Opinion

Required reading

Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation

by Robert Wilson (Bloomsbury USA)

Look carefully at the south-facing wall of 359 Broadway, and you can see a bit of the sign for Mathew Brady’s photo studio. Wilson, the editor of The American Scholar, brings the famous Civil War photographer to life with this long overdue bio. Brady, we learn, didn’t take all those illuminating war photos — he hired men and then sold the pictures. When he covered the Battle of Bull Run, Brady became so frightened that he lost all his images in the chaos.

Let Freedom Ring:

Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the

March on Washington

by Kitty Kelley (Thomas Dunne Books)

The late Tretick, who photographed the 1960 presidential campaign for UPI, was best known for his pictures of a young John F. Kennedy Jr. under his father’s desk in the Oval Office. But he was also working at the historic March on Washington, and his photos from that day are published here for the first time. Kelley, mostly known for her titillating bios, provides the commentary.

Jane Austen’s England

by Roy and Lesley Adkins (Viking)

England has just honored a new figure with a portrait on the 10-pound note: Jane Austen. Maybe the novelist’s fans will help boost the economy — which was even more of a mess in Austen’s time. In fact, write this husband-and-wife historian team, England was a troubled and unsafe place. Constant wars wreaked havoc on prices, highwaymen murdered travelers, King George III went insane and children toiled in mines. Women were sometimes sold as wives in the marketplace and frequently died in childbirth. Here’s the other side of Austen’s country.

Among the Janeites

A Journey Through the World of

Jane Austen Fandom

by Deborah Yaffee (Mariner)

Another look at Jane Austen, the American way: extreme fandom. Yaffe deconstructs the cult of those living their lives by the English novelist’s six books. These disciples include Sandy Lerner, the Cisco Systems co-founder who spent millions turning a mansion once owned by Austen’s brother into a research library; Devoney Looser, a feminist literary critic who competes in roller derbies as “Stone Cold Jane Austen”; and Christine Shih, a group “bibliotherapist,” who uses Austen’s stories to make sense of her patients’ own personal tragedies.

Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy

by Elizabeth Kiem (Soho Teen)

Back in the USSR? Kiem’s first novel returns to Glasnost-era Russia as famous Moscow ballerina mysteriously disappears on the day of Leonid Brezhnev’s 1982 death. Fearing repercussions, the dancer’s terrified husband and daughter escape from the Soviet Union, only to dive into a web of intrigue involving Brighton Beach gangsters and CIA spies. A young adult novel, this one works for all ages.