Waking to an Attack from Hamas

Plus: David Remnick interviews Al Gore; the land of Trump and Gaetz; and Terry Bisson’s history of the future. View in browser | Update your preferences Saturday, October 7, 2023 Dispatch Waking to an Attack from Hamas A state of war is declared in Israel, fifty years after the country was caught flat-footed in the Yom Kippur War. By Ruth Margalit From the News Desk Comment The Land of Trump and Gaetz Last week, both men tested whether the MAGA movement can operate simply as an ongoing insurrection against whatever it is that its principals don’t like. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells Our Columnists With Trump Absent, His New York Civil Trial Gets Down to Business Despite the ex-President’s frenzied claims that he has been railroaded, the case is still only getting going. By John Cassidy Daily Comment The Border Doesn’t Need Elon Musk’s “Citizen Journalism” A congressman described Musk as a “concerned citizen with a megaphone.” But Musk’s megaphone is the problem. By Geraldo Cadava Editor’s Pick Q. & A. Al Gore Doesn’t Say I Told You So The former Vice-President revisits his early advocacy for the environment, assesses the impact of Elon Musk, and explains his optimism about two existential crises. By David Remnick Books We Recommend This Week Reviews of notable new fiction and nonfiction. A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan). In 2012, a catastrophic traffic collision in Jerusalem left a school bus filled with Palestinian children on fire for more than thirty minutes before emergency workers arrived. In this chronicle of the disaster, Thrall, a Jerusalem-based journalist, follows the father of one of the victims, and examines the response to the crash within the context of modern Palestinian dispossession. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. The Rigor of Angels, by William Egginton (Pantheon). In this sprightly intellectual history, Egginton explores the lives of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the writer Jorge Luis Borges, and the physicist Werner Heisenberg in order to plumb some of the most profound questions of physics and philosophy: the limits of knowledge, the structure of space and time, free will. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. The Fraud, by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press). This kaleidoscopic novel revolves around the real-life trial of a man who, in late-nineteenth-century London, claimed to be the heir to a fortune. Smith relates the impressions of a housekeeper as she observes others’ opinions of the case, which transfixed—and split—the public, and was complicated by the testimony of a formerly enslaved man from Jamaica. The sprawling story is filled with jabs at the hypocrisy of the upper class, characters who doubt institutions, and corollaries of the pugilistic rhetoric of contemporary populism. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. Console, by Colin Channer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Music is a vital force in this eclectic poetry collection, which travels between the author’s native Jamaica, his adopted home of New England, and other locales. Dub and reggae inspire and inform Channer’s dense, lushly textured compositions. Contemplating place and displacement, the poems emphasize the palimpsestic, remix-like effect produced by emigration and exile. Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop. The best books of 2023 so far What are you reading this week? Reply to let us know. Culture Dept. Daily Comment It’s Time Rubén Blades Was Accepted Into the American Canon A major figure of New York City’s cultural life for more than half a century, Blades brought a New York-born musical style to the world at large. By Graciela Mochkofsky Page-Turner Terry Bisson’s History of the Future For more than two decades, one of pulp sci-fi’s masters has delivered headlines from a time line defined by the absurd. By Margret Grebowicz Fiction “Heart” We were flowing through the night like the drip hanging above my father’s head, silently infiltrating his unfamiliar veins. By Shuang Xuetao This Week in Fiction Shuang Xuetao on Labor and the Heart The author discusses his story from the latest issue of the magazine. By Dennis Zhou Fun & Games Dept. Daily Shouts Totally Normal Comments for Online Recipes “I don’t like bruschetta so I made a pot roast with tomato glaze. Five stars.” By Adrienne Celt Shouts & Murmurs Other Detectors Smoke detectors are so last year. With advances in A.I., now you can install an Irony Detector, a Fresh Podcast Alert, and a device that tells you when you look like a slob. By Bob Odenkirk and Nate Odenkirk Name Drop: Can you guess the identity of a notable person—contemporary or historical—in six clues? Play our trivia game » Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up. 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