What we buy and who we are

From New York, a cover story on the fall and rise of Hillary Clinton; Wall Street is in the midst of its biggest, ugliest, worst round of layoffs in decades; and hedge-fund manager David Einhorn believes his public attack on Lehman Brothers wasn’t just about making money — so what was it about? A review of The Delighted States: A Book of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents, & Accompanied by Maps, Portraits, Squiggles, Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes by Adam Thirlwell. How do you truly split domestic duties? Spouses who are determined to adhere to “equally shared parenting” do it minute by minute. From The New Yorker, an article on the influence of Hugo Chavez; James Wood reviews Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen; and John Updike reviews Ethan Canin’s America America. Janine Armin reviews Pure War by Paul Virilio and Sylvere Lotringer. A review of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker. A review of Are We There Yet?: The Golden Age of American Family Vacations by Susan Sessions Rugh. A review of The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds by Marilyn Yalom. An interview with Steven Pinker, evolutionary man.