Colum McCann has worked exquisite magic with Let the Great World Spin, a novel of electromagnetic force that defies gravity. It’s August 1974, a summer when Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses New York City as a man on a cable walks repeatedly between the World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary feat becomes the touchstone for ten stories that briefly submerge you in a series of varied, intense lives.