1. Kenneth Jost’s review of The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts by Joan Biskupic (Basic Books). “The veteran Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic opens The Chief, her long-awaited biography of Chief Justice John Roberts, by describing him as ‘hard-wired from birth for success.’ By fortunate happenstance, Biskupic discovered during her research the evidence to perfectly embody the ambition that took Roberts from being the smartest boy in his class to presiding in the top position in the federal judiciary.”


2. Linda Nemec’s review of A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions by Muhammad Yunus (PublicAffairs). “The Nobel Peace Prize winner, known for his creative solutions to alleviating poverty, questions Adam Smith’s assumption that a ‘human being is basically a personal-gain-seeking being’ and asks us to consider the social dimension to the decisions and investments we make. He lays out a new framework, supported by his own successful economic experiments, for better tapping human capital to solve the world’s problems.”


3. “Into the Wilds” by Leeya Mehta. “Community has its own value, and it is so much more than networking. It is about feeling you are home, comfortable in your skin. It is feeling grateful that there are other people out there whose work inspires you and who are willing to engage with your work…For now, I present a list of local places where you can submit writings, read aloud, enjoy festivals, or shop for books (or just sit and work). If your favorite spot is missing, please write in and add to the list.”


4. The 2019 Washington Writers Conference. If you were among the hundreds of readers scanning our conference pages this month, mark your calendars now: The next Washington Writers Conference happens May 8-9, 2020! (And watch this space for a forthcoming recap of this year’s stellar event.)


5. Jamie Mason’s review of Recursion by Blake Crouch (Crown). “At a modest 336 pages, it’s astonishing the amount of intriguing, adventurous, terrifying, emotional, philosophical, and even inspirational ground this book manages to cover. One might expect it would take a doorstopper stack of pages to convince us to play along with such a wild reach of make-believe. But Crouch wastes not a word, and at zero sacrifice of lyricism.”

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