Frank McLynn, Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution.  The best book on its topic, and one of the best books on Mexican history flat out.  Everything is explained with remarkable clarity.  By the way, the central government never really has controlled the entire country, or not for very long anyway.

Sean Mathews, The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East.  Anexcellent and original book, somewhere between a history and travel book.  Views Greece as part of “the Middle East.”  I found every page interesting.

Robert Polito, After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace.  An informationally dense, rambling, and frequently insightful and obsessive book about the “late” career period of Bob Dylan.  When does his “late” period start?  1990 perhaps?  I remember thinking in 1990 that we were well into Dylan’s late career phase.  But that was thirty-six years ago!

Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat.  If you like her at all, you will be entranced by this one.  With a radical ending, as you might expect.

Richard Holmes, The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis in Belief.  A fun new book on Tennyson’s relations with the science of his time, and how he drifted away from religious belief.

Partha Dasgupta, On Natural Capital: The Value of the World Around Us, is a popular summary of some of his thinking on valuing the environment and natural resources.

Davd Epstein, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.  A good popular look at what the subtitle promises.

José Donoso, The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History is a good lshort overview, noting that Donoso’s own The Obscene Bird of Night is one of the great underrated works of 20th century literature.