[Snyder] glides from history to the present day, from scene to analysis, with a relaxed virtuosity that filled me with admiration. This is a writer using every tool at her disposal to make this story come alive, to make it matter.

I believe The Great American Novel doesn’t exist, at least in the 21^st century, because the American experience is too vast and multifaceted to be confined to one book’s pages. However, if someone asked me to name one book I think at least grapples with the problem of trying to be The Great American Novel, I’d name The Other Americans.

Survival Math is the best memoir I’ve read in ages. With honesty, insight, and a tremendous amount of heart, Mitchell S. Jackson takes us deep into the stories that made, ruined, and saved him. It’s intimate and wise; poignant and compassionate; redemptive and raw.

With an elegant, understated manner, Iyer…offers poignant reflections on his adopted country and its maddening contradictions and shifting parts…Marvelously nuanced reflections on a nation “in constant motion.”