SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Summer for a lot of us means humidity, sweat, sunburn, mosquitoes and a lot of yuck. Instead of just lathering yourself in sunscreen and bug spray to have a good time, stay indoors. Read a good book. Read a great book. Books We Love, NPR's list of best reads, has an awful lot of recommendations. To get you started, here's some nonfiction that our colleagues say is utterly worth your time.
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LEAH DONNELLA, BYLINE: Hi. My name is Leah Donnella, and I'm a senior editor on NPR's Code Switch team. The book I'm recommending is called "The Threshold Of Dissent" by Marjorie N. Feld. It's about the history of American Jewish critics of Zionism, and it begins in Pittsburgh in the late 1800s and leads all the way through the 21st century. I picked it up because I was hoping it would help me better understand some of the discussions that I was seeing play out in the news and politics and also among my friends and family. And it did just that. In clear, careful language, the author illustrates some of the major moments over the past century that have shaped Jewish beliefs about Zionism, anti-Zionism and non-Zionism. It's a history told with both rigor and compassion, two qualities that seem especially essential when embarking in conversations on such fraught and contentious subjects. I really appreciated the author's approach, and I highly recommend it.
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BRETT NEELY, BYLINE: I'm Brett Neely, supervising editor of NPR, and the book I'm talking about is "Invisible Rulers" by Renee DiResta. At a time when our screens are clogged with viral lies and conspiracy theories, "Invisible Rulers" takes a long view towards explaining media manipulation and how we got to this moment. The book skillfully weaves together history and technology to explain the changing iterations of political propaganda over the past century. DiResta was a disinformation researcher at Stanford University and shares her own experiences on the front lines of the struggle to define objective reality, including how she entered the field after confronting anti-vaccine sentiment when she became a parent. In the years since, DiResta has found herself becoming a focal point for conspiracy theories, as powerful politicians sought to discredit the work of her and other researchers in the field.
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JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Hello. I am Joanna Kakissis, and I am NPR's Ukraine correspondent. I'd like to talk to you about a book called "The Showman" by Time correspondent Simon Shuster. It's about Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is one of the most visible world leaders today. Zelenskyy gives a lot of interviews. He records these video addresses every night that his office posts on social media, and he's often photographed. Everyone knows his trademark military green clothes and that wartime beard. But in many ways, Zelenskyy is also an enigma, and I like this book very much because it gives an insider account of the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion as experienced by Zelenskyy and a close group of advisers. It's also, to some extent, a biography of a cinematic man who honed his powerful communication skills during his years as one of Ukraine's most popular comedians. Shuster guides us through Zelenskyy's transformation from this confident, competitive entertainer to a naive political novice and to the steely, sometimes unforgiving president Zelenskyy is today. This book also lays out the history that shaped Zelenskyy and the tectonic shift in geopolitics that he's now navigating as his country fights an existential war.
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SIMON: Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And those book recommendations, again, are "The Showman," "Invisible Rulers" and "The Threshold Of Dissent." The full list of books we love so far this year, please visit npr.org/summerbooks.
(SOUNDBITE OF UKRAINIAN FREEDOM ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF BEETHOVEN'S "SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN D MINOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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