Engage or escape? Here are some recommendations for bizarre times.

ESCAPE:

Novel: The Novel Detective — Teresa Dovalpage

Memoir: Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me — Adrienne Brodeur

Music: Switched on Pop — Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be: The Beach Boy: My uncanny night watching one of the legendary group’s last-ever shows.

Analog moments: 36 mechanical keyboards and switches, curated and sound-mapped — The Listening Museum

Survival of the Random, but Not Always the Fittest: Why Don’t Humans Have Tails? — Brian Klaas

Novel: The Dentist — Tim Sullivan

ENGAGE:

Law: Ketanji Brown Jackson is Getting Tired of the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket Abuses — Madiba K. Dennie, Balls and Strikes

Elections: New Mail Voting Rules Moved Forward Despite USPS Officials’ Concerns About Mass Disenfranchisement — Jenn Fifield, ProPublica

A.I.: In Defense of the Detour: On craft, A.I. and what gets lost when we skip the slow part — Giorgia Lupi, New York Times

Race, Society, Systems, Lack of Empathy: The NYC Subway Chokehold That Divided America, with Anand Giridharadas — Stay Tuned With Preet

Viruses: Witchcraft, or Sheeppox? A 3,700-Year-Old Virus Hiding in a Medieval book Just Killed 500,000 Animals — Elizabeth Rayne, Popular Mechanics

Witchcraft, or Sheeppox? A 3,700-Year-Old Virus Hiding in a Medieval book Just Killed 500,000 Animals — Elizabeth Rayne, Popular Mechanics

Politics: The Midterm Convention: Douche-a-Palooza. Have I Got News for You. Roy Wood, Amber Ruffin, Michael Ian Black, Julia Ioffe, Jon Lovett