Implicit in any piece of writing is a stab at answering a perennial question: Whose story gets to be remembered? That's true for not only the half-dozen books below — but also pretty much anything recorded since people living in what is present-day Iraq began making records of life events using this relatively newfangled practice called writing in the first place.

This week's publishing calendar offers plenty of stories written down in stone (or on somewhat newer technology) — from a coming of age in war-torn Ukraine to a dispatch from wildfire country and a glimpse of the recovery-industrial complex, right down to the lives of the folks behind those very first written symbols, many millennia ago. They also answer a simpler question that you'll hear at the lending desk of your local lib

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