The Books Briefing: The Writers Whom History Forgot

📚 Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon, by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

(Johnalynn Holland)

The best American novelist whose name you may not know

“At her best, [Gayl] Jones wields the words of a larger literary tradition with a subversive power that is rare in its all-encompassing purity.”

📚 Palmares, by Gayl Jones

📚 Corregidora, by Gayl Jones

📚 Eva’s Man, by Gayl Jones

📚 Mosquito, by Gayl Jones

📚 The Healing, by Gayl Jones

📚 Liberating Voices, by Gayl Jones

(DOUGLAS L. BENC / AP
)

The great war novelist America forgot

“Give [Harman] Wouk’s books to someone who knows little of the Second World War, and when they finish, they will feel almost as if they had lived through it.”

📚 The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk

📚 The Winds of War, by Herman Wouk

📚 War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk

📚 Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk

(DRAWN & QUARTERLY)

The groundbreaking female artist who shaped manga history

“While the comics assembled here are uneven in quality, and though the introductory essay may seem intimidatingly academic to readers unfamiliar with early manga, the book is overall a fantastic, continually surprising look at one of Japan’s most innovative—and least remembered—manga artists.”

📚 The Sky Is Blue With a Single Cloud, by Kuniko Tsurita

(CORBIS / GETTY)

A forgotten novel reveals a forgotten Harlem

“As a creative work and a historical document, Amiable With Big Teeth is nothing short of a master key into a world where the intersection of race and global revolutionary politics plays out in the lives of characters who are as dynamic and fully realized as the novel itself.”

📚 Amiable With Big Teeth, by Claude McKay

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Kate Cray. The book she’s reading next is Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami.

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Kate Cray is an assistant editor at The Atlantic.