Atlantic County Library System

As libraries become public stages for social problems — homelessness, drug use, mental health — the people who work there are burning out.

Our columnists on new books by John Banville, Kate Christensen under a pseudonym and more.

The actor and foodie admired the Nobel Prize winner’s “Alisse at the Fire,” with “Septology” up next. His own new book is “What I Ate in One Year (and Related Thoughts).”

His Pulitzer Prize-nominated history of the war was warmly received by the Pentagon, but rejected elsewhere for ignoring what many said made the war “unwinnable.”