The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Ali Smith’s Glyph, Ayelet Waldman’s A Perfect Hand, and Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.

Fiction

1. Glyph by Ali Smith
(Pantheon)

8 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan

“In her feisty, graceful Glyph, Ali Smith mulls writing and language among other themes: it’s her best work since the lauded Seasonal Trilogy.”
–Hamilton Cain (The Boston Globe)

2. A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman
(Knopf)

7 Rave • 1 Positive

“The book soars with pitch-perfect prose, wit, and insight.”
–Stefanie Milligan (Christian Science Monitor)

3. All Them Dogs by Djamel White
(Riverhead)

5 Rave • 2 Positive

“There’s a poetry on the pages here that tenderises even the most hardened characters … A magical piece of writing.”
–Elizabeth Mannion (Irish Times)

**

Nonfiction

1. Dog Days by Emily LaBarge
(Transit)

7 Rave

“It’s a testament to LaBarge’s gifts as a writer that she can make even the most complex and cerebral ideas feel urgent and alive.”
–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)

2. Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter by Ada Ferrer
(Scribner)

6 Rave

“A poignant tribute to the bonds of familial love across history, geography, and political and personal challenges.”
–Katie Noah Gibson (Shelf Awareness)

3. Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old by Mary Beard
(University of Chicago Press)

5 Rave • 1 Positive

“A wide-ranging and entertaining whence-and-whither discussion of her field.”
–Sarah Ruden (The New York Times Book Review)