How Should We View the Middle East’s Legacy of Slavery?
In “Captives and Companions,” Justin Marozzi traces the stories of the eunuchs, harem women and forced laborers who underwrote empires in Asia and North Africa.
December 23, 2025
From ‘Mona’s Eyes’ to ‘Theo of Golden’: This Year’s Surprise Hit Novels
These days, most best sellers are written by authors with household names. Not these five breakout books.
December 23, 2025
Feel Like Testing Your Memory for Literary Trivia?
Try this short quiz to see how many fun facts about authors and books you can recall.
December 22, 2025
A Last Meal With One of the Finest Food Writers in America
Betty Fussell’s new memoir offers insights on aging, stories about love and a recipe for coyote pie.
December 22, 2025
In This Offbeat Canadian Town, Stranger Things Lurk
The teen detectives and alien enigmas of the Nova Scotia-set “Hobtown Mystery Stories” return for a third supernatural outing.
December 22, 2025
Why I Stopped Reading and Embraced Audiobooks
On the joys of having stories in my ears — and yes, listening counts.
December 21, 2025
When I Got Sick, My Novel Got Better
After this Booker Prize finalist became seriously ill, everything seemed very real, and everything seemed to matter.
December 21, 2025
Lou Cannon Dies at 92; Journalist Chronicled Reagan as an Author
He was a foremost authority on the president, tracing his career in unvarnished accounts from his time as California governor through his years in the White House.
December 20, 2025
She Put the Heat in ‘Heated Rivalry’
Thanks to a steamy television adaptation, Rachel Reid’s romance novels about closeted hockey players have become mainstream best-sellers.
December 19, 2025
How Was 2025 in the World of Books?
“Some of us feel exhausted, some of us feel energized.” The Book Review looks back on the year’s biggest stories and trends in the publishing industry.
December 19, 2025
Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut Had Something to Say. We Have It on Tape.
Rare recordings of E.E. Cummings, Mary Oliver and more offer a tour through literary history led by authors in their own words — and voices. Take a listen.
December 19, 2025
The Best Middle Grade Mysteries for Kids
The author of the City Spies series chooses 7 crime novels that invite young readers to discover the culprit before the characters do.
December 19, 2025
Sue Bender, Who Wrote About Living With the Amish, Dies at 91
“Plain and Simple,” her best-selling 1989 book, was a go-to text of the anti-materialist movement known as voluntary simplicity.
December 18, 2025
250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects
To capture Jane Austen’s brief life and enormous impact, editors at The New York Times Book Review assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.
December 18, 2025
The Books Times Readers Were Most Excited About This Year
Thrillers, literary fiction, history, memoirs and more: Here are the most popular books you saved to your reading lists.
December 18, 2025
Once a Year the French Literary Scene Goes to the Dogs (Cats, Too)
It’s the day the “Animal Goncourt” is awarded. “Who better,” a judge says, “to talk about the fabulous relationship between animals and men than writers and philosophers?”
December 18, 2025
John Darnielle: ‘Polish Literature Is a Whole Wondrous World!’
The novelist and musician is a voracious reader of books in translation. In “This Year,” he annotates the literary lyrics to 365 of his own songs.
December 18, 2025
Can Poetry Heal the Divided Nation?
Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, makes the case in a new book of criticism.
December 18, 2025
The Intellectuals Fueling the MAGA Movement
“Furious Minds,” by Laura K. Field, traces the ascendancy of hard-right thinkers whose contempt for liberal democracy is shaping American politics.
December 17, 2025
The Pamphlet That Has Roused Americans to Action for 250 Years
Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” in 1776 as an argument for independence. Americans across the political spectrum have been citing it ever since.
December 17, 2025
Can You Ace This Jane Austen 250th Birthday Trivia Quiz?
This 12-question challenge will test your knowledge of all things Austen.
December 16, 2025
Who Is the Ultimate Mr. Darcy?
Welcome to our Regency Thunderdome, where we will endeavor to answer this question once and for all.
December 16, 2025
250 Years of Jane Austen, in 25 Things
To capture the writer’s brief life and enormous impact, we assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.
December 16, 2025
What Happened to the American Dream? Will It Ever Come Back?
As costs are rising and wallets are hurting, these books explore the promises and pitfalls of the U.S. economy.
December 15, 2025
The Best Book Covers of 2025
A Book Review art director selects the book jackets that surprised him, delighted him and stayed with him this year.
December 14, 2025
The Best Children’s Books of 2025
Here are the year’s most notable picture and middle grade books, selected by our children’s books editor.
December 13, 2025
Our Critics Look Back on Their Year in Reading
It’s been a good one. Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai discuss the books that have stayed with them.
December 12, 2025
Joanna Trollope, Popular British Author, Dies at 82
Her books, many of which were best sellers, often described empty marriages, love affairs (with tasteful sex) and heroic clergymen.
December 12, 2025
Gonzo Fans Have Made ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ Into a Global Blockbuster
Matt Dinniman introduced his series about an alien reality TV show free on the web. But readers ate up the goofy humor, now to the tune of 6 million books sold.
December 12, 2025
The Best Poetry of 2025
Here are the year’s most notable collections of verse as chosen by our poetry columnist.
December 12, 2025
The Best Graphic Novels of 2025
A candy-colored story collection, sisters who lust after Hitler and harrowing reportage from a riot in India.
December 12, 2025
Our Book Critics on Their Year in Reading
Alexandra Jacobs, Jennifer Szalai and Dwight Garner look back at the books that, as Jacobs writes, “bonked me on the head this year.”
December 12, 2025
I Think This Poem Is Kind of Into You
Our critic A.O. Scott feels the heat of a wintry lyric by the Nobel laureate Louise Glück.
December 11, 2025
5 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
December 11, 2025
Our Favorite Hidden Gem Books of 2025
The staff of the Book Review recommends unforgettable books that made our personal best-of-the-year lists.
December 11, 2025
Michael J. Fox Always Has Two Audiobooks Teed Up
One fiction, one nonfiction (which he turns to at night). In “Future Boy,” he recalls juggling signature roles in “Back to the Future” and “Family Ties.”
December 11, 2025
The Best Mystery Novels of 2025
Our columnist on the books that wowed her this year.
December 11, 2025
The End of an Era at One of America’s Most Famous Artist Retreats
After a quarter century, the Yaddo president Elaina Richardson will step down, having made her mark on the storied arts residency.
December 10, 2025
Sophie Kinsella, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ Author, Dies at 55
Writing under a pseudonym, Madeleine Wickham cultivated an international following for her series centered on a young woman addicted to shopping.
December 10, 2025
The Best Thrillers of 2025
Our columnist on the books that wowed her this year.
December 10, 2025
A Gothic Novel Haunted by South African History
In “Cape Fever,” a young maid finds herself dealing with ghosts from the past and a manipulative employer.
December 9, 2025
DéLana R.A. Dameron, Writer of the Black South, Dies at 40
An award-winning poet and writer of fiction, she moonlighted as a competitive horsewoman and owned a horse farm outside Columbia, S.C.
December 9, 2025
Triumph, Tragedy and a Heroine of the High Seas
In “The Sea Captain’s Wife,” Tilar J. Mazzeo tells the thrilling story of Mary Ann Patten, the first female captain of a merchant clipper ship.
December 9, 2025
The Best Romance Novels of 2025
Here are the books our columnist loved the most this year.
December 9, 2025
Do You Know Where in the World These Winter Scenes Are Set?
Many books have memorable moments or major plot points set in locations with chilly winter weather. Try this short quiz to see how many you remember from recent novels.
December 8, 2025
A Peek Into the Mind of One of History’s Great Thinkers
The notebooks of Albert Camus, the French philosopher and novelist, have been collected in a single volume for the first time.
December 8, 2025
The Best Historical Fiction of 2025
Our columnist picks the year’s outstanding books.
December 8, 2025
Is There Life in Hollywood? A Smart New Novel Talks It Over.
Lauren Rothery’s “Television” finds an action star and two writers dazed by the changing rules of the entertainment industry.
December 7, 2025
Big and Beautiful: Gift-Worthy Holiday Art Books
This season’s bounty includes volumes on far-out artists, unusual cats and enviable gardens.
December 7, 2025
Cynthia Erivo Loves to Read While Getting Tattooed
“I have to be still for a certain amount of time,” says the “Wicked” star and author of “Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much.”
December 7, 2025
Liverwort or Moss? Horny Toad or Fence Lizard? Niche Field Guides Can Tell You.
What birders well know, fans of “composite organisms” and other creatures can now learn: how to identify obscure species in the wild.
December 6, 2025
From Dreamhouse to Nightmare? The Real Barbie Story Is Dark.
As told in Tarpley Hitt’s rollicking “Barbieland,” the rise of America’s doll alter ego is much messier and more interesting than any movie.
December 5, 2025
Hannah Arendt Is Not Your Icon
Fifty years after her death, the German-born political thinker has been enshrined as a prophet for our times. What did she actually say?
December 5, 2025
4 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
December 4, 2025
Our Favorite Books to Give Every Type of Reader
Need the perfect holiday gift? Try one of these recent releases.
December 4, 2025
A Colorful Massachusetts Memoir, With a Cross-Cultural Twist
Raised in a large chaotic family outside Boston, the journalist Janice Page recalls an eventful childhood and the love story that brought her to China and back again.
December 3, 2025
David Pryce-Jones, Conservative Writer With Clout, Dies at 89
The author of novels, histories, biographies and influential political essays, he approached them all with a droll British wit and a steadfast commitment to Western values.
December 2, 2025
Talking About Our 10 Best Books of 2025
We made a list! Now we explain why we love the books we chose.
December 2, 2025
The 10 Best Books of 2025
After a year of deliberation, the editors at The New York Times Book Review have picked their 10 best books of 2025. Three editors share their favorites.
December 2, 2025
The 10 Best Books of 2025
The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s top fiction and nonfiction.
December 2, 2025
A New Spin on the Pandemic Novel
In “Casanova 20,” a young Adonis and a renowned painter are forced to navigate Covid-19.
December 2, 2025
This Book Is One of Our 10 Best of 2025. Let Us Show You Why.
Our critic A.O. Scott breaks down a scene from Kiran Desai’s lavish new novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.”
December 2, 2025
Olivia Nuzzi’s Memoir Is Self-Serious and Altogether Disappointing
“American Canto,” published amid a scandal over the journalist’s alleged romantic entanglements with politicians she covered, offers many scenes but little sense.
December 2, 2025
Do You Know These Authors Who Appeared in the Filmed Versions of Their Books?
Some writers have followed their words onto the screen. Try this short quiz to see if you recall five of those cameo scenes.
December 1, 2025
A Writer Who Dazzled on the Page but Lived for the Margins
“Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures,” a new biography of Denis Johnson, traces the life of a brilliant nonconformist.
December 1, 2025
How Should a Victim Be?
In “Girls Play Dead,” Jen Percy examines the ways women respond to sexual trauma.
November 30, 2025
A Nobel Winner Blurs Genres and Genders in This Bewitching Novel
Olga Tokarczuk’s “House of Day, House of Night” brings together a constellation of characters and legends in a Polish border region.
November 29, 2025
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Poet With a Musical Ear, Dies at 82
Her nine volumes included “Kyrie,” a suite of sonnets about the 1918 influenza epidemic. She was also Pulitzer Prize finalist and a poet laureate of Vermont.
November 28, 2025
Book Club: Let’s Discuss ‘Hamnet’
Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel, one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2020, has just been adapted for film, making now a perfect time to revisit this story of family, grief and Shakespeare.
November 28, 2025
Book Club: Read ‘What We Can Know,’ by Ian McEwan, With the Book Review
In December, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss Ian McEwan’s latest novel, about a long-lost poem, the 2014 dinner party where it was read and the future dystopia that embraced it.
November 28, 2025
In These Novels, Dystopia Is a World of Hovering Parents
Jennifer L. Holm’s “Outside” and Rebecca Stead’s “The Experiment” both feature well-meaning grown-ups who do everything to protect their kids — and fail.
November 28, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
November 27, 2025
3 Cozy Books We Love
Pick up a mug of tea, grab a blanket and settle down to read. Jennifer Harlan, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, recommends three books that are perfect for cozy fall reading.
November 27, 2025
Storytelling With a Bit of Sparkle
Three recently released children’s books focus on gems, fine jewelry and even collectible watches.
November 27, 2025
Marie Kondo Likes Book Covers That Feel ‘Smooth and Silky’
“It’s all about the texture,” says the author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and the new “Letter From Japan.” Both fit the bill.
November 27, 2025
Everyone Is Invited to Jane Austen’s Birthday Party
For Janeites around the globe, the 250th anniversary of the English author’s birth is cause for elaborate celebrations.
November 26, 2025
15 Books Coming in December
New novels by Olga Tokarczuk and Kamilah Cole, nonfiction by John Darnielle and Olivia Nuzzi, a Booker Prize finalist and more.
November 26, 2025
How Capitalism Took Over the World
In a bold new history, Sven Beckert traces the origins of our modern economy, from global port cities to the halls of power.
November 26, 2025
Which Notable Book Should I Read First?
We’ve broken down our annual list by theme.
November 25, 2025
100 Notable Books of 2025
Here is the standout fiction and nonfiction of the year, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
November 25, 2025
Do You Recognize These Quotes From Classic Books?
Try this short quiz to see how many popular lines from 20th-century science fiction novels have remained in your memory bank.
November 24, 2025
A Secret Defined Her Life. She Had No Idea.
In the thrilling “Family of Spies,” Christine Kuehn tells the story of learning the darkest of secrets.
November 24, 2025
She’ll Do Anything to Land Her Dream House. No, Really: Anything.
For the obsessed protagonist of Marisa Kashino’s darkly comic debut novel, “Best Offer Wins,” real estate is blood sport.
November 24, 2025
These Holiday Romance Novels Are Pure Magic, With a Dash of Spice
The best-selling author B.K. Borison recommends sweet and sexy reads that capture the cozy magic of the season.
November 24, 2025
Reintroducing Jessica Mitford, the Activist With a ‘Concrete Upper Lip’
Carla Kaplan’s biography “Troublemaker” focuses on the fierce political commitments of the journalist best known for “The American Way of Death.”
November 23, 2025
Terry Martin Hekker, a Happy Housewife Scorned, Dies at 92
She wrote two popular memoirs: the first about the joys of married life, the second about her husband serving her divorce papers on their 40th anniversary.
November 22, 2025
Shakespeare Becoming Shakespeare, With Help From His Working-Class Peers
The title of Daniel Swift’s book “The Dream Factory,” about the creative and capitalist conditions of Elizabethan drama, tellingly evokes the commercial aspirations of old Hollywood.
November 22, 2025
Welcome to Literary Award Season
It began with Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize in October, and continued this month with the Booker Prize and the National Book Awards. Our panel of editors discusses what it all means.
November 21, 2025
Ann Packer Welcomes an Argument, Even With Oprah
Like her debut, “The Dive From Clausen’s Pier,” the novelist’s “Some Bright Nowhere” is bound to touch a nerve. That’s fine with her.
November 21, 2025
Pop Culture Got Stale. Counterculture Went Right-Wing.
How the rise and fall of the nihilist hipster gave us the cruel reactionaries of today.
November 21, 2025
My Kid Loves Percy Jackson. What Should They Read Next?
Eleven recommendations for fans of Rick Riordan’s Olympians series, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
November 21, 2025
David Bellos, 80, Dies; Wrestled French Wordplay Into English
He translated nearly 30 books, including novels by Georges Perec, a master of linguistic games, and Ismail Kadare.
November 20, 2025
6 Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
November 20, 2025
Richard Lamparski, 93, Dies; Wrote ‘Whatever Became Of …?’ Books
He turned an obsession with forgotten stars into a popular series, long before “Where Are They Now?” features became ubiquitous.
November 20, 2025
Smart, Sizzling New Romance Novels
Our columnist on three books worth your time.
November 20, 2025
George Packer: ‘I’ve Stopped Being a Prig About Beautiful Writing’
“Journalism is essential, but it can’t get at certain levels of experience — so I wrote a fable,” he says of “The Emergency,” his first novel in more than 25 years.
November 20, 2025
Books That Examine the Past and Present of the Middle East Take National Book Awards
Rabih Alameddine’s “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” won in fiction, while Omar El Akkad’s reckoning with Gaza took the nonfiction prize.
November 20, 2025
These Books Were Judged by Their A.I. Covers, and Disqualified
A New Zealand book competition dropped two of a publisher’s books because they had A.I.-generated covers. The publisher and the designer pushed back.
November 19, 2025
Night — and a Gentleman Burglar — at the Museum
In “The Butterfly Thief,” Walter Marsh tells the story of a notorious crime and its eccentric perpetrator.
November 19, 2025
It’s a Miracle That Mexico Exists at All
In a new book, Paul Gillingham tells the story of a nation that has thrived because of its diversity, not in spite of it.
November 19, 2025
Dazzling New Historical Fiction
Our columnist on four books that are worth your time.
November 18, 2025
The Answer? According to Simon Winchester, It’s Blowing in the Wind.
In “The Breath of the Gods,” the prolific polymath takes on a force that’s powered much of human history.
November 18, 2025
Great Cyberpunk Novels That Imagine New Futures
The science fiction writer Chloe Gong recommends new and classic books that push the boundaries of the genre, with plenty of techno thrills.
November 18, 2025
The Literary Master Who Made Play His Life’s Work
A newly reissued book by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar highlights his most consistent qualities.
November 18, 2025
Do You Know These Award-Winning Books?
Try this short quiz to match the descriptions of past National Book Award winners with their titles and authors.
November 17, 2025
Her Father Wrote ‘On the Road.’ She Lived Her Own Version.
Jan Kerouac’s 1981 novel “Baby Driver” chronicles a fearless and windblown life entirely distinct from her famous parent’s.
November 17, 2025
The Voluptuous Return of ‘Love and Rockets’
With “Lovers and Haters,” Gilbert Hernandez expands on the surreal storytelling and bosomy B-movie film stars of his beloved long-running series.
November 17, 2025
Talking Dogs and the Spirit of Sontag Show Up in This Story Collection
At its best, Joy Williams’s “The Pelican Child” is delightfully unhinged; at its worst, willfully weird and repetitive.
November 16, 2025
Pulse-Pounding, Nail-Biting New Thrillers
Our columnist on three novels thrumming with menace.
November 16, 2025
This 1,200-Page Poetry Book Affirms Seamus Heaney’s Towering Genius
Even the previously uncollected work in “The Poems of Seamus Heaney” shows a master craftsman in full control of his powers.
November 16, 2025
Around the World, From the Trenches to the Club, Youth Are in Revolt
In “The Fire,” the reporter Cecilia Sala travels to Iran, Ukraine and Afghanistan and follows her generation into the fray.
November 15, 2025
Feeling the Angst? These Nuns Have You Covered. (Not Like That.)
The unlikely collaboration of two academics, “Convent Wisdom” provides unholy guidance by intertwining religious history with popular culture.
November 15, 2025
James Baldwin’s Biographer on the Meaning of Love
In “Baldwin: A Love Story,” Nicholas Boggs focuses on the writer’s romantic relationships. In this episode he explains their importance to Baldwin’s life and work.
November 14, 2025
The Building Blocks of Life Were Just the Beginning
In “Crick: A Mind in Motion,” the British biologist Matthew Cobb provides a biography both vivid and authoritative.
November 14, 2025
The Loneliness of the Larger-Than-Life Black Athlete
In Derrick Barnes’s fantastical tale, a 13-year-old Black football star is idolized by his town’s mostly white inhabitants, until they turn on him.
November 14, 2025
8 Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
November 13, 2025
Let Us Help You Find Your Next Book: Historical Fiction
Whether you're looking for a classic or the latest and greatest, start here.
November 13, 2025
A Moving, Urgent Novel About … the Wind? Yes, the Wind.
Sarah Hall’s inventive new novel spans centuries, showing how Britain’s famed Helm shaped people and how people are shaping it.
November 13, 2025
No Lovers on These Covers: A New Look in Romance Publishing
Thanks to distinct design, fresh approaches to the genre and the if-you-know-you-know factor, 831 Stories is catching the eye of readers and investors.
November 13, 2025
Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas
Our columnist on four new mysteries.
November 13, 2025
Don’t Recommend a Book to Bryan Washington (Unless You’re a Bookseller)
His new novel, “Palaver,” observes how an expat in Japan and his visiting mother find “a new language and way of being that’s amenable for them both.”
November 13, 2025
A Cold Case and a Bold New Voice Fuel This Potent Novel
“The Slip,” by Lucas Schaefer, involves a missing teenager and a boxing gym full of Texans of all stripes.
November 12, 2025
These Campus Romance Novels Will Make You Swoon
The explosive potential of those years makes every emotion more intense — and a perfect combo for rich storytelling.
November 12, 2025
This Club Kid Knows How to Survive. The Better Question Is: How to Live?
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new novel, “Terry Dactyl,” follows a young trans woman figuring out who she is throughout the AIDS crisis and Covid pandemic.
November 12, 2025
To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks
During the government shutdown, booksellers are collecting food for Americans who receive federal aid to buy groceries.
November 11, 2025
Notes From a Young Mother, to the Daughter She Left Behind
In her vivid epistolary novel “The White Hot,” the Pulitzer-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes explores the long-tail legacy of maternal rage and regret.
November 11, 2025
What Could Have Stopped Hitler — and Didn’t
In “Fateful Hours,” the road map to authoritarian disaster is laid out in gleamingly sinister detail by the German historian Volker Ullrich.
November 11, 2025
What Happens When an Empire Falls? This Novel Has Some Ideas.
George Packer, the author of multiple works on a divided America, tries his hand at dystopian allegory.
November 11, 2025
She Was a Victim. She Became a Headline. Here, She’s a Person.
In “Without Consent,” Sarah Weinman looks at a shocking 1978 case — and women’s ongoing struggle for justice.
November 11, 2025
Travel Can Make Classic Children’s Books Come Alive
A visit to the English manor that inspired “A Secret Garden” or a stroll through Tintin’s Brussels can turn stories into treasured memories.
November 11, 2025
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Year of Judging the Booker Prize
The actor had to read so many books (153) she bowed out of most family activities. Still, she said, collaborating to pick a winner was worth the sacrifice.
November 11, 2025
‘Flesh’ by David Szalay Wins 2025 Booker Prize
David Szalay became the first British Hungarian to win the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel “Flesh.”
November 11, 2025
John Fetterman’s Memoir Is Unlike Any Politician’s Book You’ve Read
The senator from Pennsylvania chronicles his stroke, unlikely election victory and battle with depression. Just don’t expect him to try to win you over.
November 11, 2025
David Szalay’s ‘Flesh’ Wins 2025 Booker Prize
The rags-to-riches tale had already made fans of Zadie Smith and Dua Lipa. Roddy Doyle, who chaired the judging panel, called the book “singular” and “extraordinary.”
November 10, 2025
Do You Know Where in the World These Books Are Set?
Hitting the road for the holiday season is a tradition for many families. Try this short quiz on literary journeys and geography to test your memory — and maybe discover a new book to travel with along the way.
November 10, 2025
American Literature Owes a Great Debt to This 20th-Century ‘Insider’
By championing now-essential writers like William Faulkner, Malcolm Cowley helped remake the U.S. literary canon.
November 10, 2025
She Wanted a Good Death — Without Her Beloved Husband by Her Side
Ann Packer’s latest novel, “Some Bright Nowhere,” explores the unexpected rupture that a terminal cancer diagnosis causes in a long and happy marriage.
November 10, 2025
Sylvia Plath Was Reading This Novel Before She Died. It’s Brilliant.
Now unjustly overlooked, “The Ha-Ha” is the prizewinning first novel by Jennifer Dawson, an accomplished mid-20th-century chronicler of women and madness.
November 10, 2025
Ken Burns Brings the War of Independence to the Unruly Present
In “The American Revolution,” an illustrated companion to a new documentary series, the conflict is global, gruesome and tearing us apart.
November 10, 2025
Making Sense of Dollars and Cents
Learned, lively and often irreverent, David McWilliams’s “The History of Money” is rich with surprising details about currency, then and now.
November 9, 2025
A Tale of Two Couples, and a Nation, Emerging From a Deep Freeze
Andrew Miller’s novel “The Land in Winter,” a finalist for the Booker Prize, observes a world on the brink of cultural change.
November 9, 2025
The Essential Kate Atkinson
Surprising, versatile, dark and funny, the British writer has something for (almost) everyone.
November 8, 2025
50 Years Later, the Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald Lives On
John U. Bacon, author of “The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald” talks about the famous shipwreck.
November 7, 2025
Gillian Tindall, 87, Dies; Author Who Probed the Layers of Places
A novelist and biographer, she was also a preservationist, and her meticulous investigations of houses, villages and cities revealed intricate histories.
November 7, 2025
The 2025 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books
Take a peek at this year’s winners.
November 7, 2025
A Dystopian Novel for Our ChatGPT-Filled Times
In “Who Knows You by Heart,” a Black tech worker discovers that her company is hiding a terrible secret.
November 7, 2025
Welcome to Japan. Now Please Leave Me Alone.
Bryan Washington’s latest novel, “Palaver,” chronicles a mother-and-son reunion miles from home, after more than a decade of estrangement.
November 7, 2025
An Extravagant Dive Into Italian Cinema, Filled With Love and Death
“The Silver Book” follows one pivotal year in the life of the famed Italian costume designer Danilo Donati.
November 7, 2025
8 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
November 6, 2025
When I’m Sick of Doomscrolling, I Turn to This Poem
“Monet’s ‘Waterlilies,’” by Robert Hayden, reflects on what art can (and can’t) do in tumultuous times. Our critic A.O. Scott shows you why he loves it.
November 6, 2025
Tony Harrison, Poet of the Working Class, Is Dead at 88
In Britain, he sought to be “free not to have to puff some prince’s wedding / free to say up yours to Tony Blair.”
November 6, 2025
John Russell Taylor, 90, Dies; Cultural Critic and Hitchcock Biographer
A prolific journalist and author, he wrote the only authorized biography of Alfred Hitchcock and heaped early praise on the future Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.
November 6, 2025
The Latest ‘Read With Jenna’ Book Club Pick Is a Cursed Family Saga
The second novel from Oyinkan Braithwaite, the breakout author of “My Sister, the Serial Killer,” offers a sweeping and sobering take on romantic fatalism.
November 6, 2025
Taking Stock: Patti Smith Looks Back on Everything
From cradle to late life, the godmother of punk remembers it all — including, especially, her life with the late Fred “Sonic” Smith.
November 6, 2025
Which Novel Should Win Monday’s Booker Prize? Have Your Say.
Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is the favorite, but books by Andrew Miller, Katie Kitamura and Susan Choi are also in the running for the prestigious award.
November 6, 2025
Can Math Be Violent? For 3 Scholars, the Answer Was Yes.
In “The Great Math War,” Jason Socrates Bardi takes on a battle for the soul of numbers that divided the experts of its day.
November 6, 2025
The First Time I Read ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’
Katherine Rundell, Christopher Paolini and other writers mark the 75th anniversary of the book’s U.S. publication: “It taught me to long for big pleasures.”
November 6, 2025
Susan Straight’s First English Professor Turned Her On to ‘Badass’ Women
Meeting traveling nurses during the pandemic led to “Sacrament,” her 10th novel. “Our memories will be indelible,” she says, “like my father’s stories of the Dust Bowl.”
November 6, 2025
For These Wild Irish Party Girls, Hints of an Adult Reckoning
In Gráinne O’Hare’s witty debut, “Thirst Trap,” 30th birthdays — and an unexpected death — signal new horizons (if not sobriety) for three longtime friends in Belfast.
November 5, 2025
The Wedding Cake Was a Triumph. The Marriage Went Stale.
In “The Heart-Shaped Tin,” the British food writer Bee Wilson offers a bittersweet ode to the everyday tools we use in the kitchen, along with stories great and small.
November 5, 2025
Why E. Lockhart Keeps Coming Back to the Land of ‘We Were Liars’
In her new book, “We Fell Apart,” the young adult novelist returns to Martha’s Vineyard — and teen friendship — for the third time.
November 5, 2025
To Shrimp, Perchance to Dream: A Tale of a Young Man and the Sea
In Benjamin Wood’s atmospheric novel “Seascraper,” recently longlisted for the Booker, a visitor brings the big world to a small fishing village.
November 5, 2025
Love a Heist? These Books Deliver, With a Dose of Magic.
The best-selling fantasy writer Holly Black recommends novels that blend the thrills of a well-executed crime with intrigue and sorcery.
November 5, 2025
Murderer, Martyr or Mirror? The First Luigi Mangione Book Is Here.
“Luigi” takes on the case of a murdered insurance executive and his alleged killer.
November 4, 2025
A Tale of Toxic Friendship, With a Midlife Mean-Girl Twist
In Harriet Lane’s latest novel, “Other People’s Fun,” the reunion of two former classmates takes a wicked turn.
November 4, 2025
A Bad Man, a Wronged Woman and a Knife: Welcome to Dinner Party Hell
In her unnerving novel, Viola van de Sandt explores the breakdown of a relationship over one very, very messy evening.
November 4, 2025
Forget Nostalgia: The Exiles in This Dreamlike Novel Are Angry
“False War,” by Carlos Manuel Álvarez, follows the Cuban diaspora around the world.
November 4, 2025
It’s Hard to Be Chronically Online and Hate Your Friends
In tracing the journeys of two frenemies with art-world aspirations, Anika Jade Levy’s “Flat Earth” distills the angst and aimlessness of a generation.
November 4, 2025
Margaret Atwood Leans Into Her Dark Side in a New Memoir
“Book of Lives” offers two distinct versions of the esteemed novelist: “Peggy Nature” and “the brooder.”
November 3, 2025
Do You Know These Family Sagas of Page and Screen?
The trials and tribulations of related people can really propel a plot. See how many novels and their adaptations you recognize in this short quiz.
November 3, 2025
What Is Going On Inside the Department of Justice?
“Injustice,” by the veteran journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, follows federal prosecutors at work under the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
November 3, 2025
Rushdie Returns to Fiction, With Mortality on His Mind
Three new stories, including a campus-set novella, are the heart of “The Eleventh Hour,” a book that strains to recall the author’s richest work.
November 2, 2025
John Irving’s Latest Revisits the World of ‘Cider House Rules’
His new novel returns to a familiar setting to examine antisemitism, 20th-century history and nontraditional parenting.
November 2, 2025
Disco, Djinns and 5-Star Service in Afghanistan
In “The Finest Hotel in Kabul,” the BBC journalist Lyse Doucet tells the story of a country through what was once its most luxurious hotel.
November 2, 2025
Turning Grief Into Art With Unusual Wit
In “The Ephemerata,” the veteran graphic novelist Carol Tyler explores the nature of loss.
November 1, 2025
Red State Meets Blue State, in One Quaint Vacation Town
A congressional race rich in sex and social intrigue divides locals and weekenders in Brian Schaefer’s novel, “Town & Country.”
November 1, 2025
For a Literary Saint, Margaret Atwood Can Sure Hold a Grudge
She had to be pushed to write her new memoir, “Book of Lives.” The result reveals the experiences (and a few slights) that have shaped her work.
November 1, 2025
Zoë Wicomb, Acclaimed South African Author, Dies at 76
In novels and short stories, she delivered sharp observations of the constraints and contradictions of apartheid and its aftermath.
October 31, 2025
Book Club: Let’s Discuss ‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’
Stephen Graham Jones’s horror novel offers a visceral take on the vampire legend.
October 31, 2025
Book Club: Read ‘Hamnet,’ by Maggie O’Farrell, With the Book Review
In November, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss Maggie O’Farrell’s historical tear-jerker, about a death that shaped Shakespeare.
October 31, 2025
A Quest to Find the Truth Behind Her Grandmother’s Smile
“Indignity,” by Lea Ypi, is a memoir, biography and imagined history prompted by a viral family photograph.
October 31, 2025
The Ballad of a Mexican American Schoolboy Who Helped Pave the Way for Brown v. Board of Ed
A stunning novel-in-verse sheds light on an unheralded moment in American history — when a Mexican community triumphed over educational injustice.
October 31, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
October 30, 2025
Answer 4 Questions. Leave With Your Next Stephen King Book.
Whether you’re a hard-core horror junkie or a scaredy-cat, he’s written something for you.
October 30, 2025
Joe Sacco Thought He Was Done With Comics Journalism
He announced that “The Once and Future Riot,” which considers sectarian violence in India, would be his last. But he’s compelled to return to Gaza.
October 30, 2025
Gothic Fiction: A Starter Pack
With roots in the 18th century, this haunted genre’s hallmarks can be found throughout modern horror. Here’s where to start.
October 30, 2025
He Wrote ‘House of Leaves,’ the Ultimate Cult Novel. He Hopes It Wasn’t His Peak.
Mark Z. Danielewski has returned with “Tom’s Crossing,” a 1,200-page western that is both more accessible than his earlier work and “the book of my life.”
October 30, 2025
Nigerian Nobel Laureate Says the U.S. Revoked His Visa
The author Wole Soyinka, a vocal critic of President Trump, told the Nigerian press he did not attend a visa renewal interview requested by the State Department.
October 29, 2025
A Work of Genius or a Complete Mess? Even Its Author Can’t Decide.
Helen DeWitt’s bewildering co-written novel, “Your Name Here,” took almost 20 years to publish, a process that nearly drove her to despair.
October 29, 2025
Dissecting Three Stephen King Adaptations
Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, breaks down three Stephen King movie adaptations and how they differ from their source material.
October 29, 2025
How Big Tech’s Unchecked Power Could Swallow Us All
Tim Wu’s “The Age of Extraction” is a dispiriting guide to the way Silicon Valley has warped our markets and our democracy.
October 29, 2025
23 Books Coming in November
New fiction by Salman Rushdie and Bryan Washington, a memoir by Margaret Atwood, devilish romantasy and more.
October 29, 2025
Can the Western Be Reinvented Again? Here’s a 1,200-Page Yes.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s new novel follows two teenagers determined to save a pair of ponies from slaughter.
October 28, 2025
Is This Bandit’s Legend an Old West Tall Tale?
In “Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta,” John Boessenecker probes the life of a dashing (but human) Wild West legend.
October 28, 2025
Zadie Smith Considers Art in the Age of Relentless Progress
In a new essay collection, the novelist and critic offers her observations on artists, technology and a vanishing public commons.
October 28, 2025
First They Got Into Berkeley. Then They Took On the Raj.
In “Let My Country Awake,” Scott Miller tells the story of revolutionaries in America who fought the British Empire at the beginning of the 20th century.
October 28, 2025
Joseph J. Ellis Doesn’t Think You Would Have Abolished Slavery, Either
In “The Great Contradiction,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian looks at the way the founders wrestled with the fate of human bondage.
October 28, 2025
Can You Match These First Lines to Their Novels?
The opening line of a book is your first step into the story. See how many you remember from these notable works published in the 1980s.
October 27, 2025
Who Is Cameron Crowe Kidding With the Title of His Memoir?
The rock journalist turned writer turned filmmaker styles himself “The Uncool” in his new book.
October 27, 2025
Jack Carr Knows His Way Around a Battlefield, and a Military Thriller
His gritty novels have spawned a cottage industry and become a rallying point for fellow veterans. “Cry Havoc” is the latest.
October 27, 2025
Images of Black Beauty and Belonging
In the transporting monograph “Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real,” the gifted young photographer traces a path from high fashion to his Georgia roots.
October 26, 2025
She’s John Cheever’s Daughter, Except When It Comes to Keeping Secrets
In “When All the Men Wore Hats,” Susan Cheever considers her father as a writer and a role model, recounting the stories behind his celebrated stories.
October 26, 2025
Philip Pullman Brings Lyra’s Story to a Close
At 79, he is wrapping up the fantastical saga set in motion with “His Dark Materials,” while still loath to discuss how his work comments on current events.
October 26, 2025
Tyler Mitchell Breaks Down Three Photos From His New Book
Erica Ackerberg, a Times photo editor, calls the photographer Tyler Mitchell to chat about three photos from his new book, “Wish This Was Real.”
October 26, 2025
Romance Novels That Are Spicy, Sweet and Flat-Out Stunning
Our critic on four sizzling new releases.
October 25, 2025
Nights Out With Malala, Making Time to Be Herself
Basketball and Dua Lipa are on the schedule during a New York jaunt with the Nobel laureate, whose intimate memoir finds her juggling activism and married life.
October 24, 2025
These Cozy Fall Books Feel Like a Hug
Witty mysteries, cottagecore fantasies and bighearted classics provide a dose of warmth and comfort to bolster you through the long, cold nights ahead.
October 24, 2025
She’s Still Writing About Herself. Plus Meth, Murder and Minnesota.
“Giving myself freedom” has been Chris Kraus’s goal as a writer, whether in autofiction about her romantic life or in her new and surprising “working-class saga.”
October 24, 2025
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Macabre
I was terrified of the Old Elephant King in “The Story of Babar.” My daughter was freaked out by “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” Then came my niece.
October 24, 2025
Phyllis Trible, 92, Dies; Studied the Bible Through a Feminist Lens
An influential scholar, she challenged centuries of biblical interpretation that presumed that women were unequal to men in the eyes of God.
October 23, 2025
9 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
October 23, 2025
How Writing Helped Susan Orlean Find a ‘Bigger Place in the World’
“Joyride,” her new book, started as a guide for aspiring journalists, but turned into a full-fledged memoir about her high-flying life and career.
October 23, 2025
How Philip Pullman’s Heroine Changed Her Life — and Mine
I named my daughter after Lyra, his intrepid protagonist. Now, in the final installment of the blockbuster fantasy saga, we get to see how she turned out.
October 23, 2025
What Scared This Scary-Movie Producer? A Judy Blume Sex Scene.
In “Horror’s New Wave,” Jason Blum celebrates 15 years of unnerving audiences. His advice to publishers: “Sometimes it’s good to rely on your gut.”
October 23, 2025
Wut? It’s in the Dictionary. A New Book Explains How.
In “Unabridged,” Stefan Fatsis explores what words make the official grade.
October 22, 2025
The World’s Greatest Feminist Experiment Was Not Where You’d Think
In “Motherland,” the journalist Julia Ioffe charts the Russian campaign to emancipate women — and the country’s failure to live up to that promise.
October 22, 2025
Before ‘Hamilton,’ the Schuyler Sisters Were Already Stars
In “Pride and Pleasure,” the biographer Amanda Vaill tells the story of these complex women with warmth, humor and insight.
October 22, 2025
Great Locked-Room Mystery Novels
The thriller writer Hank Phillippi Ryan recommends seemingly impossible, deeply satisfying whodunits.
October 22, 2025
A Surfing Safari Detours Into Eugenics
In “Capturing Kahanamoku,” the historian Michael Rossi argues that an ugly pseudoscientific movement had its roots in a beautiful sport.
October 21, 2025
Harper Lee’s Conflicted Loves Emerge in a New Collection
“The Land of Sweet Forever” includes stories and essays by a writer who grappled with her Southern roots.
October 21, 2025
This Novel Is a Cry for the Missing Black Women Across America
In Nic Stone’s new book, “Boom Town,” a dancer at a strip club in Atlanta must search for her peers who have disappeared.
October 21, 2025
They Thought It Would Be Fun to Summon a Dragon. They Were Very Wrong.
Joe Hill’s wild horror novel follows a group of friends and the mythic demon that haunts them for the rest of their lives.
October 21, 2025
How to Eat Friends and Influence People
Olivie Blake’s darkly comedic campus novel “Girl Dinner” explores the intersection of feminist ambition and academia, with a light side of cannibalism.
October 21, 2025
Smart, Gripping New Murder Mysteries
Our critic on four notable releases.
October 21, 2025
Churchill Plus the Windsors? Andrew Morton Spills Rewarmed Tea.
In “Winston and the Windsors,” the prolific biographer Andrew Morton, perhaps inevitably, tackles two British behemoths.
October 20, 2025
Do You Recognize These Literary References in Modern Pop Culture?
Try this quiz about the bookish influences on Homer Simpson, Kate Bush and others to see how many connections you know.
October 20, 2025
John Updike Called His Letters Dull. They’re Anything But.
The prolific novelist’s correspondence, collected for the first time, trace a life of literary brilliance, turbulent loves and everyday pleasures.
October 20, 2025
The Heroine of ‘His Dark Materials’ Is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know.
The beloved British fantasy writer Philip Pullman concludes his Book of Dust trilogy with Lyra Belacqua’s final adventure.
October 20, 2025
Who Calls the Shots in the N.F.L.? Three Guys Who Don’t Always Get Along.
“Every Day Is Sunday,” by a New York Times reporter, tracks the dominant influence of Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell.
October 19, 2025
Marriage Was a Drag, So She Found New Lives in Her Dreams
In Hiromi Kawakami’s new novel, a young woman responds to her husband’s infidelities in creative ways.
October 19, 2025
The Civil Rights Movement Changed America. We Glorify It at Our Peril.
Rejecting prevailing views of the movement as either exemplary or ineffectual, Brandon M. Terry offers a bold new vision of our history.
October 19, 2025
Alison Rose, The New Yorker’s Femme Fatale, Dies at 81
She started as the magazine’s glamorous receptionist and became one of its more singular writers. In one of her last articles, she memorialized her time (and lovers) there.
October 18, 2025
An Affair to Remember — Except It Never Actually Happened
In “The Ten Year Affair,” the novelist Erin Somers splits her narrative into two parallel realities, one of which imagines a young mother’s infidelity.
October 18, 2025
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Is Daunting. This Biography Makes Him Human.
A brisk new portrait by Anthony Gottlieb emphasizes the philosopher’s restless, ambivalent mind and Viennese family background.
October 18, 2025
In This Beguiling Novel, a ‘Big Kiss’ From a Modern Master
Claire-Louise Bennett, a leading purveyor of cerebral and largely plotless novels, returns with her third book.
October 18, 2025
William Gibson, Lisa Simpson and More on Their Favorite Pinch of Pynchon
With the famously private novelist enjoying a (private) moment in the sun, we reached out to die-hard fans who’ve tuned in to the zaniness all along.
October 18, 2025
Let’s Remember, Stephen King Isn’t Always Scary
It’s October, which means it’s time for the master of horror to shine. Yet he’s become equally famous for several works of non-horror.
October 17, 2025
She Worked at Vogue, but She Didn’t Write Another ‘Devil Wears Prada’
Caroline Palmer’s novel, “Workhorse,” emphasizes striving and grit in a debut set at a moment when glossy magazines were losing their cachet.
October 17, 2025
In These Harlem Death Portraits, a Glimpse of the Living
James Van Der Zee’s baroque, carefully composed funeral home photos illuminate century-old ideals of mourning and ritual in Black culture.
October 17, 2025
3 Picture Books That Capture the Essence of Friendship
Works by Jane Godwin, Joshua David Stein and Matthew Diffee find new lenses through which to explore an old subject, in lovely and surprising ways.
October 17, 2025
What’s So Great About ‘Slow Horses’? This Scene Says It All.
The British spy show owes its sarcasm and wit to Mick Herron’s novels. Our critic A.O. Scott breaks down a few sentences from Herron’s latest, “Clown Town.”
October 16, 2025
5 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
October 16, 2025
From Epstein’s Chief Accuser, a Memoir Both Sad and Devastating
Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous “Nobody’s Girl” doesn’t break political news, but might break your heart.
October 16, 2025
Why Do We Love Spooky Season? It’s in Our Genes!
In “Morbidly Curious,” the behavioral scientist Coltan Scrivner takes a look at our addiction to the gory, the morbid and the grotesque.
October 16, 2025
A Poet Who Aims to Be Kind, but Not at the Cost of the Truth
The new and selected poems in Ada Limón’s “Startlement” reveal her to be garrulous, funny and heart-on-sleeve even when she’s being a little wicked.
October 16, 2025
A Horrific Tale of the Slave Trade, Destined to Become a Classic
In the powerful new history “The Zorg,” Siddharth Kara tells a shocking story of mass killing, human baseness and the seeds of conscience.
October 16, 2025
Thomas McGuane: ‘I’m Not Interested in Ingenuity’
“I look for the subjective pulse of the author,” says the novelist, hailing Hamsun while sensing “cynicism” in Nabokov. “A Wooded Shore” is his 18th book.
October 16, 2025
A Novel Intertwines the Many Dramas of Life in an Autocracy
Branching plots and dark humor animate “Eye of the Monkey,” set in an unnamed dystopian country.
October 15, 2025
Dispatches From the Front Lines of American Bigotry
In “Three or More Is a Riot,” the Columbia Journalism School dean Jelani Cobb collects his writings on race and culture for The New Yorker.
October 15, 2025
Great Historical Horror Novels
The author of “Vampires of El Norte” and “The Possession of Alba Díaz” recommends books that dial up the darkness by turning back the clock.
October 15, 2025
Do You Know Where in the World These Books Are Set?
Test your knowledge of European geography, history and travel with this short quiz about modern thrillers and crime novels. You may also discover a new book to read.
October 14, 2025
Is American Foreign Policy Really for Sale?
In “Devils’ Advocates,” the New York Times journalist Kenneth P. Vogel wades into the murky world of Washington lobbyists working for foreign interests.
October 14, 2025
An Epic Quest in the South Pacific, Drawn From History and Myth
Adam Johnson’s new novel focuses on two radically different island communities.
October 14, 2025
The Tale of a Guardian, a Thief and the Fine Line Between
Megha Majumdar’s new novel follows two disastrously entangled lives in a famine-ridden future.
October 14, 2025
The Great Crash Retold as Thrilling True Crime — and as a Warning
“1929,” by the New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, is a tale of greed, corruption and incompetence to shock the conscience.
October 14, 2025
A Novelist, Naturalist (and C.I.A. Agent) Always on the Move
“True Nature,” a new biography, chronicles the many lives and pursuits of the writer Peter Matthiessen.
October 13, 2025
Tim Curry Isn’t Done Yet
A 2012 stroke has largely kept him from acting, but not from writing — and recording — a new memoir. “It was very peculiar not to be able to speak,” he says.
October 13, 2025
How World War II Transformed America and the Globe, for Better and Worse
In “The Wounded Generation” and “1942,” the historians David Nasaw and Peter Fritzsche show how civilians struggled with the long tail of the war.
October 13, 2025
An Oddly Bloodless Memoir From a Masterly Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton’s new memoir, “Next of Kin,” lacks the visceral shock and searing vision of her prior work.
October 13, 2025
John Searle, Philosopher Who Wrestled With A.I., Dies at 93
His blunt debating and imaginative theorizing about artificial intelligence and the human mind made him a leading scholar. But sexual-harassment allegations ended his career.
October 12, 2025
Susan Griffin, a Leading Voice of Ecofeminism, Is Dead at 82
With books like “Woman and Nature,” she pioneered a unique form of creative nonfiction, linking violence against women to the ravaging of the environment.
October 12, 2025
A Novel That’s Equal Parts ‘White Lotus’ and ‘Get Out’
In “The Unveiling,” a tortured film location scout is haunted by a traumatic past and a supernatural present.
October 12, 2025
The Last Gasp of Magazine Glamour, as Seen From the Bottom Rung
The devil, Prada-clad or not, stays on the periphery of Caroline Palmer’s “Workhorse,” a novel about an ambitious assistant at a Vogue-like publication.
October 11, 2025
When America First Swung Its Big Stick
In “Splendid Liberators,” Joe Jackson presents the U.S. wars in Cuba and the Philippines as part of a misguided project to spread freedom across the world.
October 11, 2025
The Pleasures of Reading Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Master of Doom
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature for books often called bleak and challenging. But they’re also comical and deeply human.
October 10, 2025
Brandon Taylor Discusses His New Novel
“Minor Black Figures” encompasses race, class, religion and art, but at its heart it’s really about “what happens when you encounter a priest at a bar one hazy summer night in New York.”
October 10, 2025
Was Columbus a Monster, a Saint or Just a Guy? A Biographer Digs In.
In “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus,” Matthew Restall explores the seemingly immortal reputation of one of history’s most projected-on figures.
October 10, 2025
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cynic
In Brandon Taylor’s new novel, “Minor Black Figures,” an emerging painter explores what it means to create and experience art in an increasingly political world.
October 10, 2025
Laurie Halse Anderson’s Favorite Historical Fiction for Young Readers
The author of the Seeds of America trilogy recommends books that run the gamut from Native American history to the civil rights movement.
October 10, 2025
Ruth Weiss, Who Chronicled Apartheid After Fleeing the Nazis, Dies at 101
Her life and work were shaped by confronting injustice in South Africa and Germany. “Blacks under apartheid — Jews under the swastika. Was it all that different?” she asked.
October 9, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
October 9, 2025
Laszlo Krasznahorkai Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
The prize committee said the Hungarian writer’s work “reaffirms the power of art.”
October 9, 2025
The ’90s Gender Swap Novel You Need to Read Now
In Jacqueline Harpman’s novel “Orlanda,” the repressed half of a woman’s soul jumps into the body of a man. Chaos ensues.
October 9, 2025
Jeff Kinney Knows What It’s Like to Be a Party Pooper
Sharing the plot of the 20th “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book had him cringing at the memory of ruining a birthday surprise. Also surprising: the O.J. Simpson book on his shelves.
October 9, 2025
Thrillers Guaranteed to Give You Goosebumps
Our columnist on notable new releases.
October 8, 2025
Let Us Help You Find Your Next Children’s Book
Whether you’re looking for a classic or the latest and greatest, start here.
October 8, 2025
Jonathan Lear, Philosopher Who Embraced Freud, Dies at 76
Defying scholarly norms, he took a hands-on approach to research. To study resilience, he visited the Crow Nation; to explore Freudian theory, he became a psychoanalyst.
October 8, 2025
Revisiting Her Hometown, a Journalist Finds Anger, Addiction and Despair
To write “Paper Girl,” Beth Macy returned to Urbana, Ohio, documenting the descent of a once flourishing town into entrenched poverty and acrimony.
October 8, 2025
Dark Academia: A Starter Pack
The genre — characterized by Gothic intrigue and a liberal arts aesthetic — grew out of Donna Tartt’s cult favorite campus novel, “The Secret History.” Here’s where to start.
October 8, 2025
Here Are the Finalists for the 2025 National Book Awards
Novels by Karen Russell and Bryan Washington are among those vying for the award in fiction, while books about Gaza, foster care and women in Russia are up for the nonfiction prize.
October 7, 2025
The ‘Thursday Murder Club’ Author on Killers, Cats and Kindness
The novelist Richard Osman talks about his best-selling series, which stars a team of crime-solving retirees.
October 7, 2025
In This Graphic History, an Unflinching Look at Black Activism
“Black Arms to Hold You Up,” the latest salvo from the award-winning cartoonist Ben Passmore, merges of-the-moment urgency with historical fact.
October 7, 2025
First They Drove Out the Comanches. Then They Changed the Country.
In “The Conservative Frontier,” Jeff Roche makes the case that the modern Republican Party was born in West Texas.
October 7, 2025
Jake Tapper Has a Second Book This Year. It’s About Terrorism.
In “Race Against Terror,” Tapper makes a courtroom drama out of the strange case of a jihadi fighter who turned himself in.
October 7, 2025
Katherine Dunn’s Stories, Newly Unearthed, Float and Sting
Her first and only collection of short fiction, gleaned from her archive, pulses with energy and struggling characters.
October 7, 2025
Oh, the Horror! Do You Know the Books That Inspired These Movies and TV Shows?
Feeling the Halloween spirit already? Try this quiz on scary novels and their screen adaptations.
October 6, 2025
Jilly Cooper, Widely Popular Romance Novelist, Is Dead at 88
A prolific British writer and keen observer, she sold millions of copies of her juicy, sometimes racy “Rutshire Chronicles” series.
October 6, 2025
Chris Kraus on Cancel Culture, Murder and Other American Pastimes
The author of “I Love Dick” returns with a novel that combines autobiography and true crime.
October 6, 2025
Was Gertrude Stein a Genius? A New Biography Makes the Case.
The modernist novelist, art collector and saloniste held a high opinion of herself. Francesca Wade probes Stein’s life and legacy, taking her at her word.
October 6, 2025
‘What a Time to Be Alive’? In Fact It Is, Two New Novels Say.
In an unusual act of literary synergy, two vibrant coming-of-age tales with the same title have arrived one week apart.
October 6, 2025
‘I Am Lucky’: In a New Memoir, a Former Israeli Captive Looks Ahead
Freed after 14 months, Eli Sharabi learned that his family didn’t survive the Oct. 7 attacks. “Hostage” is testimony to his suffering and his hope.
October 6, 2025
A Propulsive Tale of Two Mothers Entangled in a Kidnapping
A cheeky narrator recounts a parent’s worst nightmare in Brenda Lozano’s new novel.
October 6, 2025
For This Writer, the Personal and Political Are Inseparable
The celebrated German novelist Jenny Erpenbeck considers the relics of an earlier age in a newly translated essay collection.
October 5, 2025
Grieving a Father Who Found Dignity in the Dirt
In the autofictional “Death and the Gardener,” the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov remembers an ordinary man ennobled by a love of the land.
October 5, 2025
A Powerhouse Writer Found One Word to Change the Debate About Tech
Cory Doctorow’s new book looks to offer comfort, and solutions, to the inescapable feeling that digital platforms have gotten worse.
October 5, 2025
Jonathan Lethem’s Mastery of the Sort-of-Science-Fiction Story
His new collection draws from his ambitious practice of the form over nearly four decades.
October 4, 2025
A Lost World War I Classic Returns, as Relevant as Ever
A new reissue of Siegfried Kracauer’s 1928 novel “Ginster” offers a darkly humorous window into one German conscript’s inglorious journey.
October 4, 2025
The Comics Artist Who Sees Monsters in Museums, and in the Mirror
In her two-volume classic, “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters,” Emil Ferris explores a girl’s journey to understand the world, and herself.
October 3, 2025
The Thriller Writer Who Took on a Tech Giant
Andrea Bartz was disturbed to learn that her books had been used to train A.I. chatbots. So she sued, and helped win the largest copyright settlement in history.
October 3, 2025
How to Get Away With Crimes Against Humanity
Philippe Sands considers the case of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who eluded efforts to bring him to account for state-sponsored terror in Chile.
October 3, 2025
Beyond Handbags and French Bad Boys: Reconsidering Jane Birkin
In a new biography, “It Girl,” the journalist Marisa Meltzer makes a case for the doe-eyed style icon as more than a muse.
October 3, 2025
What Was Best About the ‘Best American Poetry’?
After four decades, the annual book series is drawing to a close. Our columnist looks at what it all meant.
October 3, 2025
‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ Turns 25
As Kate DiCamillo’s beloved novel celebrates a big milestone, Holly Goldberg Sloan’s “Finding Lost” echoes its themes.
October 3, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
October 2, 2025
Thomas Pynchon’s New Novel Isn’t His Best. It’s Still Good Fun.
“Shadow Ticket” follows a dancing private eye on the hunt for a missing cheese heiress. It gets even wackier from there.
October 2, 2025
Are We Headed for Apocalypse? This Book Says It’s a 1-in-3 Chance.
In “Goliath’s Curse,” Luke Kemp crunches the numbers to see exactly how far we are from the fate of once-great empires.
October 2, 2025
Annie Lennox Often Reads Books Back to Front
Why? Curiosity, “general impatience and all-around quirkiness.” Her first book (which proceeds chronologically) is a visual memoir of her life and musical career.
October 2, 2025
Florida Court Rejects Free Speech Argument in Book Removal Case
The lawsuit was an effort to keep ‘And Tango Makes Three,’ about two male penguins raising a chick, in a county’s school libraries.
October 1, 2025
‘Rampant’ Book Bans Are Being Taken for Granted, Free Speech Group Warns
A new report from PEN America tracks restrictions on school books across 45 states.
October 1, 2025
Bruce Lee Died Young, but He Changed the Look of Movies Forever
An exuberant new biography by Jeff Chang charts the action star’s life and legacy as a breakout Asian American celebrity who paved the way for others.
October 1, 2025
The Essential Thomas Pynchon
The celebrated author of “Gravity’s Rainbow” may have a cult following on campus and a reputation for formidable literary high jinks. But his novels are also just plain fun.
October 1, 2025
Not Your Average Demon: Unconventional Possession Novels
The horror author Rachel Harrison recommends books that offer emotional insight and social commentary beyond the scares.
October 1, 2025
52 Great Books for Toddlers
Here are some of our staff’s favorites, for ages 2 to 4.
October 1, 2025
Thomas Perry Dies at 78; Writer of Popular, Unconventional Thrillers
His many novels, including the prizewinning “The Butcher’s Boy” and the Jane Whitefield series, could have sympathetic villains and intriguing heroes.
September 30, 2025
The Man Who Served Everything
In “I’m Not Trying to Be Difficult,” the star restaurateur Drew Nieporent evokes a glittering age in Manhattan hospitality.
September 30, 2025
‘Twilight’ Is 20. These Books Will Remind You Why You Loved It So Much.
Whether you’re Team Edward, Team Jacob or just Team Fun Book, these novels offer a similar blend of romance, fantasy and horror.
September 30, 2025
These New Yorkers Hated Fascists Before It Was Cool
In “Gotham at War,” Mike Wallace shows how the American fight against the Nazis started years before World War II, in the Big Apple.
September 30, 2025
A Literary Love Triangle Like No Other
Lily King’s new novel, “Heart the Lover,” is a profoundly affecting story of romantic entanglement by a master of the genre.
September 30, 2025
Do You Recognize the Authors of These Lyrical, Literary Lines?
Is that passage from a poem or a popular song? Try this short quiz to see how many writers you can identify.
September 29, 2025
27 Books Coming in October
New novels by Thomas Pynchon and Brandon Taylor; memoirs by Susan Orlean, Malala Yousafzai and Tim Curry; the conclusion of an epic fantasy series by Philip Pullman; and more.
September 29, 2025
Getting Away With Murder
Our columnist on four notable new releases.
September 29, 2025
These Are the Wildest, Juiciest Poems You’ll Ever Read
Our critic A.O. Scott forages the world’s most poetic fruit.
September 28, 2025
Into the Dark Heart of a Novelist Who Was ‘Something of a Witch’
A crackling new biography captures the formidable personality and often eerie writings of the “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” creator Muriel Spark.
September 28, 2025
For Lionel Richie, Writing a Memoir Was Easy Like Sunday Morning. Sort Of.
His songs have inspired fans for five decades. Now the indefatigable musician delivers the whole story in a 463-page memoir.
September 28, 2025
Rich, Immersive New Historical Fiction
Our columnist on four noteworthy novels.
September 27, 2025
Paul Kingsnorth Wants Us to Worship Nature, Culture and God, Not Technology
Based on his popular Substack, the iconoclastic author’s new book is a warning against the dangers of turning innovation into a secular faith.
September 27, 2025
A Lost Novella by Elmore Leonard With a Social-Justice Bent
“Picket Line,” which was inspired by Cesar Chavez and his union campaigns, has been published for the first time.
September 27, 2025
Robert B. Barnett, Washington Master of the Book World Megadeal, Dies at 79
An influential lawyer, he negotiated blockbuster contracts for A-list clients, including the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bushes, while often acting as a political adviser.
September 26, 2025
Book Club: Let’s Discuss ‘Pride and Prejudice’
Jane Austen’s classic, about the tortured romance of two people frazzled by miscommunications and assumptions, still feels fresh 250 years after Austen’s birth.
September 26, 2025
Book Club: Read ‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,’ by Stephen Graham Jones, with the Book Review
In October, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss Stephen Graham Jones’s latest horror novel, about an Indigenous man who is turned into a vampire.
September 26, 2025
A Tween and Her Tiny-Doll Alter Ego Face Off
In the small-scale world of Laura Amy Schlitz’s novel “The Winter of the Dollhouse,” the emotional stakes are both intimate and enormous.
September 26, 2025
5 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
September 25, 2025
Maxine Clair, Writer Who Came to Her Craft in Middle Age, Dies at 86
She published her first book of poems at 49 and her first work of prose, the acclaimed novel “Rattlebone,” six years later.
September 25, 2025
Ian McEwan Knows History Is an Imperfect Judge
The novelist, who wrote about World War II in “Atonement” and has turned repeatedly to his own times, imagines the 22nd century in his new book, “What We Can Know.”
September 25, 2025
Dark Romance Books Are Having a Moment. Here’s Where to Start.
The best-selling author Brynne Weaver recommends novels that dial up the emotional drama for high-stakes payoffs.
September 25, 2025
Rabih Alameddine Is Done With Dostoyevsky
Then: His favorite writer. Now: “So earnest, so didactic, so humorless.” His own new novel is “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).”
September 25, 2025
She’s Very Much at Home in the Space Between Life and the Afterlife
Raised Buddhist in Texas, Amie Barrodale came to embrace the teachings. Years of practice inform her odd, and oddly funny, debut novel, “Trip.”
September 24, 2025
In This Circus Tale, Telepathic Twins Aren’t Even the Freak Show
Dan Chaon’s latest novel, “One of Us,” dances around a great showman, a demented “uncle” and a cast of fascinating misfits.
September 24, 2025
When Your M.F.A. Cohort Is Out for Blood
In “We Love You, Bunny,” the novelist Mona Awad revisits the gleefully vicious campus satire of her 2019 hit, “Bunny.” We’re all ears.
September 24, 2025
Books by Kiran Desai, Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura Lead Booker Prize Shortlist
The nominees for the prestigious award also include novels by David Szalay, Benjamin Markovits and Andrew Miller.
September 23, 2025
Were They Abducted by Aliens, or Is Their Memory Just Spotty?
Ilana Masad’s new novel, “Beings,” weaves together three separate story lines to explore how we process and narrate our lives.
September 23, 2025
A Journalist on the Inside Upends Good vs. Evil Criminal Stereotypes
In his first book, John J. Lennon, who is serving a 28-year sentence, brings nuance and complexity to his own and other prisoners’ stories.
September 23, 2025
A Heroine to Root For in an Unforgettable Novel of Haiti
In Emmelie Prophète’s “Cécé,” a young woman is determined to survive the slums — first by doing sex work, then by posting her gruesome reality for the world to see.
September 23, 2025
Do You Recognize These Books From Their Plot Descriptions?
Some novels stick with you long after you’ve read them. See how many of these classics for young readers you can identify from a one-sentence synopsis.
September 22, 2025
Ian McEwan’s Latest Is the Best Novel He’s Written in Ages
“What We Can Know” follows a scholarly quest amid the ruins of civilization.
September 22, 2025
What Fuels Revolution, Social Embarrassment and Public Acclaim? It’s Common Knowledge.
In a new book, the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues that an awareness that everyone knows what you know is a powerful driver of human social life.
September 22, 2025
A Love Story Balancing Historical Sweep With High Erotic Tension
Set around World War I, the romantic drama in H.S. Cross’s new novel, “Amanda,” comes with a contemporary kink (or two).
September 21, 2025
Woody Allen’s First Novel: Funny-ish, but Very Familiar
In “What’s With Baum?,” an anxious, jealous and thrice-married writer finds himself stranded in a culture that wants more “schmaltz,” less “wisdom.”
September 21, 2025
Psychedelics Blew His Mind. He Wants Other Philosophers to Open Theirs.
An intense exchange with Marilyn Monroe sounds silly. But in a new book, Justin Smith-Ruiu is dead serious about what we might learn from altered states.
September 21, 2025
She Modeled Her Whole Life on Godly Purity. Then She Woke Up.
In the new memoir “Awake,” the evangelical star Jen Hatmaker explores how the implosion of her 26-year marriage helped lead to a spiritual reckoning.
September 21, 2025
A Searing Memoir of Black Womanhood, Across Generations
In “The Waterbearers,” Sasha Bonét weaves her matrilineal history into a larger struggle for survival and self-knowledge.
September 20, 2025
Robert McNamara Loved Efficiency. Then Came the Vietnam War.
In “McNamara at War,” the brothers William and Philip Taubman probe the mind of a Harvard Business School technocrat who tried to overhaul the American military.
September 20, 2025
Mary Roach on the Timeless Appeal of Weird Science
The popular science author, whose latest is “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy,” discusses her approach to the stranger corners of scientific inquiry.
September 19, 2025
Charley Rosen, Basketball Lifer With a Prolific Pen, Dies at 84
A college player and coach who became a best-selling author of books about the game, he was also a kindred spirit to the Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson.
September 19, 2025
Jane Austen’s Birthday Party Is B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bonnet)
The Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England, is the showiest and merriest of the celebrations of the writer’s 250th.
September 19, 2025
The Books Times Readers Are Most Excited About This Fall
Thrillers, literary fiction, history, science, memoirs and more: Here are the books you’ve saved most to your reading lists.
September 19, 2025
For Fox News Authors, the Path to the Best-Seller List Is Fox News
A debut novel is the latest in an unbroken string of hits written — and promoted — by the network’s stars. Is that a raw deal for other conservative imprints?
September 19, 2025
In the Spirit of Jane Austen, 4 Slow-Tease September Romances
Our critic finds some of the author’s sense and sensibility in this month’s best selections.
September 19, 2025
My Kid Loves Dav Pilkey Books. What Should They Read Next?
Twelve recommendations for fans of the Dog Man, Captain Underpants and Cat Kid Comic Club series.
September 19, 2025
What Happened in the 2024 Election? Kamala Harris Has Some Thoughts.
The new memoir by the former vice president defends her campaign and allows others to criticize Joe Biden and his team for her failure to win.
September 18, 2025
8 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
September 18, 2025
In This Spanish Office, Work Is Hell. It’s Also Hilarious.
A young creative at a Madrid ad agency does her best to do the least in Beatriz Serrano’s darkly comic debut novel, “Discontent.”
September 18, 2025
Patricia Lockwood Craves an Easier Way to Eat While Reading
A hands-free “pulley system, or crumbs brought to me by little doves, or something,” would help. Her new novel is “Will There Ever Be Another You.”
September 18, 2025
The Books We Loved This Summer
At the start of the season, we made a literary bucket list. Here’s how we checked it off.
September 18, 2025
This Generation Will Always Have Main Character Energy
In “What Happened to Millennials,” Charlie Wells celebrates his anxious, unhappy, successful, pop-culture-obsessed, middle-aged, cringey cohort.
September 17, 2025
A Tart, Spicy Take on Our Ridiculous Foodie Culture
In “All Consuming,” the TV baking star turned food philosopher Ruby Tandoh munches on our decadent, crispy, sticky, turmeric-dusted, thirst-trap recipe economy.
September 17, 2025
Sports Romance: A Starter Pack
Sports and sex make for a knockout pairing in romance novels. Here’s where to start.
September 17, 2025
In ‘Dead Center,’ Joe Manchin Says He’s Been Right All Along
In a new memoir, the former Democratic senator from West Virginia defends his centrist politics, portraying himself as a high-minded public servant with unshakable convictions.
September 17, 2025
Four Women, Navigating Friendship and Ambition in a World on Fire
In her sweeping second novel, “The Wilderness,” Angela Flournoy inhabits a quartet of shifting perspectives with wit, tenderness and exquisite grace.
September 16, 2025
Affirmative Action Is Dead. What Should Universities Do Now?
The Yale law professor Justin Driver considers the legal arguments for and against the policy, as well as alternative ways to ensure diversity on campuses.
September 16, 2025
Triplets in Peril in a Might-Have-Been England
With echoes of “Never Let Me Go” and “The Goldfinch,” Catherine Chidgey’s devastating new novel watches young lives get twisted into unnatural shape.
September 16, 2025
Do You Know Where in the Country These Novels Are Set?
Try this short quiz on novels set around America’s 19th-century western frontier.
September 15, 2025
Arthur Sze Will Be the Next U.S. Poet Laureate
An observational poet who focuses on imagery from nature, he taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts for more than 20 years.
September 15, 2025
A Novel That Captures the Agony and Absurdity of Covid Brain Fog
In “Will There Ever Be Another You,” Patricia Lockwood recounts the pandemic’s devastating effects on her life.
September 15, 2025
What Abraham Lincoln Understood About the Founders
In “Born Equal,” Akhil Reed Amar paints a sprawling portrait of 19th-century America in thrall to its founding moment.
September 15, 2025
Kiran Desai’s Long-Awaited Return Is a Transcendent Triumph
Teeming with vivid characters across several continents, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” traces a hesitant romance that challenges tradition and loss.
September 14, 2025
Joyce Carol Oates on a Mesmerizing New Story Collection
The Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin explores the ambiguities and ironies of domestic life in a new collection.
September 14, 2025
Jill Lepore Thinks the U.S. Constitution Might Break America
In “We the People,” the Harvard historian worries that the glacial amendment process is leading the country to crisis.
September 14, 2025
‘Exiles’ Is a Creepy Nightmare for Our A.I. Times
In Mason Coile’s new book, the first human settlers on Mars arrive only to find that their helper robots have gone off script.
September 13, 2025
What Happened to the High-Tech Space Race?
In “Rocket Dreams,” Christian Davenport revels in the struggle between the billionaire moguls Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to leave the Earth behind.
September 13, 2025
Marilyn Diamond, Who Wrote a Blockbuster Diet Book, Dies at 81
“Fit for Life,” which she wrote with her husband, was a best seller in the 1980s promoting good health ahead of weight loss. But doctors were critical.
September 12, 2025
17 Nonfiction Books We’re Looking Forward to This Fall
The season brings histories by Jill Lepore, David McCullough and Joseph J. Ellis, memoirs by Margaret Atwood and Susan Orlean, and more.
September 12, 2025
A Poet Tours American History, With the Devil at His Side
In “Night Watch,” Kevin Young riffs on Dante’s “Inferno” and gives voice to silenced figures from the nation’s past.
September 12, 2025
The Playwright Who Sparked the English Renaissance? Hint: Not Shakespeare.
A new book by the Harvard scholar Stephen Greenblatt contends that the innovative dramatist Christopher Marlowe was the genius who inspired a cultural awakening.
September 12, 2025
So You Think Stephen King Has Scared You? Try Being His Son.
Fifty years after “Salem’s Lot,” Joe Hill (himself a celebrated horror novelist) looks at what made that vampire story so terrifying.
September 12, 2025
An Obsessed Cartoonist Gives the Outrageous Mitford Sisters a Makeover
Mimi Pond’s new graphic novel spins a cinematic romp out of the British aristocrats’ lives and loves: “You can’t make this stuff up.”
September 12, 2025
The Volcanic Eruption That Created a Monster
In Nicholas Day’s “A World Without Summer,” Mount Tambora provides a warning about climate change and the inspiration for “Frankenstein.”
September 12, 2025
5 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
September 11, 2025
50 Great Board Books for Babies
Here are some of our staff’s favorites, for ages 0 to 2.
September 11, 2025
Stephanie Burt on Taylor Swift and Some Other Favorite Geniuses
She put aside a bunch of projects, including a book about Walt Whitman, to publish “Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift.”
September 11, 2025
Bob Dylan Might Be His Dad. But the Star of His Book Is His Mom.
In “Boy From the North Country,” a writer returns home to be with his dying mother and learns some shocking secrets.
September 10, 2025
The English Killed Their King. Was It Because of Fish?
In “The Blood in Winter,” Jonathan Healey explores the many causes of the English Civil War.
September 10, 2025
For These 35 Artists, Tiny Canvases Are No Limitation
“Fresh Sets,” by Tembe Denton-Hurst, surveys some of the coolest contemporary designs from around the world.
September 10, 2025
Blackmail, Sexual Betrayal and Murder in 3 New Thrillers
Our columnist on three notable recent novels.
September 10, 2025
What Reality Winner Says She Shares With Donald Trump
In her memoir, the whistle-blower explores the motives behind the leak that sent her to prison.
September 10, 2025
Great Fantasy Novels With Unlikely Heroes
Morally ambiguous killers, social outcasts, bumbling misfits and misunderstood monsters take center stage in these thrilling, and deeply human, books.
September 10, 2025
Dan Brown Returns With a Hyperactive Testament to the Power of Books
“The Secret of Secrets” follows Robert Langdon as he tries to rescue his lover, a neuroscientist who is targeted by a mysterious organization after a breakthrough.
September 9, 2025
Amy Coney Barrett’s Memoir Is as Careful and Disciplined as Its Author
In a studiously bland new book, “Listening to the Law,” the Supreme Court justice describes her legal philosophy and tries to sidestep the court’s recent controversies.
September 8, 2025
Page to Screen: Do You Know the Inspiration for These Adaptations?
Try this short quiz about cartoons and comic strips that found new life as moving pictures.
September 8, 2025
Elizabeth Gilbert’s New Memoir Is an Excruciating Missed Opportunity
In “All the Way to the River,” the best-selling writer dilutes a powerful story of love, addiction and loss with saccharine self-indulgence.
September 8, 2025
10 Icky Things Mary Roach Has (Unfortunately) Brought to My Attention
The popular science writer, whose new book is “Replaceable You,” has steadily offered an embarrassment of trivia while going deep on our insides, outsides and more.
September 8, 2025
Charlie Sheen Is Ready to Tell You Everything
In a new memoir and documentary, the actor known for “Two and a Half Men,” “Platoon” and a debauched life that nearly killed him puts it all out there.
September 7, 2025
3 Summer Books to Carry You Into Fall
MJ Franklin, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, recommends three great books that came out this summer.
September 7, 2025
Demystifying the Life of an Artist, the Sally Mann Way
Now 74 and “close to handing in my dinner pail,” the photographer recalls old slights, home remedies and balancing art and children in a new memoir.
September 7, 2025
Can One Novel Capture the Expanses of Human Thought?
The German writer Michael Lentz gives it a shot in “Schattenfroh,” stretching the limits of fiction in the process.
September 7, 2025
Robert Louis Stevenson Was Ahead of His Time, Except When He Wasn’t
Leo Damrosch traces the life of an imperialist turned anti-imperialist who wrote several exceptional books and one groundbreaking masterpiece.
September 7, 2025
Meet the Man Who Makes Jane Austen Come Alive on Screen
Andrew Davies has spent more than four decades spinning novels from “Pride and Prejudice” to “House of Cards” into small-screen gold.
September 6, 2025
A Kaleidoscopic Novel About the Long Shadow of Crime
In his new novel, John Boyne challenges readers to examine the often ignored shadow of abuse.
September 6, 2025
An Edgy Comedy About Sex, Duty and Food Service
In Lee Lai’s “Cannon,” a lonely, repressed line cook allows herself to be taken advantage of by several people in her life, until she can’t stand it any longer.
September 6, 2025
Answer 4 Questions. Leave With a Thriller You’ll Love.
Tell us a few things about what you like, and we’ll give you a spot-on book recommendation.
September 5, 2025
10 Novels We’re Looking Forward to This Fall
Watch for new books by Dan Brown, Thomas Pynchon, Mona Awad and more.
September 5, 2025
Elizabeth Gilbert Gets Dark
A new memoir finds the self-help icon locked in a destructive romantic relationship with her best friend, who relapsed while fighting terminal cancer.
September 5, 2025
Why Are We So Obsessed With Ghosts?
In “Ghosted,” Alice Vernon explores the human urge to pierce the veil — and the many mediums, charlatans and true believers who made it an enduring industry.
September 5, 2025
The Hero of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know.
“The Secret of Secrets,” the sixth installment in Dan Brown’s franchise about the symbologist Robert Langdon, brings the bookish hero back to a European capital to unravel a shocking conspiracy.
September 5, 2025
What ‘Hamlet’ Can Mean for Kids
Echoing backward to the sixth century and forward to “The Lion King,” the play shows young people that stories are resilient against time and chaos.
September 5, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
September 4, 2025
Is That Bob Dylan in the Mirror?
In his autobiographical novel, Sam Sussman grows up wondering if his affinity for the great singer-songwriter goes beyond a striking resemblance.
September 4, 2025
Mick Herron: What I’m Reading (and Why ‘Wind in the Willows’ Scares Me)
The author of the Slough House novels — the latest one is “Clown Town” — has an eclectic stack on his nightstand.
September 4, 2025
The Scandalous Life of America’s First Female Presidential Candidate
Born dirt poor, Victoria Woodhull rose to heights of wealth and fame in the Gilded Age, reinventing herself along the way. A sprightly new biography recounts her unlikely story.
September 4, 2025
27 Novels Coming This Fall
Check out books by Thomas Pynchon, Kiran Desai and Joe Hill, and revisit familiar worlds with Dan Brown, Mick Herron and Bolu Babalola.
September 4, 2025
21 Nonfiction Books Coming This Fall
Memoirs by Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Gilbert and Lionel Richie; history from Jill Lepore and David Nasaw; and plenty more.
September 4, 2025
She Won the Booker Prize. Then She Disappeared for 20 Years.
Kiran Desai has returned with her most ambitious novel yet: “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” a sprawling romance that was all-consuming to complete.
September 4, 2025
Rosalyn Drexler, Artistic Whirlwind Who Defied Categories, Dies at 98
She wrote plays, novels and an Emmy-winning Lily Tomlin special. She was a painter, a sculptor and a nightclub singer. Oh, and she also wrestled professionally.
September 3, 2025
Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s Devoted Second Son, Is Dead at 97
Inspired by his parents’ travels, he spent much of his life in Africa and helped complete his father’s safari memoir. He also published a volume of father-son letters. He was Ernest Hemingway’s last surviving child.
September 3, 2025
100 Years Ago, Fictional Londoners Looked Up. They Saw Our Present Day.
Our critic A.O. Scott takes apart a scene from “Mrs. Dalloway,” Virginia Woolf’s 1925 masterpiece, and shows why the book is a must-read now.
September 3, 2025
Should Convicted Criminals Get to Live in Luxury?
“Sympathy Tower Tokyo,” which was a best seller in Japan, is a social novel for the age of A.I.
September 3, 2025
What Did Clarence Thomas, the Black Panthers and the World See in Malcolm X?
The journalist Mark Whitaker tracks the afterlife and influence of one of the 20th century’s most famous agitators.
September 3, 2025
Think You’re at the Top of the Food Chain? Think Again.
In “The Arrogant Ape,” the primatologist Christine Webb takes a hard look at our human superiority complex, and is not impressed.
September 3, 2025
Can You Name These Novels From Their First Lines?
Try this short quiz to see how many opening lines from classic 20th-century books you recognize.
September 2, 2025
She Raged. She Terrified. And She Shaped Arundhati Roy.
The prizewinning novelist’s unsparing memoir, “Mother Mary Comes to Me,” captures the eventful life and times of her mother, a driven educator and imperfect inspiration.
September 2, 2025
Being Dead Has Its Perks
Amie Barrodale’s dazzlingly weird novel, “Trip,” is about a mother and son adrift — in the afterlife and in the South Atlantic, respectively.
September 2, 2025
A “Nanna’s” Sports Memoir May Be the Most Relevant of All
In the enchanting memoir “The Season” Helen Garner writes about her grandson’s Australian Rules football team — and so much more.
September 2, 2025
A Midcentury Melodrama of Love and War, Told With Old-School Flair
The ambitious but intimate sweep of Patrick Ryan’s new novel, “Buckeye,” recalls classic storytelling of another era.
September 2, 2025
A Foremost Scholar of Slavery Wonders if America Can Ever Atone
In the essay collection “Our Fragile Freedoms,” Eric Foner wades again and again into the biggest debates surrounding human bondage in America.
September 2, 2025
Birds Who Help Humans, and Other Tales of Inter-Species Cooperation
In “The Call of the Honeyguide,” Rob Dunn explores how the natural and human worlds have helped each other through history — and can again.
September 1, 2025
Zdena Salivarova, Who Kept Banned Czech Literature Alive, Dies at 91
In exile in Canada, she and her husband, the novelist Josef Skvorecky, published books that had been outlawed by the Soviet-backed Communist regime.
August 31, 2025
A Tale of Demonic Possession in the Vein of ‘The Exorcist’
“This Is My Body,” by Lindsay King-Miller, is just one of the month’s notable horror releases.
August 31, 2025
She Has 7 Selves, and They All Have a Story
In a new novel, Helen Oyeyemi details a week inside a woman’s fragmented consciousness.
August 30, 2025
An Environmental Villain, Reconsidered
The award-winning science writer Peter Brannen makes the case for an often vilified compound in “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything.”
August 30, 2025
A New ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Unites Stephen King With Maurice Sendak
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen follow the breadcrumbs.
August 29, 2025
Joan Mellen, Whose Bobby Knight Biography Sparked Debate, Dies at 83
Some sportswriters accused her of “deifying” Indiana’s irascible basketball coach. A professor of English, she also wrote about Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
August 28, 2025
5 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
August 28, 2025
Joy Bivins Keeps Work- Related Books Away From Her ‘Rest Space’
But there is a place for the Bible, says the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which is celebrating its centennial.
August 28, 2025
Sublime New Historical Fiction
Our columnist on four notable novels.
August 27, 2025
I Can’t Look Away From This Poem About Looking
Our critic A.O. Scott gazes into a well with Robert Frost.
August 27, 2025
The Tangled Legacy of the Man Who Led Africa’s Liberation
In a new book, the journalist Howard W. French tells the story of decolonization and pan-Africanism through the life of Ghana’s visionary first leader, Kwame Nkrumah.
August 27, 2025
A Camp Where You Can Read All Day (No Kids Allowed)
These women met in an online book club. They traveled to a remote corner of Maine to read together. It was oddly moving.
August 27, 2025
A.I. Bots or Us: Who Will End Humanity First?
Three new books run the gamut from dismissive to alarmed about our automated future.
August 27, 2025
Simon & Schuster Leader to Step Down
Jonathan Karp, the chief executive since 2020, will oversee a new imprint that publishes six books a year.
August 26, 2025
A Life of Rage and Despair, Told in a Memoir Full of Beauty
The writer Michael Thomas recounts his struggles, successes and fraught family history in mesmerizing detail.
August 26, 2025
25 Books Coming in September
Novels by Richard Osman and Patricia Lockwood, memoirs by Elizabeth Gilbert and Arundhati Roy, the continued adventures of Robert Langdon and more.
August 26, 2025
She Writes to Keep Her Sister Alive
“A Truce That Is Not Peace,” the Canadian novelist Miriam Toews’s first nonfiction book since 2001, is a discursive reflection on her father’s and sister’s suicides, 10 years apart.
August 26, 2025
An Urban Artist Inherits an Orchard, and Decides to Reinvent Herself
Austyn Wohlers’s novel, “Hothouse Bloom,” sets a solitary woman’s reawakening in a setting steeped in biblical imagery.
August 26, 2025
Epstein Accuser’s Family Takes Issue With Plans to Publish Her Memoir
Relatives of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died earlier this year, contend that the book underplays the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband.
August 26, 2025
How Much Do You Know About the Literary Gilded Age?
Test your knowledge of novels written during (or about) this memorable era of American history.
August 25, 2025
In This Novel, Chasing a Scoop Leads to Bad News in a War Zone
“Vulture,” by Phoebe Greenwood, follows a journalist’s downward spiral in Gaza.
August 25, 2025
7 Uncanny Thrillers That Dial Up the Paranoia
Tales of body-snatching aliens and apocalyptic super-flus by Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and more double as time capsules of American fear.
August 25, 2025
Starling Lawrence, Editor Who Uncovered Best Sellers, Dies at 82
He discovered and nurtured Michael Lewis, Sebastian Junger and many other authors. He had, Mr. Lewis said, “the storytelling equivalent of perfect pitch.”
August 24, 2025
When the Gilded Age Went Mad for Mars
Life on the red planet? “Bosh and nonsense,” said one astronomer. But according to “The Martians,” plenty of self-appointed experts argued otherwise.
August 24, 2025
In ‘Katabasis,’ R.F. Kuang Takes Readers to Hell
A graduate student must venture into the underworld to save the professor she accidentally killed in this bold new novel.
August 24, 2025
Spy Novels: A Starter Pack
Interested in espionage fiction, but don’t know where to start? Let our expert guide you.
August 23, 2025
‘Positive Obsession’ Is a Fresh Look at Octavia E. Butler
A new biography by Susana M. Morris reveals the struggles, passions and triumphs that shaped the science fiction icon and her books.
August 23, 2025
Book Club: Let’s Discuss ‘Wild Dark Shore’
Charlotte McConaghy’s novel about one isolated family, a mysterious stranger and the secrets they all hold is just the thing for late summer.
August 22, 2025
Greg Iles, Novelist Who Wrote About Race in Mississippi, Dies at 65
In his best-selling books, notably the “Natchez Burning” trilogy, he addressed what one reviewer called “the pervasive impact of past events.”
August 22, 2025
Book Club: Read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ by Jane Austen, With the Book Review
In September, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss Jane Austen’s classic, about the tortured romance of two people frazzled by miscommunications and assumptions.
August 22, 2025
Great Children’s Books About Siblings
My sister and I fought so bitterly over our copy of “Little Women” that our mother had to buy a second one. Obviously, we didn’t learn much from the story.
August 22, 2025
6 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
August 21, 2025
David Adjmi Has a ‘Perverse Love’ for Ayn Rand
“Not her politics, but the relentlessness and archness of her characters,” says the prizewinning playwright behind “Stereophonic,” which is now up in London.
August 21, 2025
Great Haunted House Novels
The best-selling horror and fantasy author Silvia Moreno-Garcia recommends books about the terrors that lurk under the stairs.
August 21, 2025
If You Have Time for Just One Romance Novel, Make It This One
Our critic says Regina Black’s “August Lane” is the best book she’s read this year.
August 20, 2025
When the Bronx Burned, Tenants Died and Landlords Got Rich
“Born in Flames,” by the historian Bench Ansfield, recounts how the wave of urban arson in the 1970s devastated poor communities while enriching building owners.
August 20, 2025
The American University Is in Crisis. Not for the First Time.
Political challenges to elite colleges have long been a feature of life in the United States. A 1963 book helps show us why.
August 20, 2025
Seeking Simplicity? These Books Will Help You Banish Clutter
Clean home, clean mind. Or at least you can try, with the help of several tomes about doing more with less.
August 19, 2025
She Lived for the White Male Gaze. Until She Didn’t.
Kaila Yu’s “Fetishized” is a candid and intimate memoir of the exoticized Asian body.
August 19, 2025
A Tender New Biography Emphasizes James Baldwin’s Romantic Side
In “Baldwin: A Love Story,” Nicholas Boggs goes far beyond other scholars in tracing Baldwin’s relationships and their role in his work.
August 19, 2025
Vacation Vibes: Match These Novels to Their Settings
Try this short quiz on popular novels that take you places, even if you’re staying home this summer.
August 18, 2025
How I Plan to Get in Shape: Read (and Then Maybe Exercise)
Turning to books for workout inspiration is probably a terrible idea.
August 18, 2025
Thrillers With Twists You Won’t See Coming
Our columnist on three notable new novels.
August 18, 2025
What’s Wrong With White People? A Story Collection Counts the Ways.
Mark Doten’s new book examines a contemporary American culture that routinely defies satire.
August 18, 2025
A Memoir of Ukraine, Spiced With Dill, Strength and Heartache
The food writer Olia Hercules proves to be a great cook and a powerful family historian in “Strong Roots.”
August 17, 2025
A Novel That Offers the Pleasure of Seeing a Perfect Family Crumble
“Dominion,” by Addie E. Citchens, recounts the many sins of a prominent household in a Mississippi town.
August 17, 2025
How Life Without Hearing Helped One Writer See More Clearly
In a new memoir, the British poet Raymond Antrobus describes the ways deafness has profoundly shaped his world.
August 16, 2025
‘War Is Too Serious to Take Seriously All the Time,’ So He Wrote a Comic Novel
Elliot Ackerman, a Marine veteran and prolific author, switched gears with “Sheepdogs,” a caper story featuring down-on-their-luck ex-military buddies.
August 16, 2025
The Quixotic Crusade to Create an All-Black State in Oklahoma
“Black Moses,” by Caleb Gayle, recounts the story of Edward McCabe, who dreamed of establishing a haven for Black settlers on the Western frontier.
August 15, 2025
Two Children’s Literature Giants on World War II Rites of Passage
A memoir by the late Uri Shulevitz that reads like an adventure novel and a novel by Daniel Nayeri that feels utterly real.
August 15, 2025
8 New Books We Love This Week
Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
August 14, 2025
A Knotty Question: Does Rope Have Main Character Energy?
In “Rope,” Tim Queeney makes a case for the humble material as the tie that binds human history.
August 14, 2025
A Swedish Wedding Singer Makes a Literary Match
Along with his side gig, Jens Lekman has put out five albums. Now he’s collaborated with David Levithan on the novel “Songs for Other People’s Weddings.”
August 14, 2025
A Quirky Supporting Character Hijacked Louis Sachar’s New Novel
He was 40 years old, “so I decided to rewrite it and make it for adults.” He’s now the title character of “The Magician of Tiger Castle.”
August 14, 2025
These Science Fiction Novels Will Take You on an Epic Journey
The author of the Red Rising series recommends books cloaked in myth that use fantastic adventures to explore what it means to be human.
August 14, 2025
A Mysterious Box Arrives. Inside? The Dead Body of a Child Saint.
Josephine Rowe’s slim, atmospheric novel “Little World” connects disparate characters through the traveling corpse of a young girl.
August 13, 2025
500 Years of Author Portraits
A new book collects paintings and photos of some of the most familiar names in English literary history.
August 13, 2025
The Art of Murder
Our columnist on four notable new crime novels.
August 13, 2025
This Ritzy-Hotel Thriller Focuses Less on the Tourists Than on the Staff
Cleyvis Natera’s novel “The Grand Paloma Resort” combines fast-paced suspense, class distinctions and colonial history in a breathless seven-day trip to the Dominican Republic.
August 12, 2025
A Real Murder Case From the 1960s Fuels This Moody Novel
“The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter,” by Peter Orner, revives an unsolved mystery involving Chicagoland royalty.
August 12, 2025
A Reporter Revisits 1980s New York in All Its Tabloid Excess
Jonathan Mahler’s new book portrays the city’s rebirth as a glitzy capital of global finance — and a petri dish of ego, ambition and class division.
August 12, 2025
Dispatches From Afghanistan Show How the U.S. Lost Its Way — and the War
A new book by the veteran correspondent Jon Lee Anderson captures a long war’s noble goals and crippling missteps.
August 12, 2025
Do You Know These Books and Their Television Adaptations?
Try this short quiz on the memoirs and other nonfiction titles that have inspired popular streaming and network shows.
August 11, 2025
A Writer With a Divine Touch Captures Life in a Christian Commune
“Ruth,” by Kate Riley, is an absorbing novel about a woman torn between curiosity and purity.
August 11, 2025
War Is Hard Enough. It’s Harder When You Don’t Know Who Is in Charge.
In these books, soldiers and experts weigh in on the disorder they’ve found in some of the most consequential war rooms in the world.
August 11, 2025