Required reading

The Unnamed

by Joshua Ferris (Little, Brown)

For a much-anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, the office satire “Then We Came to the End,” Ferris takes a walk. High-powered Manhattan attorney Tim Farnsworth has it all: loving family, real estate, prestigious law partnership. But there’s disorder in the court when he comes down with a mysterious afflcition that causes him to drop whatever he’s doing and go for miles-long walks. Sometimes he stops from exhaustion, sometimes he calls his wife for a ride home. Ferris has created an unusual and original way to look at marriage and family, work and obsession.

The Last Train from Hiroshima

The Survivors Look Back

by Charles Pellegrino (Henry Holt)

The recent death of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a rare survivor of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, makes it all the more urgent that survivors’ stories are heard. Parts of “Last Train” are, not surprisingly, difficult to read. One man describes the radiation sickness he immediately felt “like bites from a thousand little rats’ teeth.” Pelligrino interviewed 30 “double survivors,” including the last interview with Yamaguchi, who was at ground zero both times.

The Only Thing Worth Dying For

How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan

by Eric Blehm (HarperCollins)

Blehm’s real-life thriller follows the very start of the war with a brave small group of Special Operations forces battling al Qaeda in Afghanistan. They were dropped behind enemy lines and tasked with fomenting a tribal revolt to help defeat the Taliban. Joining forces with then little-known returning exile Hamid Karzai, they succeeded, but with all 11 men either dead or wounded. “The Only Thing” shows us what it’s like in Afghanistan’s harsh landscape and how our courageous troops do their job.

Princess Noire

The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

by Nadine Cohodas (Pantheon)

Jazz and soul singer Nina Simone lived a tumultuous life during tumultuous times. Born Eunice Waymon, she adopted the stage name at 21, to keep her mother from discovering what kind of music she was singing. Simone came of age during the Civil Rights movement and was a devoted activist. Her music reflected that, with songs such as “Mississippi Goddam,” her response to Medgar Evans’ murder and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Toy Instruments

Design, Nostalgia, Music

by Eric Schneider (Mark Batty Publisher)

Mostly a photo book, this 5-by-5-inch collection is full of wacky vintage electronic musical gizmos and gadgets made to appeal to kids, but now highly valued by grown-up collectors. Schneider is one of those collectors, admitting to owning at least 250 boxes of toy instruments. The toys include a circa-1954 “Electronovox Electronic Organ,” which transmitted through AM radios, and Mattel’s “Bee Gees Rhythm Machine” from 1978.

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