“Briefly Noted Book Reviews”

Key points

• Music Against the Night reimagines John Field and Adelaide Percheron in Li's planned trilogy.
• Lefens's Her Kind follows Ada, a mother facing abandonment and visions near Lake Michigan.
• A World We Share argues Arendt valued friendship through respect, duration, and dialogue.
• The Flying Death traces curare's history and its dubious use in medicine and industry.
• The collection surveys fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with varied historical themes.