It’s a funny thing, working on the Books desk of The Times. When momentous news is loosed on the world — when hurricanes strike, or protesters mass, or governments tremble and fall — we follow it as avidly as any well-informed person with an interest in the course of human events. We refresh our screens; we gather in conference rooms to watch the speeches or the flames. We wonder what it will all amount to. But when we get back to work, our job is to forget all that. Let others work the phones or cultivate sources in search of the next White House scoop. We have books to read.

Of course, books do sometimes grow directly out of the news. But by nature, they take the long view. So you won’t find us recommending books about impeachment this week (unless you’re interested in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, in which case here you go). But you will find a list of titles offering context and background for recent events that still reverberate. “She Said,” by the Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, takes you behind the scenes of their Pulitzer-winning coverage of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. “Permanent Record,” by Edward Snowden, explains his decision to leak information in 2013 about large-scale government surveillance. “See Jane Win,” by Caitlin Moscatello, explores the rise of progressive women in national politics. And “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh,” by The Times’s Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, expands on their reporting about the Supreme Court justice’s confirmation hearings to look at his years in high school and college.

We also bring you a biography of the writer Susan Sontag, a lawyer’s account of the battle against revenge porn and — for those of you looking to escape current events altogether — five wildly various novels. You remember Ezra Pound’s line about literature, right? That’s the news that stays news.

Gregory Cowles

Senior Editor, Books

Twitter: @GregoryCowles

SONTAG: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser. (Ecco, $39.99.) Moser spent seven years writing this biography of Sontag, whose essays and criticism made her one of the leading public intellectuals of the 20th century. “His book has an interesting, jumpy, adversarial energy, with its author caught up in the drama and not so subtly taking sides in the clashes surrounding Sontag,” our critic Parul Sehgal writes. “Where Moser shines is not in analysis but in narrative, no easy feat for a life committed to reinvention.”