On the cusp of World War II, Virginia and Leonard Woolf went to Italy. Leonard was Jewish and Virginia was worried, but they decided, in a flash of daring, to risk a road trip that would take them through Nazi Germany. They were stopped by an officer who became too distracted to ask for their papers after he caught sight of the third member of their party: the Woolfs’ pet marmoset, Mitz. Sigrid Nunez’s Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury is a biography of this charming, well-connected monkey.

Read about all three of the Soft Skull summer picks here.