The Shortlist: Four New Collections of Omnivorous Literary Criticism
These writers range widely, giving free play to their personal aesthetics and their avid curiosity.
Nonfiction: What a World Tour of Tax Codes Can Teach the U.S. About How to Reform Its Own
In “A Fine Mess,” David Cay Johnston cites examples from Estonia to New Zealand of how tax redesigns can drive economic success.
Nonfiction: Where Do Babies Come From? And Why Did It Take Scientists So Long to Find Out?
For centuries, the mysteries of egg and sperm eluded even the greatest minds, Edward Dolnick writes in “The Seeds of Life.”
Fiction: Fathers and Sons — and Maybe Two More Sons
Susan Rieger’s novel “The Heirs” pits an upper-crust New York family against two young men claiming a piece of the patriarch’s estate.
Fiction: When the Fox Becomes a Friend
In Paula Cocozza’s hypnotic first novel, “How to Be Human,” a lonely woman strikes up a relationship with a feral fox.
Nonfiction: 26 Missing Genes and the Exuberant Affections They Lead To
Jennifer Latson’s “The Boy Who Loved Too Much” follows the story of a child with Williams syndrome, a genetic condition, who meets the world with unshakeable affection.
Fiction: A Nuanced Novel Examines the Mystery of Radicalization
Laleh Khadivi’s novel “A Good Country” poses the question: How does a studious American boy, the child of prosperous Iranian immigrants, fall into radical Islam?
Paperback Row
Six new paperbacks of interest this week.
Letters to the Editor
Readers respond to Senator Al Franken’s memoir, whether the internet is turning users “lonelier and lonelier” and debate the cultural appropriation.
Crime: Unmasking Magic and Murder in the Best New Crime
Alchemists and archaeologists are among the characters in this week’s mystery column. Also crooked cops and a very sad, very dead homeless man.
Books of The Times: In ‘Memory’s Last Breath,’ Remembering Life, Before It’s Too Late
Gerda Saunders tries to analyze her dementia as dispassionately as possible in her new book.
9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from editors at The New York Times.
Newsbook: 3 Books That Help Explain American-Cuban Relations
Here are three books that help explain the United States’ fraught historical relationship with Cuba.
Shades Of Gray Turn Sumptuous In 'Chain Letter'
In Chain Letter, cartoonist Farel Dalrymple returns to The City, the mysterious metropolis at the heart of his early 2000s series Pop Gun War. It's a weird, complicated and charming place.
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By the Book: Emma Straub: By the Book
The author of “Modern Lovers” keeps her youth on a shelf: “There are books I loved in my teens and 20s that I would not love now, but it’s still nice to see them there, as a reminder of a person I used to be.”
'The Sarah Book' Is An Unsparing Primal Scream Of A Book
Scott McClanahan's semi-autobiographical novel is packed with loss, pain and existential anguish, but his narrator — also named Scott — refuses to give up, no matter how often he's knocked down.
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Nonfiction: Two New Books Offer Advice for the Socially Awkward
Ty Tashiro (in “Awkward”) and Alan Alda (in “If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?”) say people can learn to interact more effectively.
Fiction: Skaters, Beaches and a Drug-Smuggling Stewardess in a Novel of the ’70s
In Daniel Riley’s debut novel, “Fly Me,” a young Vassar grad with a need for speed lights up a laid-back California town.
'The Alchemist's Daughter' Is No Frankenstein's Monster
Theodora Goss's novel takes bits and pieces from several different monstrous mythologies — Jekyll and Hyde, Dr. Moreau and more — but she makes something new and deceptively intricate out of them.
(Image credit: Liam James Doyle/NPR)
Nonfiction: A Powerful, Disturbing History of Residential Segregation in America
In “The Color of Law,” Richard Rothstein argues that government at all levels and in all branches abetted residential segregation, and the effects endure.
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