Dear readers, This is shaping up to be a week of books with a lot to say about the world we inhabit now. Take two recent novels — each with the same page count, even — titled “What a Time to Be Alive.” True, it’s a fluke that they were released days apart, and each book has a fairly different premise, but maybe there’s something to glean in their commonalities. One of those novels, by the author Jade Chang, more or less follows a woman figuring out how to be authentic in the internet age. The other, by Jenny Mustard, features a college student trying to shake off her sadness and create a whole new persona. Reviewing both, Katie Yee points out that their shared title “is a flippant phrase we use to comment ironically on the state of the world, but taken literally, it’s also an invitation to consider the things that are precious.” I’m not quite ready to release my own sarcasm — just yesterday I muttered “What a time to be alive,” watching as a rat the size of a burrito waltzed onto a subway car like any other straphanger — but I’m open. In the nonfiction realm, meanwhile, the writer Cory Doctorow looks to offer comfort, and solutions, to the inescapable feeling that our digital platforms have gotten worse. Though he’s published novels, short stories, graphic novels, essays and countless blog posts, he’s best known for coining a single, not exactly kid-friendly, word: enshittification. His new book elaborates on his previous writing on the subject by using case studies (including Uber, Twitter and Photoshop) to make an argument for change. Finally, take a look at the finalists for the National Book Award. The winners will be announced next month. In other news
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