THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (April 12, 2024): The latest issue features  the cold-sweat-inducing premise of the two books on our cover this week, Annie Jacobsen’s “Nuclear War” and Sarah Scoles’s “Countdown.” 

Let’s Say Someone Did Drop the Bomb. Then What?

In “Nuclear War” and “Countdown,” Annie Jacobsen and Sarah Scoles talk to the people whose job it is to prepare for atomic conflict.

The Culture Warriors Are Coming for You Smart People

In Lionel Shriver’s new novel, judging intelligence and competence is a form of bigotry.

Doris Kearns Goodwin Wasn’t Competing With Her Husband

Richard Goodwin, an adviser to presidents, “was more interested in shaping history,” she says, “and I in figuring out how history was shaped.” Their bond is at the heart of her new book, “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.”