By the Book

I am finally making my way all the way through “The Power Broker,” after reading it in fragments several times in the past. The section on Jones Beach may be the most extraordinary chapter of nonfiction prose I've ever read. For a new book I'm writing on long-term decision making, I'm reading Irving Janis's classic (but out of print) “Victims of Groupthink.” And I'm racing through Tana French's first Dublin mystery, “In the Woods.”