The author of acclaimed biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Frederick Douglass, he also helped establish Yale’s black studies department.
In his reviews in The New York Times, he championed experimental choreographers emerging in the 1960s and ’70s.
She was also a publisher and an author whose memoir affirmed that her father, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, had popularized the Serenity Prayer.
The new author has so enjoyed the warm reception to his book, “sometimes I wish I had nothing but children in my audience at the show.”
Reginald Dwayne Betts talks about “Felon,” and Jung Chang discusses “Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister.”
A pioneer in sports podcasting relies on spinach feta wraps from Starbucks, a Linus blanket and Busta Rhymes on repeat.
The distribution of shells in one population of hermit crabs matched how wealth is shared in some human societies.
It’s hard to whisper when you’re in the presence of so many books. A cartoonist sounds his praise with a visual celebration.
Readers respond to recent issues of the Sunday Book Review.
This week, Josh Duboff reviews André Aciman’s “Find Me,” the sequel to his 2007 novel “Call Me by Your Name.” In 1995, Barry Unsworth wrote for the Book Review about “Out of Egypt,” Aciman’s memoir chronicling the family that shaped his life.
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
Phillip Picardi and others were let go by the parent company of the venerable L.G.B.T.Q. magazine.
Jeff VanderMeer, the author of “Annihilation,” brings us fresh horrors with each new book. So why does he remain an optimist?
He specialized in one-character dramas, portraying luminaries like Emily Dickinson, John Barrymore, Lillian Hellman, Zelda Fitzgerald and Isak Dinesen.
In a global world, why is the oldest and most prestigious award in picture books still limited to American illustrators?
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
In “A Bookshop in Berlin,” Françoise Frenkel describes a life devoted to French literature and her escape from the Nazis across occupied France.
An excerpt from “Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947,” by Norman Lebrecht
“97,196 Words,” a new collection of essays by the celebrated French author, encapsulates his novel approach to nonfiction.
Norman Lebrecht’s “Genius & Anxiety” looks at Jewish achievement from 1847 to 1947.
“I suspect she would not be that interested in food.”
Perumal Murugan’s “The Story of a Goat” examines caste, surveillance and abuse — all cunningly folded into the biography of an unhappy little animal.
Textbooks are too expensive.
Lawrence Lessig’s “They Don’t Represent Us” and Ganesh Sitaraman’s “The Great Democracy” urge major reforms to reclaim American democracy.
“Alice Adams,” a new biography by Carol Sklenicka, recounts the career of the elegant novelist and short story writer who specialized in the disappointments of romance.
Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, founders of the private intelligence firm Fusion GPS, write about what turned up in their investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
Peter Handke, the Austrian author who was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, has been accused of falsifying history and praising war criminals.
Peter Bergen’s “Trump and His Generals” explains how so many members of the armed forces could work for a president who lacks all of the virtues they embody.
From the big screen to the page, the lore of Hollywood movies and movie stars makes an entertaining leap.
Daisy Dunn’s “The Shadow of Vesuvius” is a lively dual biography of the polymath Pliny the Elder and his nephew (and adopted son), Pliny the Younger.
A selection of recent poetry books of note; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading.
In “Of Morsels and Marvels,” the Guadeloupean novelist Maryse Condé writes about the links between her culinary and literary passions.
Adam Platt’s “The Book of Eating” and Ed Levine’s “Serious Eater” are about the passions of professional foodies.
The diplomat, Anna Lindstedt, is accused of arranging unauthorized talks between the daughter of a detained bookseller and two men representing Chinese interests.
“My Brilliant Friend” and Elena Ferrante’s other best-selling books are inspiring female novelists and shaking up the country’s male-dominated literary establishment.
Ash Carter and Sam Kashner discuss their new oral history of the director, and Alexandra Jacobs talks about her biography of Elaine Stritch.
Michael Eric Dyson’s book, “Jay-Z: Made in America” is new on the nonfiction list this week.
For “Texas Flood,” their oral history of the legendary blues guitarist, Alan Paul and Andy Aledort talked to his family, bandmates and crew.
An artist reimagines the season’s favorites.
Readers respond to recent issues of the Sunday Book Review.
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
The scholar on how Indigenous thinking can lead to innovation and save the world. Also, Vikings and beer.
The Times’s art critics select 26 of their favorite art books and books related to art of the year.
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Picture book biographies of Thurgood Marshall, Katherine Johnson, Jimmy Carter and more introduce people who just kept going, until they changed the world.
The Times’s staff critics give their choices of the best fiction and nonfiction works of the year.
Marilyn Stasio’s 2019 top 10 list includes a gruesome Danish serial-killer thriller, a missing-persons caper and a murder mystery set in the video-gaming world.
“I’m fascinated by stories of how the various plant specimens we take for granted today were originally discovered,” says the actor, whose latest book is “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years.”
Combining material from Robert Musil’s great unfinished novel and from his archives, “Agathe, or the Forgotten Sister” focuses on the twinlike siblings at the book’s heart.
The Times’s staff critics talk with each other about the reading they did in 2019, on and off the job.
Her essay in The New York Times drew a wide readership; she also chronicled her life with terminal cancer in a blog, finding humor amid despair.
The novelist Rachel Kushner also writes about art. Her collection is a reminder of those essays and features.
Shari Redstone gets her wish, bringing about the merger of two media giants in a $25 billion deal. The plan is to become a content arms dealer in the streaming wars.
Heather Christle’s peculiar and indelible book bounces between observations about the causes and uses of the tears we shed.
Niall Williams’s novel “This Is Happiness” takes readers to a remote rural village, a “forgotten elsewhere” that’s on the brink of great change.
By revisiting and refuting the cultural history of the West, this group is using time as its primary medium, looking backward to inform a different kind of gay future.
Ms. Fontana, who was part of the “Star Trek” universe from its early days, was best known for her work on Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan Starfleet officer portrayed by Leonard Nimoy.
This collection, edited by Saskia Hamilton, collects correspondence from the writers Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell and their friends after Lowell had suddenly left Hardwick and the couple’s teenage daughter.
Amity Shlaes’s “Great Society: A New History” claims that liberals hurt the very people they are trying to help.
Leandra Ruth Zarnow’s “Battling Bella” presents an outspoken Bella Abzug who has something to say for our own time.
The Massachusetts-based translator has done more than anyone to bridge the gap between Chinese science fiction and American readers.
A.R. Moxon’s debut novel, “The Revisionaries,” reimagines the prison-industrial complex as a corrupt theocracy.
His new novel, “Dead Astronauts,” is a phantasmagoric pastiche set in a post-climate-change future.
Laura Thompson’s “Life in a Cold Climate” documents the upper-class fiction and fixations of Nancy Mitford, known for her pronouncements on what was de rigueur.
In Olaf Olafsson’s novel “The Sacrament,” a nun’s investigation of abuse allegations rekindles troubling memories from her own past.
“One Long River of Song” celebrates nature, family, music and life.
A selection of recent audiobooks of note; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading.
John Simon reviews “Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends,” an oral history by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner.
Lars Iyer’s new novel, “Nietzsche and the Burbs,” imagines the German philosopher as a contemporary British adolescent.
The most notable picture books, middle grade and young adult books of the year, selected by The Times’s children’s books editor.
In her impressively reported new account, Ruth Marcus unpacks the political maneuvering behind the justice’s ascent to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Massie wrote readable and respected biographies of Russian royals, including “Nicholas and Alexandra,” which became a movie.
The “Queen & Slim” writer on mixing art and politics, the key to collaboration and those infamous comments about Will Smith and Denzel Washington.
On the 600th anniversary of the Gutenberg press, we can still celebrate how stories are shared.
Stunning new atlases take you back to the worlds of 19th-century explorers, early aviators and turn-of-the-century London, and into a future of rising seas.
“Free, Melania” gets into the first lady’s relationship with Ivanka, “Be Best” and that “I really don’t care” jacket.
“The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison” brood on identity, alienation and the political responsibilities of the artist, but are also full of vital everyday experience.
Reading books by Latina writers taught me our stories were worthy of being told.
For most people, it’s the click that brings a package to their door. But a look at Baltimore shows how Amazon may now reach into Americans’ daily existence in more ways than any corporation in history.
Of fear and thankfulness. The white elephants of eternity are always out there.
Writers cast light on other countries’ shadows: from a sinister factory in Japan to a secret-filled Yugoslav town to a prisonlike kitchen in the south of India.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter and first-time Broadway librettist shares what she watched, read and listened to in a week.
Orders from the Republican Party and other conservative groups helped push Mr. Trump’s best-selling book, records show.
In books about the history of wives, the history of the breast and other subjects, she examined how cultural forces led over time to feminist thinking.
Pico’s latest volume concludes what he has described as a four-book project about pretty much everything, mixing verse and prose, diary, comedy and accusation.
A writer and illustrator remembers a kind doctor who influenced her career.
“The vast majority of American classics were ruined for me because schools made me read them too young,” says the Y.A. fantasy novelist, whose new book is “Children of Virtue and Vengeance.”
James, who died on Sunday at 80, was an endlessly quotable poet, memoirist, novelist and critic — among other things.
In “Music: A Subversive History,” the jazz critic and author Ted Gioia tells the story of music as one of radical nonconformists overturning convention.
The White House memoir, written by someone identified only as “a senior Trump administration official,” vaults to the No. 1 spot, moving “Triggered” to No. 2.
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
A dive into Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the Supreme Court, Jeff VanderMeer’s new eco-horror novel, Ralph Ellison’s letters and more.
A transplanted Australian, he had a zest for the knockout punch as he sparred with all things cultural, creating a pungent comic persona on British television.
A transplanted Australian, he had a zest for the knockout punch as he sparred with all things cultural, creating a pungent comic persona on British television.
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
Readers respond to recent issues of the Sunday Book Review.
Sometimes teenage life is all too real. These books will lift your favorite teenager — or you — into a spellbinding new realm.
When you need a book that’s high in quality but low in page count, try these standouts.
Once children start reading independently, the right short books will help them practice reading while keeping them entertained.
Babies love books — like these — that show them their own world.
The top picks from 2019 include volumes on cider that have a lot to teach wine lovers, along with stories about sommeliers and essential new texts.
My top picks have knockout art and stories that will help your little one settle in for the night.
These choices are outstanding read-alouds any time of day, but they will seem especially magical as you’re winding down at night.
Need recommendations for children’s books? You’ve come to the right place.
Mind-boggling pop-ups, a “Tintin” collection, a deluxe “Alice in Wonderland” and more gift-worthy children’s books that pack a visual punch.
In “The Great Pretender,” Susannah Cahalan finds a mystery when she revisits an influential 1973 paper that upended the field of psychiatry.
She collaborated with her first husband on an acclaimed three-volume history of the game. But it took 50 years for her contribution to be fully acknowledged.
The last of the celebrity newspapermen, Mr. Hamill moved back to Brooklyn to write a (final?) book.
Five new books take us to far-flung places including Mexico, Tasmania, the Alaskan tundra and Hays, Kan.
The Library of America has reissued Stafford’s three novels, which offer a richly written and unblinking look at the darker aspects of being young, in one volume.
Five new books take us to far-flung places including Mexico, Tasmania, the Alaskan tundra and Hays, Kan.
The latest books to give — and keep for yourself! — this season.
Six new books on sports range from baseball to women’s hockey to men’s and women’s basketball.
Dominique Browning’s roundup of outdoor books takes readers high in the sky to watch clouds and birds, then settles to earth in some spectacular gardens.
Their music spans genres and generations, but six iconic performers strike a similar chord in their new memoirs. The dominant note? Honesty.
Luc Sante’s roundup includes Richard Avedon, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman and Kohei Yoshiyuki.
From Sichuan to Israel, from Italy’s “pasta grannies” to the community cooks of the American South, there’s plenty of enticement to return to the kitchen.
The latest books to give — and keep for yourself! — this season.
On a special episode of the podcast, taped live, editors from The New York Times Book Review discuss this year’s outstanding fiction and nonfiction.
An excerpt from “Tiny Love: The Complete Stories,” by Larry Brown
An excerpt from “The Cartiers: The Untold Story Behind the Jewelry Empire,” by Francesca Cartier Brickell
“Tiny Love: The Complete Stories of Larry Brown” collects tales of hardscrabble lives, as captured by the Mississippi writer who died in 2004, at the age of 53.
Holly George-Warren’s “Janis: Her Life and Music” shows us the person behind the pop idol.
Francesca Cartier Brickell gives jewelry enthusiasts a peek into her family’s diamond-encrusted past.
Thomas Lynch’s new essay collection, “The Depositions,” should be required reading for anyone who is going to die someday.
A selection of books published this week; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading.
The list includes a mix of books written originally in Spanish and in translation.
Burhan Sonmez’s new novel asks big questions about individuals and societies: What makes us who we are? And if we can’t remember our past, does it still belong to us?
The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
Chain stores have come and gone but Three Lives & Company remains, and is still the archetype of a neighborhood hangout.
Prolific, erudite and caustic in his wit, he surveyed the entire cultural landscape — films, plays, books, art — and saw little that he liked.
In “Disney’s Land,” Richard Snow explains how Walt Disney turned 240 acres of orange groves into the iconic California theme park.
Sometimes we read for escape. Sometimes we read to be reminded of the obvious: Things could be worse.
François Lebeau’s “Climbing Rock” and Christian Vizl’s “Silent Kingdom” reveal the sublime edges of the earth.
A raft of books, both fiction and nonfiction, examined women’s anger from personal and political angles — and suggested that the fire is just getting started.
A raft of books, both fiction and nonfiction, examined women’s anger from personal and political angles — and suggested that the fire is just getting started.
Montclair Book Center is 9,000 square feet of nooks, alcoves, labyrinths and warrens. “It’s like a time machine,” one customer says.
Literary revisions may help us empathize with political figures across party lines.
Charles Moore discusses the final volume of his biography of Margaret Thatcher, and Adrienne Brodeur talks about her memoir, “Wild Game.”
Rigorous debate narrows a wide-open field as the year progresses.
‘The War of the Worlds’ has been a novel and a radio broadcast. Now, an artist reimagines H.G. Wells’s extraterrestrial tale in graphic form.
Contemporary recordings breathe new life into such books as “To the Lighthouse,” “Jane Eyre” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
New graphic biographies of the novelist and the Supreme Court justice show the determined paths they followed, from quietly rebellious girlhoods to full-on iconhood.
One researcher argues that a dog’s ability to bond has more to do with forming emotional attachments than being smart about what humans want.
The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.
The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.
“The Camp of the Saints,” published in 1973, has been a must-read within white supremacist circles for decades. Stephen Miller, Marine Le Pen and Steve King have touted it in recent years.
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
Readers respond to recent issues of the Sunday Book Review.
The Nobel laureate, who died in August, was honored at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York. Speakers included Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis and Fran Lebowitz.