New York Review of Books Review

CONVICTION, by Denise Mina. (Mulholland, $27.) Anna McDonald, at loose ends while her philandering husband takes their children on vacation, decides to clear an old friend's name after hearing him slandered on a true-crime podcast. Mina's incredible new mystery seems to have been written in a white-hot rage. THE GUARDED GATE: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America, by Daniel Okrent. (Scribner, $32.) In 1920s America, a mix of nativist sentiment and pseudoscience led to the first major law curtailing immigration. Okrent focuses on eugenics, which argued that letting in people of certain nationalities and races would harm America's gene pool. FALL; OR, DODGE IN HELL, by Neal Stephenson. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $35.) Stephenson tackles big questions - what is reality? how might it be simulated? - via the tale of a billionaire whose mind survives in the digital world long after his physical death. A THOUSAND SMALL SANITIES: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism, by Adam Gopnik. (Basic Books, $28.) This charming and erudite book challenges both authoritarian populists and illiberal leftists, arguing in favor of a liberal tradition that supports both social progress and individual liberty. LAST DAY, by Domenica Ruta. (Spiegel & Grau, $27.) Ruta's darkly glittering novel flits among characters - including a trio of astronauts, a 15-year-old girl and a tattoo artist - during the planet's final hours. Despite the heavy subject matter, comic moments leaven the book, and Ruta sprinkles in startling observations. THE BODY IN QUESTION, by Jill Ciment. (Pantheon, $24.95.) In this deliciously acerbic and intelligent novel, two jurors meet at a murder trial, and, sequestered at an Econo Lodge, begin a passionate affair with unexpected reverberations on their lives and the legal proceedings. Among the book's other pleasures, Ciment knowingly but matter-of-factly depicts class distinctions. THE way THE WAY WE EAT NOW: How the Food Revolution Has we eat now Transformed Our Lives, Our Bodies, and Our World, by Bee Wilson. (Basic Books, $30.) In this useful and informative book, a British journalist delves into the ways globalization has revolutionized our relationship THE BURIED: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, by Peter Hessler. (Penguin Press, $28.) In stories of everyday life in Cairo, Hessler captures a country looking to make sense of what the Arab Spring has wrought. MIND FIXERS: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness, by Anne Harrington. (Norton, $27.95.) Harrington argues that the "biological revolution," which rejects Freud to seek a physical basis for mental illness, has overreached. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books