The New Yorker picks four of the year’s best books in 2022 and shares them with you.

The Nobel Prize winner’s most recent novel is a sweeping origin story of modern Tanzania, and a love story between Afiya and Hamza. Their search for a place in the world unfolds against the monumental absurdness of empire, focusing on the East African campaign of 1914-1918. The book questions the costs and rewards of the war’s occasional solidarities.

The Nobel awardee’s latest novel opens like a starry romantic chronicle (编年史): a steamer is making its way at night to an island, the Mingheria in 1901. On board are three medical scientists, and the group comes to Mingheria because of an outbreak of bubonic plague (黑死病). What is most vital in this book is Pamuk’s lovingly obsessive creation of the island itself. He places his humans in this “three-dimensional fairy tale” and observes what happens to the state when an epidemic tests its tolerances.

In an account that’s both lyrical and extensive, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human understanding: from the seventeenth century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our leading technologies for manipulating (操纵) and deploying (部署) cells for medical purposes.

As a son of a Boston businessman, Samuel Adams was born in 1722. In detailing how Adams went on to shape every significant event in New England’s run-up to war, this book weaves a pleasing tapestry (织锦) of incident and inference. Schiff describes him as a master of the eighteenth-century version of fake news. The result is a wildly entertaining exploration of the roots of American political theatre.

Reading can provide lots of fun for children and teens during summer vacation. Children who read during the summer are better prepared for school when they return to classes in the fall. Public libraries throughout Wisconsin will host summer events to encourage children and young adults to include reading in their summer fun.

·All Star Readers

The Milwaukee Public Library will host its 2007 Summer Reading Club for kids from 3 to 18. Signing up starts on June 1 at all Milwaukee public libraries and bookmobile sites.

Children aged 6 to 12 are invited to become “All Star Readers” at the Milwaukee library when they sign up for the Summer Reading Club. Children can score a point by reading 10 books or 1,000 pages. When they reach the reading goal, they will win a bag full of prizes.

·Sparkey Spots the Ball

Children up to 5 years old can join the read-to-me club, “Sparkey Spots the Ball”. They will receive their own reading folders to record the books read to them by parents, brothers and sisters or relatives. Once they have listened to 20 books, they will win a baseball and a coupon(优惠券) for McDonald’s ice cream.

·X-treme Read

Teens between the age of 13 and 18 can join in their own reading program called “X-treme Read”. Teens can read to win movie passes, CDs and more.

The library also plans extreme bike races by C4BMX at four libraries in June and July. Check with your local library or Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the exact dates, times, and places of the demonstrations(集会).

Reading books can exercise your brain. Kids who started reading at an earlier age go on to perform better on certain intelligence tests, such as analyses of their vocabulary size. As one gets older, it might help slow down or even stop cognitive decline (认知下降). 【小题1】 Many Americans don’t read frequently. It’s time to reverse (逆转) this trend to give your brain gray matter a good workout.

【小题2】 When you have some down time — you’re waiting for a friend, sleeping lightly on the way from or to work, or doing a task that doesn’t require your full attention — you can open your text instead of pulling up your favorite smartphone game. This brings about a great debate: pages vs screens vs audio. Indeed, paper is still the clear winner in the court of public opinion.【小题3】

Academic research has mostly focused on the ability to remember. A study took place in a laboratory setting: Students all read the same text, but some looked at the words on paper and others viewed an on-screen PDF. It turned out that no meaningful difference between the two media existed. As for audiobooks, they affected the brain gray matter somewhat differently.【小题4】

Finally, if you hope to get a reading habit going, you shouldn’t dismiss paper, digital, or audio books —   【小题5】 Don’t be afraid to change things depending on the occasion.