that is too small to notice the direction it takes.

Frederic Gros, A Philosophy of Walking; translated by John Howe

A philosopher who believes that walking has meditative powers enlists the support of a broad range of thinkers. Gros argues that the walk is a way to escape ego, and a practice in presence. He cites Nietzsche's melancholic mountains treks and Arthur Rimbaud’s marches de fury, as well as the pilgrimage journals of Swami Ramdas, and the speed-walks by Tibetan monks.

Salmon Wars: the Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fish by Douglas Frantz & Catherine Collins

This detailed investigation details the issues that arise in the journey of salmon from farm to plate. The book delves into the poorly regulated feedlots which produce 90% of the salmon eaten in North America. It also examines the thousands of tons of pollution on the seabed.

John Wood Sweet, The Sewing Girl's Tale - A Story of Crimes and Consequences during the Revolutionary War in America

In 1793, a seamstress aged 17 took to court the man who had forced her into a prostitute. The result was chaos and change. This Editors' Choice pick tells the story of America's first reported rape case and its aftermath in fascinating detail.