A Note from Barbara, August 29, 2011

Last week, my picks were almost entirely fiction, representing works by authors who will be on everyone’s list soon. This week, my picks are almost entirely nonfiction, representing bracing biography, the story behind a da Vinci drawing, two heartrending memoirs, and a book on neuroscience that promises to change how we think about ourselves. There’s no pattern and no agenda; it just depends on what comes up each week. But I surely am glad that long ago I ditched the idea of having one fiction and one nonfiction pick, something that works entirely against everything that is unpredictably inspiring about books. Next week, I won’t have any picks at all; Prepub is taking a vacation so that I can enjoy the end of summer. See you the second week of September.