Nonfiction: Rome Wasn’t Sacked in a Day
Matthew Kneale’s “Rome: A History in Seven Sackings” narrates the city’s past through the marauders who have devastated it.
Nonfiction: The Woman Who Created a Monster
For the 200th anniversary of “Frankenstein,” the poet Fiona Sampson has written a new biography of its author: “In Search of Mary Shelley.”
Fiction: ‘Beowulf’ Gets a 21st-Century Update
In “The Mere Wife,” by Maria Dahvana Headley, the epic poem is reimagined as an imaginative tale of class conflict.
Crime: For Marilyn Stasio, Any Place Can Be the Scene of the Crime
This week’s mysteries move from a New Hampshire boarding school to a London rowhouse, with stops in New York City and a ramshackle shed in Oakland.
Fiction: Classical Myths Filtered Through a Modern Prism
In his new novel, “Metamorphica” — the title is a nod to Ovid’s epic poem — Zachary Mason reworks and respins ancient Greco-Roman myths.
Fiction: Rumpelstiltskin Redux
In her brilliant new novel, “Spinning Silver,” Naomi Novik riffs on a number of fairy tales, including the straw-into-gold classic.
Fiction: Going AWOL in Africa’s Largest City
Chibundu Onuzo’s novel “Welcome to Lagos” sets its runaway characters adrift in the swirl of metropolitan life, where it may be impossible to hide.
Editors’ Choice: 11 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Nonfiction: Learning From Henry Kissinger
“Kissinger the Negotiator,” by James K. Sebenius, R. Nicholas Burns and Robert H. Mnookin, presents diplomacy as the art of influencing friends and adversaries.
By the Book: Sophie Hannah: By the Book
Sophie Hannah, whose Hercule Poirot novel “The Mystery of Three Quarters” will be published this month, is addicted to self-help: “Write a book and call it something like ‘The Five Secrets of Badass Kickassery’ and I will buy it immediately.”
Nonfiction: Who Desegregated America’s Schools? Women
“A Girl Stands at the Door,” by the Rutgers historian Rachel Devlin, shows how the work of desegregation was done disproportionately by young black women.
Fiction: Anne Tyler’s Latest Heroine Quits Cushy Arizona for Quirky Baltimore
In her new novel, “Clock Dance,” a staid retiree plunges into the off-kilter lives of a single mother and her daughter.
Q. & A.: Why a Picture Book Now for Young Kids? Let’s Just Say He Could Feel It in His Bones.
Jeff Smith, the creator of Bone, the graphic novel series, is going after younger readers.
Nonfiction: The ‘Social Hygiene’ Campaign That Sent Thousands of American Women to Jail
Scott W. Stern’s “The Trials of Nina McCall” is the first book-length history of the “American Plan,” under which women suspected of having venereal disease were forcibly examined and imprisoned.
Nonfiction: What Happened When Fracking Came to Town
Eliza Griswold’s new book, “Amity and Prosperity,” is an impassioned account of the devastating effects of fracking on a community in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Nonfiction: The Worst Drug Crisis in American History
Beth Macy’s “Dopesick” describes the opioid epidemic that is killing thousands every year.
New & Noteworthy
A selection of books published this week; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading.
Nonfiction: Two Views of Flint’s Water Troubles: One a Close-Up and One With a Wide-Angle Lens
Mona Hanna-Attisha’s “What the Eyes Don’t See” traces her role in proving Flint had a crisis. Anna Clark’s “The Poisoned City” takes a broader, historical view. Both books are damning.
Nonfiction: An Astrophysical Approach to Our Environmental Crisis
In “Light of the Stars,” Adam Frank uses evidence of extraterrestrial life to illuminate the problem of climate change on Earth.
Nonfiction: On the Front Lines of Infertility
Two new memoirs — Elizabeth Katkin’s ‘Conceivability’ and Emma Brockes’s ‘An Excellent Choice’ — trace very different paths to motherhood.
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