Recent orders by California’s governor to halt indoor dining in many counties may not impact the Blue Plate Oysterette much. At the Santa Monica seafood eatery, diners lately have been ordering their oysters or king crab legs at an outdoor counter – housed in a vintage VW bus – and feasting at sidewalk tables or across the street overlooking the cliff-side promenade.

Nonetheless, owner Jen Rush has sharp views about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to close indoor spaces such as restaurants, museums, and movie theaters for at least three weeks because of a surge in COVID-19 cases. Add to that beach closures over the July Fourth holiday weekend.  

“They should never have opened up,” says Ms. Rush, complaining that authorities moved too quickly between phased reopenings. She notes that on a recent drive to the restaurant, only about a third of pedestrians on Ocean Avenue were wearing masks. The “yo-yo” orders – from full closure, to takeout only, to indoor dining with social distancing, then back to outdoor service – make running a business “very difficult,” she says.

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When the novel coronavirus hit the United States earlier this year, California was held up as a model of response. It was the first state to go into lockdown, on March 19, and it never experienced the heavy death toll of New York. But a recent resurgence of the virus has caused the state’s Democratic governor to reimpose restrictions – and undercuts the narrative that the spikes in several Republican-led states can largely be chalked up to “bad behavior” by their leaders, says Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Jen Rush (right), owner of the Blue Plate Oysterette in Santa Monica, California, leaning against the ordering counter of a vintage VW bus, says state authorities opened up too quickly. The restaurant's manager, Matthew Kretschmer stands next to her, along with management-team members JoAnna Senatore and Damon Murphy.

As in other places, Californians were “a little bit cavalier and careless” after opening up, says Dr. Wachter. The virus doesn’t care if a state has had a couple of good months if people then let their guard down, he observes.

Still, he believes that because of what California has done right, it will be able to get things under control faster than other states. “Yes, we’re having a surge, but there will be fewer people that die here per capita than in states that have been less responsible,” he says, adding, “It’s not at the crisis level you see in Houston or Phoenix.” 

Five states in addition to California are currently backtracking on reopening because of a surge in new cases – Florida, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan, according to the New York Times tracker. Thirteen other states are pausing their openings, while new cases nationwide could rise to 100,000 a day, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress last week. The U.S. leads the world in cases as well as deaths from COVID-19 – with the nation’s death toll now at more than 130,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

A microcosm of the nation

With 40 million people, California is the most populous state and a microcosm of the nation. It has every kind of industry, ranging from tech to agriculture. It has extreme wealth and poverty. Its geography spans rural and urban, coastal and inland, and the state is home to an ethnically and racially diverse population. As such, many of the nation’s challenges with the virus are mirrored here.

California has seen, for instance, numerous outbreaks in confined facilities such as nursing homes and jails. In Marin County, roughly a third of the inmates at San Quentin State Prison have tested positive since a May transfer of hundreds of inmates from another prison that had been battling the virus. Six people have died. The top medical officer for the state correction facilities was replaced on Monday.

Last week, the state’s health secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, characterized some of the causes of the surge throughout the state. Family gatherings in Sacramento County, where guidelines were not followed, likely led to outbreaks in families, which led to a rise in cases and a more than 40% rise in hospitalizations in three days, he said.

Rural Imperial County, which borders Mexico and Arizona, has the highest rate of positive tests in the state and has had to send hundreds of patients elsewhere because its health care facilities are overwhelmed. Some cases have been linked to cross-border traffic in a county where most of the population is Latino and many are migrant farmers. In California, as in the nation, the virus is disproportionately affecting people of color.

In Los Angeles County, the epicenter of the virus in California, public health officials found last month that of 3,700 restaurants and bars surveyed, more than 80% were not complying with reopening guidelines – a big problem being lack of face coverings.

As a result, the governor on June 18 made face masks mandatory in most public settings, followed days later by the closing of bars on the state’s county “watchlist,” and then last week’s restrictions on indoor settings for watchlist counties. The governor said California became too fixated on when to reopen and not enough on how. 

California officials put together a “really thoughtful road map” on how to reopen, “but we may have gone a little bit fast through these steps,” agrees Jeanne Ringel, senior economist and director of the Rand Corp.’s health care access and delivery program. Livelihoods and mental health were at stake, putting tremendous pressure on officials to reopen. Because California had flattened the curve, cooped-up residents may have perceived the risk of socializing as low, she says. 

What went right

Like Dr. Wachter, she says the state has also gotten a lot of the response right: ramping up testing, using time gained during the lockdown to build contact tracing and hospital capacity and buy personal protective equipment, and putting in place a transparent monitoring system and triggers to pull back counties if they fail to meet benchmarks.

While California’s leaders have been consistent about messaging – wear face coverings, wash hands, practice social distancing – it can be hard to communicate that message effectively to different cultures within the state, says Dr. Ringel. Residents in more liberal Los Angeles County might be more inclined to wear face masks, while less inclined next door in the more conservative Orange County.

Interestingly, several Orange County oceanside communities voluntarily joined Los Angeles County in the temporary July Fourth beach closures – in contrast to strong resistance displayed at earlier forced closures. The COVID-19 surge in their county seemed to spur them on as did, in the case of Newport Beach, two lifeguards who tested positive and the subsequent quarantining of 23 lifeguards. At the same time, many national Republican leaders are now urging everyone to wear face coverings.

People need to get back into “a frame of mind that recognizes the magnitude of this moment,” Governor Newsom said last week. If they don’t, he added, the state has $2.5 billion in funds it can withhold from county recalcitrants and a regulatory arm it can flex with businesses. 

That’s all right with resident Melissa Longmire, who came to Santa Monica’s beach with two family members to celebrate a birthday on July 1. “I’m in total agreement with the governor,” she says, emphasizing the need to social distance and wear masks.

While their original thought had been to have a larger gathering, they ultimately decided to keep it small. “Health is the most important [thing],” she says.  

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.

Mark Blinch/Reuters/File

Temporary workers, like this one at the Highline Mushrooms farm, in Leamington, Ontario, April 14, 2016, have long played an important role in Canada's agriculture. But amid the pandemic, they've become essential – and put themselves at risk.

Juan Luis Mendoza has spent more of his adult life on Canadian soil than Mexican. For eight months of each of the last 30 years, the Mexican agricultural worker has harvested sunflowers, cabbage, peaches, and strawberries from Ontario farms – missing the graduations of his three daughters as they moved from elementary to high school to college.

Today as COVID-19 has swept through migrant farms – three agricultural workers in the province have already died and more than 1,000 have been infected among some of the worst outbreaks in Canada – he wipes a tear from behind his glasses. But not because of the virus or fear of it. “You remember all that you missed with your family, all those moments,” he says.

He recognizes all that he has gained by participating in Canada’s temporary foreign worker program, modeled after one in the United States. But he feels that the sacrifices he has made warrant permanent status. And now he says people are finally paying attention. “We have contributed to the development of Canada,” he says. “But we have been invisible, until this pandemic.”

Courtesy of Juan Luis Mendoza

Juan Luis Mendoza, shown here in the sunflower fields he harvests in Ontario, has been a temporary migrant worker in Canada for 30 years and is fighting for permanent residence.

Mr. Mendoza joins a growing movement of agricultural and health care workers and asylum-seekers seeking permanent residence here. And many Canadians agree that the essential nature of their work and sacrifice, during the biggest modern threat to Canadian life, should be recognized, much the way immigrants in the U.S. are fast-tracked to citizenship if they serve in the American military. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is looking into the possibility of granting asylum-seekers on the front lines of health care permanent status in Canada.

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They join a global movement sparked by the precarity that has been exposed by the pandemic. In Paris, more than 5,000 marched for legalization of the sans papiers, or unauthorized workers. In Portugal and Italy, governments have granted temporary rights to workers, while in Lebanon, where maids were abandoned by families who said they could no longer afford to pay, a push to end the “kafala system” in which domestic workers are tied directly to one family has grown. Over the weekend, asylum-seekers, unauthorized workers, and migrant workers protested in Canadian cities demanding more rights and protections amid the pandemic.

“It’s part of a broader reckoning during this pandemic, in the kind of profound irony and hypocrisy that a lot of the most essential workers in our economies are often the worst treated and lowest paid,” says Edward Dunsworth, a historian of migrant agricultural labor in Canada and soon assistant professor of history at McGill University in Montreal.

Guardian angels in a precarious situation

The movement for migrants has gained much traction in Quebec, the epicenter of Canada’s COVID-19 crisis, with half of all cases and more than 5,400 deaths. Some 80% of those have occurred in long-term care facilities, which were so depleted by the pandemic that the military had to come in to assist this spring. So too did asylum-seekers, says Wilner Cayo, an activist with the Quebec-based advocacy group Debout pour la dignité (Stand Up for Dignity). He says between 1,200 and 1,400 asylum-seekers are working in Quebec’s health care sector, including many from Haiti and North Africa, and a large portion of the workers are nonwhite women who are living in poverty.

Quebec Premier François Legault began referring to these home care workers as “guardian angels.” It’s a stark reversal from rhetoric that propelled him into office in the first place. In August 2017, he said Quebec couldn’t be expected to accept “all the world’s misery.”

Now many recognize the service of those escaping misery – men like L’Houcine El Arbane who came to Canada in 2016 and began a job as an orderly at a long-term care home north of Montreal in mid-April, making sure elderly patients there were well-fed, clean, and comfortable.

Courtesy of L’Houcine El Arbane

L’Houcine El Arbane started his first shift at a long-term care home north of Montreal a week after his baby girl (pictured) was born. He worried about the risk of bringing the coronavirus home.

His first shift started a week after his daughter Ghalya was born. He didn’t want to worry his wife. But his own anxiety rose with each red marker placed outside residents’ rooms to mark positive COVID-19 cases. “I thought about quitting,” he says. “Every [day] you would see funeral homes [arriving] with their stretchers to pick up a patient who had passed away. They were long days – long, long days.”

Today as those numbers have gone down, he faces another uncertain road ahead. His original refugee claim was denied, and he resubmitted an application for permanent residence in March 2020. Now he waits.

Mr. Cayo says many asylum-seekers are suffering psychologically because they are unsure whether they will face deportation once the pandemic ends and their jobs are no longer deemed “essential.” “François Legault [compared them] to guardian angels. Justin Trudeau called them humanitarian workers. Yet despite that glowing rhetoric, we still left them in a precarious situation as to their migration status,” he says.

And the current proposals pertain narrowly to health care workers, launching a conversation about what “essential” means, and why food processors or security guards in care homes, for example, wouldn’t also fit the definition.

“This issue of status”

Patti Lenard, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, says all of those who need protection in Canada should be granted it. Still she likens the moment to grant health care workers a path to residence to Mr. Trudeau’s promise in 2015 to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada. The political class and the public were on board then just as they are today.

“There’s a political will here [today] in a government, which has been pretty reluctant to recognize the claims of asylum-seekers and refugees and is pretty hostile to certain categories of immigrants,” Dr. Lenard says.

Among them are temporary workers, who number as many as 60,000 every year to work in agriculture and food production. This year the program, central to Canada’s food security, was initially in doubt over possible border closures. It went forward with workers required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Canada. But still the virus spread, many public health officials say, because of bunking arrangements.

Dr. Dunsworth says his research has shown that as programs have grown in scale since the first was established in 1966 – and as Canadian farming has become a more centralized, corporate industry – conditions have worsened for workers. But it’s been hard to draw attention to that, in part because of the program’s juxtaposition to American farming. “Because of how prevalent undocumented labor is on farms in the U.S., these managed migration programs are actually seen in a more positive light compared to the abuses and the ever-present dangers for undocumented workers,” he says.

He says permanent residence for temporary workers would protect them – giving them the power to walk away from an abusive boss, unsafe conditions, or, particularly relevant in today’s environment, poor living conditions. It doesn’t mean, he says, they would necessarily – or even want to – stay in Canada permanently. Permanent residence “wouldn’t solve every single issue,” he says. “But a lot of these problems really lead back to this issue of status.”

Syed Hussan agrees. As executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in Toronto, he is trying to protect the rights and welfare of migrants, unauthorized workers, and refugees in Canada. But it is an uphill battle; for example, Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently changed rules to allow workers who test positive but are asymptomatic to continue working.

“I think it is very possible that there’s a huge instinct and a desire to return to normal,” Mr. Hussan says. “Normal was just not good enough.”

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.

Two months since photojournalist Masrat Zahra was booked by Indian police under an anti-terror law, she says, “I still fear that I might be detained anytime.” 

A resident of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, Ms. Zahra was charged in late April for posting her work on social media – including a photo of a protester with a banner of popular Kashmiri rebel commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in July 2016. In a statement, police said Ms. Zahra was “uploading photographs which can provoke the public to disturb law and order ... tantamount to glorify anti-national activities and dent image of law enforcing agencies besides causing disaffection against the country.”

Born and raised in Srinagar, she often watched protests against security forces and Indian rule, but “found it strange that the photographers were only men.” In university, she enrolled in science classes – but secretly studied for a journalism program, against her parents’ wishes. 

Today, at 26, she is one of Kashmir’s only women photojournalists – and even has support from her parents. But over the past year, Ms. Zahra and other journalists in long-troubled Kashmir, one of the world’s most militarized regions, have faced increasing risks in their work – risks that could make independent reporting all but impossible, some argue. They include a monthslong internet shutdown for much of the past year, the longest-ever imposed in a democracy.

Ms. Zahra is not the only journalist in Kashmir to face questioning. Another journalist, Gowhar Geelani, was also booked under the same law – the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which can carry sentences of up to seven years – for the same reasons. While Ms. Zahra and Mr. Geelani have been released, the investigations continue. Several other journalists have been summoned by police in the past few months, or accused of reporting “fake news.”

Dar Yasin/AP

Kashmiri journalists protest against a new media policy in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, July 6, 2020. The policy, which seeks to regulate reporting in the disputed territory, has been widely criticized by journalists for violating the freedom of the press.

Increasing risks

Islamabad and New Delhi have disputed the wider Kashmir region for decades, and thousands have been killed as rebels fight Indian rule. Indian-controlled Kashmir and Jammu was the country’s only Muslim-majority state – until last August 5, when the Indian government unilaterally stripped it of its semi-autonomous status and carved it into two union territories ruled directly by New Delhi.

Officials imposed a strict curfew and cut communication channels, which they argued was needed to restore order and avoid violence amid protests. Many reporters without internet facilities sent text, photographs, and videos in thumb drives to New Delhi.

Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Kashmir Times, says that in the past, successive governments have made attempts to gag media by bringing in undemocratic policies, actions, and laws, but “the media fraternity has been successful in thwarting such attempts.”

However, she adds, “the present policy is extremely stringent and we seem to be living in different times. Unless the media is united and ready to challenge this ugly policy, I don’t see much hope for the future.”

Ms. Zahra, who has since continued to work, says that journalists are constantly being harassed, intimidated, summoned, and booked. 

“The case has been a shock for me. I’m new in the field and getting booked under this draconian law was really unexpected. I could not sleep for so many nights,” she says. “Mental trauma continues, but I also don’t want to stop working because I think all journalists in Kashmir face such pressures and we have to be ready for it.”

Similarly, the editor of a news website in south Kashmir, Qazi Shibli, was detained last summer and booked under the Public Safety Act after tweeting and reporting on the deployment of troops in Kashmir, just before the state’s special status was revoked. He spent nine months in a jail in Uttar Pradesh, some 660 miles from home, accused of “anti-national activities.” Under the law, a person can be imprisoned for up to two years without trial.

“I have been seeing psychiatrists and doctors as well. It’s just that the solitary confinement of nearly nine months, with a rare human visit now and then, has caused deep psychological distress,” says Mr. Shibli, who was released in April and has since restarted his work. 

In May, a new, 53-page media policy was put in place, allowing officials to detect and punish “fake news” and media they deem detrimental to the “sovereignty and integrity” of India. The policy also adds that government agencies will do background checks of newspaper editors, to determine which are eligible to run government ads; and of staffers, for accreditation.

Most journalists view the rules as an attempt to encourage self-censorship. Ms. Bhasin, whose newspaper has been barred from publishing government advertisements, says that it is an attempt to “kill journalism through a systemic policy of surveillance and control of media.”

“Much of this was already happening,” she says, adding that the new policy is not only “a tool to suppress journalists who ask uncomfortable questions but also individuals who exercise their right to free expression.” Kashmiri journalists are left with just two options, she adds: “either they become vehicles of government publicity departments or continue their work professionally at the risk of facing consequences.” Though much internet access has been restored, most major newspapers here have continued to refrain from questioning the government or reporting on conflict.

Outside appreciation

Yet this spring, Kashmir’s media had a moment to celebrate: Three photojournalists working with the Associated Press – Dar Yasin and Mukhtar Khan, who are from Kashmir, and Channi Anand, who is from Jammu – won the Pulitzer Prize for their photographs of Kashmir’s lockdown. Within hours of the announcement, India’s social media and several members of the ruling party accused the Pulitzer board of being biased.  

At such a difficult time, “to win the most prestigious award of course is encouraging,” says Mr. Shibli, expressing his gratitude to the journalists. “The world needs to see a Kashmiri journalist is putting enough at stake to present them the realities from ground zero.” 

“Despite all odds people here continued to work, even if it meant smuggling pen drives [USBs] out of Kashmir to send pictures and videos,” says Ms. Zahra. “This shows the level of dedication and hard work. In the process of telling stories, journalists here become stories.”

Amid this, the recognition has shown how journalism in Kashmir plays a significant role. That message set in after the Pulitzer Prize in May, and again in June when Ms. Zahra won the 2020 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation. 

Speaking on behalf of Kashmiri journalists, Ms. Zahra says that her award was “a recognition of our hard work and honesty towards the profession. It was an acknowledgement that the world is witnessing and reading our stories. It gave us more strength and courage.”

When Kathleen Dolan started teaching music and art to young children in Woodstock, Vermont, in 2003, she was used to being a one-person operation. 

In an earlier role in Boston, she conducted music programs at child care centers, and she recalls, “I would just travel with my keyboard.”

In a span of 10 years, she went from toting her keyboard to renting a small downtown space in Vermont for classes, to owning a dynamic arts center that would give her community and others accessibility to the arts.

Her local nonprofit, ArtisTree Community Arts Center, has become a powerhouse of creativity, welcoming local artists to its classes, art exhibitions, concerts, and theater productions in the village of South Pomfret. Here, they can explore their craft and share it with the world. Driven by Ms. Dolan, a spirit of inclusion and openness to all artists and art forms guides ArtisTree’s mission. 

“It’s a place where individuals feel their creative, imaginative selves can thrive, and it’s supported,” she says. “It’s supported by teachers, by the people around you, by the space.”

Woodstock-based artist Judith Taylor is one of the artists who enjoys that support.

“I really believe we’re here to question and imagine and create and tell stories,” Ms. Taylor says. “I always had a feeling at ArtisTree that I was welcome to do that. I really got the courage to explore whatever interested me.”

Ms. Dolan has also brought new vitality to the village of South Pomfret, a sliver of quintessential New England where the local ski resort Suicide Six towers above the landscape. The arts center, gallery, and the 90-seat Grange Theatre have transformed this town of about 900 into something of a cultural center. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Kathleen Dolan stops in front of the Teago General Store, which she has begun to restore in South Pomfret, Vermont. Though not connected with ArtisTree, the store is a stone’s throw from the Grange Theatre. Ms. Dolan’s goal is to maintain the store as the community hub it has been for decades.

Community spirit

The journey began when Ms. Dolan rented a downtown space in Woodstock in 2003 to provide music and art for young children.

“That was the beginning of me noticing how valuable a community space was for parents and kids,” Ms. Dolan says.

And she always honored that community spirit, says Dail Frates, executive director of Zack’s Place, a nonprofit serving children and adults with special needs, where Ms. Dolan sometimes teaches programs. Mrs. Frates remembers a time when only a couple of participants showed up for a class Ms. Dolan was teaching there. Mrs. Frates apologized for the low attendance, and she says Ms. Dolan’s response touched her. “She said, ‘Well, they matter too. It doesn’t matter if it’s two or 20 people. Everybody matters just as much.’”  

“She’s such a kind, considerate, and respectful person. It doesn’t matter who you are; you’re important to her.”

After Ms. Dolan moved her organization to a larger Woodstock location in 2006, community participation skyrocketed, and local partnerships grew. She continued putting resources into it, and in 2011, gave the organization its current name: ArtisTree. 

In 2013, ArtisTree’s biggest expansion to date included the opening of the arts center and gallery in South Pomfret. For the first time, ArtisTree had a location it owned.

“We got to design the space, and we had performances in mind, so that piece of it really started to get more attention and energy,” Ms. Dolan says.

Art enthusiasts can now find a wide range of classes there, including the visual arts, theater arts, music, movement classes, and creative wellness. The wellness classes offer “focused, personal growth experience through a given art form.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Ceramic creatures sit on a shelf in the ceramics studio at ArtisTree, which has become a powerhouse of creativity in the region.

“That’s another way that the arts can be of service to people,” Ms. Dolan says. “You can really learn something about yourself and find some peace and wellness through an art project as well.”

Fiona Davis, director of the ceramics program, says accessibility is one of the hallmarks of Ms. Dolan’s work.

“We get the chance to provide art to people who don’t always get that opportunity,” Ms. Davis says. “That’s been one of the most important things to me.”

Small-town revival

The arts center was also a game-changer for this tiny village, spurring the restoration of a historical barn, farmhouse, and Grange Hall, the last of which became Pomfret’s first theater venue in 2017. Its theater productions draw actors and performing arts fans from around the region.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The Grange Theatre is one of the buildings Kathleen Dolan restored through her organization, ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret, Vermont. The Suicide Six ski resort rises behind the building.

The projects boosted visitor traffic and gave the village a new dose of vitality it hadn’t seen in decades. Still, it was important to Ms. Dolan to honor South Pomfret’s history. At the Grange, a cherished landmark in town, ArtisTree salvaged parts of the building wherever possible, displaying several historical Grange artifacts behind glass.

“We were really sensitive to that because the Grange held a lot of the cultural history of this area,” Ms. Dolan says.

All this adds up to a unique arts experience.

“It’s pretty significant that we have this amazing, amazing facility,” Mrs. Frates says. “I love going to the theater and watching the productions.”

(Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, theater and music events are canceled for the season as of publication.)

In coming years Ms. Dolan plans to host more productions featuring local talent.

“It brings more participation from the people that live here, and that’s the whole point of ArtisTree,” Ms. Dolan says. 

Ms. Taylor, the Woodstock artist, has been working with ArtisTree for years. She remembers displaying her work of art “Mudrug” in ArtisTree’s gallery in 2017. She fashioned mud from the Dead Sea, brought back from a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, into the shape of a prayer rug adorned with intricate designs, and allowed it to dry on the floor, where it was exhibited facing east. It was meant to honor a culture at a time when there was a lot of discussion in the world about Muslims, Ms. Taylor explains. 

“My intention really was to make something beautiful and fragile, because it seemed to me there was so much negative feeling about something that was in the world and has great meaning,” she says. 

Ms. Taylor treasures the memory of that exhibition, and keeps the dried mud that formed “Mudrug” in a glass bottle at her home. 

“This is what Kathleen made possible in my life, and I’m so grateful, because if she did it for me, she’s done it for so many other people.” 

Courtesy of Macmillan Publishers and Simon & Schuster

“Girl, Serpent, Thorn” by Melissa Bashardoust, Flatiron Books, 336 pp.; and “Musical Chairs” by Amy Poeppel, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 416 pp.

1. The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

Gail Tsukiyama’s novel of enduring love – and just as important, enduring friendships – is set in Hawaii against the backdrop of the 1935 Mauna Loa volcano eruption. She immerses readers in the stories of close-knit characters with a gentle tone and rich descriptions that do not obscure the darker context of the historic setting. 

2. Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

What if the beauty is also the beast? That’s the premise of Melissa Bashardoust’s feminist fairy tale. The Princess Soraya has grown up hidden away in the palace while her twin brother rules. A curse has made her poisonous to the touch, and since a baby she’s been taught to apologize for and minimize her existence. Then a soldier captures a parik, a magical creature, who says she knows how to break the curse. Soraya must choose: Her family or her freedom.

3. The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio

Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

“The Son of Good Fortune” by Lysley Tenorio, Ecco, 290 pp.

Lysley Tenorio follows up his story collection “Monstress” with a novel that highlights the tested-but-never-torn bond between a Filipino American mother and son. The young adult son, Excel Maxino, must stop hiding and face his daunting future. Tenorio adds a unique twist to the #OwnVoices immigrant narrative. 

4. Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous

Duchess Goldblatt is a source of wry wisdom and off-kilter commentary on Twitter. And, as she’s the first to admit, she’s entirely fictional. It might be assumed that her creator would share her warmth, generosity, and love of life, but the real story is more complicated. Spurred by loneliness and loss, the anonymous author’s story is a testament to the powers of redemption, reinvention, and yes, country singer Lyle Lovett. 

5. Natural History by Carlos Fonseca

When a curator for a museum of natural history and a famous fashion designer discover they share a design aesthetic, she proposes they collaborate on an exhibition. From this premise, Carlos Fonseca unspools a genre-defying, literary puzzle of a novel. Propelled forward by exquisite prose, the book is a credit to translator Megan McDowell as well as to the author. 

6. Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel

Amy Poeppel’s novel offers a delightful ode to contemporary life as Bridget, a classical cellist, anticipates a summer of romance. That is, until her beau dumps her via email and her two grown kids move back home unannounced. But there’s always Will, her dear friend since Juilliard, the rock that anchors the chaos. 

7. Austen Years by Rachel Cohen

In a luminous gift to Janeites everywhere, Rachel Cohen recounts how only the novels of Jane Austen gave her the calming insight she needed to grapple with several challenges in her own life.

8. The Golden Thread by Ravi Somaiya

Courtesy of Hachette Book Group

“The Golden Thread: The Cold War and the Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjöld” by Ravi Somaiya, Twelve, 304 pp.

U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was negotiating an end to the Congolese civil war when he died in a plane crash in 1961. To this day, many believe he was assassinated. Journalist Ravi Somaiya explores one of the most compelling mysteries of the Cold War in this grim and absorbing book.

9. The Vapors by David Hill

Gamblers and gangsters abound in David Hill’s nonfiction debut. “The Vapors” details the surprising history of Hot Springs, Arkansas, a small town that was once home to the country’s most lavish casinos and spas. It’s an engaging portrait of America’s less-than-savory past.

10. Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs

Rebecca Giggs crafts a beautifully written and deeply searching reflection on whales, earth’s most awe-inspiring creatures.

dpa via AP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the press in Berlin July 2, 2020. Germany took over the presidency of the EU July 1.

Angela Merkel had been a cautious technocrat. The German chancellor demanded a government run with fiscal austerity. And while she’s always acknowledged Germany’s key role in the European Union, she never pushed to see that union grow stronger. 

Her educational background (a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry) has taught her to take a methodical, low-key approach to problem-solving.

But with her political career nearing its end – she’ll leave office in 2021 – she’s now showing another quality: a willingness to dramatically change course when new evidence calls for it.

Ms. Merkel and Germany took over the rotating presidency of the EU July 1. The union faces a pair of huge difficulties familiar to governments around the world: a pandemic and, as a result, in her own words, “the greatest economic challenge in the history of the European Union.”

She arrives in her post with another strength: the backing of the German people. Her popularity waned in 2015 when in a gesture of compassion she allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-ravaged countries such as Syria to settle in Germany, spurring a rapid rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.

Yet in early 2020, when the pandemic arrived, Ms. Merkel was able to move swiftly to coordinate efforts to fight its spread: Deaths and cases quickly dropped to low levels, and the situation appears under control. 

The public appreciated her efforts: A recent poll showed a remarkable 82% of Germans approve of her performance in office.

Now the problem-solver faces another huge task: persuading the EU’s member countries to collectively undertake a gigantic aid program to help those devastated by the economic crisis. In May she and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the EU borrow €500 billion ($545 billion) on financial markets to fund the effort. So much for an austere and debt-free Germany.

But the times, she realized, had demanded it. In a recent wide-ranging interview with a half-dozen leading European newspapers, she set out her thinking. Germany had watched as countries such as Italy suffered a heart-rending human and economic disaster. “It is only right for Germany to think not just about itself but to be prepared to engage in an extraordinary act of solidarity,” she said. “It was in that spirit that ... [President] Macron and I made our proposal.”

Helping needy neighbors was good for everyone, she insisted. “It is in Germany’s interest to have ... the European Union grow closer together, not fall apart. As ever, what’s good for Europe is good for us.”

Very high unemployment provides the tinder for political upheaval “and thereby increase[s] the threat to democracy,” she said. “For Europe to survive, its economy needs to survive.”

Framing the problem as economically stronger northern European countries, who must bail out weaker southern economies, isn’t useful, she said. “That is seeing things in black and white. I expect each of us always to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and consider problems from the other’s point of view.”

In sum, she said, “I see my job as working for a ... Europe rooted in the fundamental rights of the individual.”

That broad perspective she embraces holds great promise to guide Europe through this economic storm, and allow it to emerge again: prosperous, democratic, and united.