New York Review of Books Review

HAMLET GLOBE TO GLOBE: Two Years, 190,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play, by Dominic Dromgoole. (Grove, $27.) To celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, London's Globe Theater performed "Hamlet" all around the world. Dromgoole's witty account of the ambitious two-year tour offers insight about the play and its enduring appeal. ONE OF THE BOYS, by Daniel Magariel. (Scribner, $22.) After a brutal custody battle, two brothers watch their father drift into addiction in a gripping and heartfelt first novel that brims with wisdom about the self-destructive longing for paternal approval. A RABBLE OF DEAD MONEY: The Great Crash and the Global Depression, 1929-1939, by Charles R. Morris. (PublicAffairs, $29.99.) This accessible overview of the policy response to the Great Depression is a deft synthesis, blending colorful accounts of the past with the scholarly literature of the present. THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION: Why We Never Think Alone, by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach. (Riverhead, $28.) Two cognitive scientists argue that not only rationality but the very idea of individual thinking is a myth, and that humans think in groups. Providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. AMERICAN WAR, by Omar El Akkad. (Knopf, $26.95.) El Akkad's first novel, a dark dystopian thriller, is set at the end of this century, when climate change, plague and intrastate conflict have laid the country to waste. MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA, by Pajtim Statovci. Translated by David Hackston. (Pantheon, $25.95.) Statovci's strange, haunting and utterly original exploration of displacement and desire interweaves the stories of a Kosovan woman and her son roiled by the aftershocks of exile. A singing, dancing cat encountered in a gay bar plays a role. PORTRAITS OF COURAGE: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors, by George W. Bush. (Crown, $35.) The former president's paintings of veterans reveal a surprisingly adept artist who has dramatically improved his technique while also doing penance for a great disaster of American history. YOU SAY TO BRICK: The Life of Louis Kahn, by Wendy Lesser. (Farrar, Straus&Giroux, $30.) Lesser's narrative of Kahn's tumultuous life and remarkable career is magnificently researched and gracefully written. SIGNS FOR LOST CHILDREN, by Sarah Moss. (Europa, paper, $19.) This fine exploration of a marriage between a doctor in Victorian England and her architect husband feels contemporary.