What We’re Reading

Preeti Aroon

• Newsweek’s Global Literacy Test. Nearly half of Americans polled by Newsweek did not know that Judaism is older than Christianity and Islam, or that Libya does not border Iraq. Plus, Newsweek highlights the need for global literacy with its 130-question quiz. 

Blake Hounshell

• The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. It’s not out until October, but the galley copy is already one of my favorite books of the year. Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Atkinson brings the blood, sweat, and many shocking errors of the Allied war machine to life in part two of his World War II trilogy.

Prerna Mankad

• A prisoner in Toyland, International Herald Tribune. Detained in a toy factory in China, David Barboza discovers that police and government officials are often powerless to overrule industry big shots.

Carolyn O’Hara

• Interesting Times: George Packer’s brand-new blog for the New Yorker.

Kate Palmer

• Taliban Turn Gunsights to Afghan Police, Christian Science Monitor. Reporter (and former FP researcher) Jason Motlagh details the fight for Afghanistan through the eyes of its fledgling police forces—now easy targets for a resurgent Taliban.
• The Ministry of Special Cases. In his excellent first novel, Nathan Englander traces a family’s devastating journey during Argentina’s “dirty war” in the 1970s.