What Makes a Popular Song Great?
Rob Kapilow’s “Listening for America” explains how to distinguish good from bad in the Great American Songbook.
A Book Version of ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ Is Even Darker Than the Movie
Guillermo del Toro and his co-writer, Cornelia Funke, stay faithful to the script, but ramp up the bleakness in this tale of a princess living through a brutal war.
Meeting the Brother Who Can’t Remember Her
In Thanhha Lai’s “Butterfly Yellow,” a Vietnamese refugee finds the brother taken from her family as a toddler. Much more than just time separates them.
Why Movie Musicals Work
Jeanine Basinger’s “The Movie Musical!” is an encyclopedic tribute to musicals past and present.
Round Trip With the King of Pop Art
In Andy Warhol’s diaries, first published 30 years ago, the legendary bon vivant kept meticulous track of cab fare.
Jane Austen Has Left the Building — and So Have Dickens and Waugh
In “Novel Houses,” Christina Hardyment conducts tours of 20 famous fictional dwellings and the real places that inspired their creators.
Langston Hughes on James Baldwin’s ‘Notes of a Native Son’
In 1958, Langston Hughes wrote for The Times about “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin’s 1955 collection of essays meditating on race in America and Europe.
Learning the Wiles of a Biographer, With Beckett and Beauvoir
Deirdre Bair’s memoir, “Parisian Lives,” takes readers behind the scenes as, early in her career, she grapples with two towering literary figures.
New in Paperback: ‘Vietnam’ and ‘Upstream’
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
Arkady Renko Has Been Sent to Siberia. And He’s Fine With That.
Martin Cruz Smith’s latest Russian thriller leads off Marilyn Stasio’s Crime column, which also includes a new Jack Reacher novel from Lee Child.
9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Randall Munroe Loves Outdated Views of the Future
“Seeing what people worried about or complained about a hundred years ago always gives a lot of perspective,” says the creator of the web comic XKCD, whose new book is “How To.”
Home for the Holidays, for Better or Worse
In his latest novel, Benjamin Markovits revisits the Essinger family, this time at their home in Texas. Luckily for the reader, their lives are far from perfect.
In 'A Warning,' An Invisible Hand Rings A Somber Alarm
President Trump, we are told in this soon-to-be-published book, has destroyed the guardrails thoughtful people tried to erect around him. Further, he has banished nearly all those thoughtful people.
(Image credit: Twelve)
'Queen Of The Conquered' Serves Revenge With Delicacy And Savagery
In their new novel, Kacen Callender builds a vast, immersive landscape based on the colonial history of the Caribbean, but it's their morally conflicted heroine who will really hook readers.
(Image credit: Orbit)
Closed: Thanksgiving Day
All branches of the Atlantic County Library System will be closed for Thanksgiving Day.
Jamaica: A Small Nation With an Outsize Global Influence
Orlando Patterson’s “The Confounding Island” is a sociologist’s analysis of his birthplace as well as a personal memoir of affection and failure.
How to Beat the Market
Gregory Zuckerman’s “The Man Who Solved the Market” tells the extraordinary story of an investor (not named Warren Buffett) who made a fortune on Wall Street.
'The Great Pretender' Investigates A Landmark Moment In Psychiatric History
In the '70s David Rosenhan and seven "pseudopatients" went undercover in mental health wards. Their resulting article rocked the psychiatric world. But Susannah Cahalan struggled to confirm the facts.
(Image credit: Grand Central Publishing )
'Mama Hissa's Mice' Creep Through A Dystopian Future Kuwait
Saud Alsanousi's novel follows a group of Kuwaiti kids growing up in the 1980s — then jumps to a near future torn by sectarian violence. It's a resonant book that asks more questions than it answers.
(Image credit: Petra Mayer/NPR)
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