New & Noteworthy, From RuPaul to a Nine-Dish Meal

ALL I FEEL IS RIVERS: Dervish Essays, by Robert Vivian. (University of Nebraska, paper, $19. 95. ) In quick blocks of text that amount to ecstatic prose poetry or a kind of flash nonfiction, Vivian celebrates the living moment, “the hum and thrum and love of it.

” IS EUROPE CHRISTIAN? by Olivier Roy. Translated by Cynthia Schoch. (Oxford University, $19.

95. ) Roy, who has previously written about the politics of Islamic fundamentalism, here challenges the notion that Europe is predominantly Christian, arguing that the faith’s future in fact rests with the global South. LEGENDARY CHILDREN: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez. (Penguin, paper, $17.

) The creators of the blog Tom and Lorenzo limn the reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” as a window into gay culture and history. FIRST, CATCH: Study of a Spring Meal, by Thom Eagle. (Grove, $25. ) Eagle, a chef and food writer, uses a nine-dish lunch as the occasion to ruminate about cooking, and life: “Seasoning, really, is a matter of balance … so no one voice can be made out in the clamor.

” HERE THE DARK, by David Bergen. (Biblioasis, paper, $16. 95. ) The title novella of this striking collection centers on a woman who resists her Mennonite upbringing, crystallizing the book’s themes of doubt and self-knowledge.

There is no more tempting time to pick up your phone than during a digital detox. I was in this desperate state when I came across Ron Chernow’s ALEXANDER HAMILTON, a biography so gripping that Lin Manuel Miranda had consumed it over a summer and turned it into a blockbuster musical. Maybe it would at least keep me off my phone. Indeed, it took over my life: Hamilton’s upbringing in the Caribbean, his arrival in New York, his formative role in our systems of governance and finance, his downfall and that fatal duel.