Book Review

“When We Flew Away” envisions what Anne might have been like before the cataclysm that shut her away and made her into “the voice of the Holocaust.”

By Ruth Franklin

Sanora Babb’s interviews about the Dust Bowl informed ‘The Grapes of Wrath.” The book’s success led to the cancellation of her own book contract. “Riding Like the Wind” tells her life story.

By Robert Ito

His movie songs are filled with memorable melodies; his own albums with unsavory characters. One of the most astute cultural observers is the subject of a new book.

By Bob Mehr

The guitarist and drummer formed the core of the powerhouse band. After Eddie died of cancer in 2020, Alex stayed quiet, but he’s breaking his silence in a new book.

By Richard Bienstock

In “The Forbidden Garden,” Simon Parkin examines the mad, heroic decision during the siege of Leningrad to guard biodiversity at the cost of human life.

By Deborah Blum

Many crime novels are known for their enduring characters who keep coming back for more adventures. Can you place these five sleuths on their home turf?

By J. D. Biersdorfer

In “Framed,” an advocate for the wrongly accused joins forces with John Grisham to tell stories of justice denied.

By Maurice Chammah

Gripping histories, cleareyed memoirs and satirical fiction can help you make sense of our political moment.

By Alexander Nazaryan

“Polostan” sets up a historical fiction series about espionage and revolution in the early 20th century.

By Dan Fesperman

In “Clean,” a domestic worker for a wealthy family tells her side of a tragic story.

By Laura van den Berg

Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, recommends four of his personal favorite creepy books to read in October.

By Gilbert Cruz, Karen Hanley and Claire Hogan

Hundreds of declassified U.S. Army photos are featured in the new book “Fashion Army.”

By Guy Trebay

The 2008 coal ash spill was among the biggest industrial disasters in U.S. history. In a new book, Jared Sullivan recounts the accident, the lawsuits and the lasting damage.

By Nathaniel Rich

In “Beyond the Big Lie,” Bill Adair worries that the world of spin and fabrication in America has gotten out of hand.

By Reeves Wiedeman

Two new books explore the messy business of uncovering Russian interference in American elections.

By Nicolas Niarchos

The new story collection by Mark Haddon takes inspiration from Greek myths, H.G. Wells and Snoopy.

By Hilma Wolitzer

For over 50 years, as a historian, lecturer and author, he fought to protect Beaux-Arts buildings in New York and Chicago from falling to the developer’s wrecking ball.

By Clay Risen

In his memoir, “Unleashed,” the former prime minister is “optimistic” about the possibility that Donald J. Trump could regain the White House.

By Mark Landler

Looking to dip your toe into horror this Halloween season? Entry-level thrills by Shirley Jackson, Victor LaValle and T. Kingfisher are a good place to start.

By Emily C. Hughes

Daniel M. Lavery’s debut novel collects vignettes from inside the Biedermeier, a second-rate, rapidly waning establishment in midcentury New York City.

By Sadie Stein

The protagonist of Eva Baltasar’s novel “Mammoth” contains multitudes, and that’s the way she likes it.

By Mary Marge Locker

A reporter counted every best seller about U.S. presidents published since The Times started tracking book sales in 1931. The process took some patience.

By Ian Prasad Philbrick

She became a literary star in Senegal with novels that addressed women’s issues as the country, newly free from French colonial rule, was discovering its identity.

By Steven Moity

The actor and renowned foodie talks about his eating habits and his food diary, and we look at the fiction and nonfiction titles up for the National Book Award.

The memoir, which will cover his time in prison and Russia’s move toward autocracy, will be published by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

By Alexandra Alter and Katie Robertson

The inductees are being recognized for work on G.I. Joe, Mad magazine, manga and mutants. They will be honored at New York Comic Con.

By George Gene Gustines

Oral histories and rollicking memoirs by former “S.N.L.” cast members like Molly Shannon and Leslie Jones take you behind the scenes of the comedy juggernaut.

By Dave Itzkoff

These terrifying tales by the likes of Stephen King and Shirley Jackson are more than good reads: They’ll freak you out, too.

By Calum Marsh

In Kwame Alexander’s new verse novel and Karen L. Swanson’s nonfiction picture book, Black girls pursue their dreams of playing big-league baseball.

By Abby McGanney Nolan

While Han Kang’s victory was celebrated as a crowning cultural achievement for her country, her work also represents a form of rebellion against its culture.

By Motoko Rich and Choe Sang-Hun

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

In the hands of skilled novelists, the stories of an heiress, a prime minister and a literary mystery woman are brought to life.

By Alida Becker

The South Korean author, best known for “The Vegetarian,” is the first writer from her country to receive the prestigious award.

By Alex Marshall and Alexandra Alter

How do you explain the democratic process to future voters? Start with these lively picture books and compelling histories.

By Travis Jonker

Jason Schreier’s “Play Nice” tells the story of Blizzard Entertainment from its fratty, debauched ’90s heyday to the height of its corporate glut.

By Neima Jahromi

The follies of violence and rhetoric in the Vietnam War and World War II have a lot of lessons for the leaders of Israel, Iran and the next American president.

By Thomas E. Ricks

In a new biography, Dava Sobel focuses not just on the legendary physicist and chemist, but on the 45 women who worked in her lab.

By Kate Zernike

“I am kind of living for that moment,” says the prolific writer. “Who will betray me first?” Her new novel is “A Reason to See You Again.”

Bob Woodward doesn’t know which story he wants to tell in his latest presidential chronicle.

By A.O. Scott

His father, Norman Rockwell, depicted his childhood on covers of The Saturday Evening Post. The worms came later.

By Michael S. Rosenwald

Created by Humans, a company that aims to help writers license their works for use by A.I. companies, has struck a partnership with the Authors Guild.

By Alexandra Alter

She survived Auschwitz, wrote a best-selling memoir, “Lily’s Promise,” and spoke to a following of 2 million fans on TikTok.

By Emmett Lindner

Otherworldly creatures, apocalyptic environments, serial killers, zombies and more haunt these suspenseful comic books and graphic novels.

By George Gene Gustines

As the Nobel Committee gets ready to admit a new writer into the pantheon, our critic asks: Is greatness overrated?

By A.O. Scott

Cécile Desprairies’s novel, ‘The Propagandist,’ was also inspired by her mother, who made art and slogans for Vichy France and its Nazi leaders.

By Tobias Grey

In “Selling Sexy,” two veteran fashion journalists examine how Victoria’s Secret fell from grace.

By Leah Greenblatt

In this family saga, a floundering lawyer must tap into her supernatural heritage to help her family in the past and present.

By Eleanor Dunn

The book, “War,” lays bare just how frustrated the president has become with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the war in Gaza began.

By Peter Baker and Ephrat Livni

The journalist Bob Woodward cited an unnamed aide saying that Donald J. Trump had spoken to Vladimir V. Putin as many as seven times since leaving office. Multiple sources say they cannot confirm that report.

By Peter Baker

In Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel, “Our Evenings,” a Burmese English actor grapples with race and ambition, sexuality and love in a bigoted world.

By Hamilton Cain

Reviled as much as he is lauded, Michel Houellebecq holds up a mirror to a world we would rather not see.

By Wyatt Mason

For her new book, “Salvage,” the Trinidadian-born writer Dionne Brand rereads classic English novels, teasing out evidence of the ravages of colonialism.

By Sophie Gee

Aaron Robertson’s grandparents had a farm in Promise Land, Tenn. In a new book, he explores the history and meaning of such utopian communities for African Americans.

By John Jeremiah Sullivan

Weeding, or culling old, damaged or outdated books, is standard practice in libraries. But in some cases it is being used to remove books because of the viewpoint they express.

By Elizabeth A. Harris

“Comrade Papa” is told from the perspective of two European arrivals to the West African country, nearly a century apart.

By Nadifa Mohamed

A conversation through books.

By David L. Ulin

Thousands of books have been publicly challenged and removed from libraries in the past couple of years. Elizabeth Harris, who covers books and the publishing industry for The New York Times, explains how books are being pulled from libraries in a quiet process called weeding. Weeding normally allows librarians to keep collections current, but some lawsuits argue that it has been used instead to remove books for content about racism, sexuality and gender.

By Elizabeth Harris, Farah Otero-Amad, Karen Hanley, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Gabriel Blanco

In a new memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” Elvis Presley’s daughter and granddaughter take turns exploring a messy legacy.

By Elisabeth Egan

Transported to safe haven in England as a Jewish child in 1938, she explored themes of displacement with penetrating wit in autobiographical fiction like “Other People’s Houses.”

By Penelope Green

Popular literature has often been the source of a big-budget musical, but not every show is a hit. Can you identify these five short-lived productions?

By J. D. Biersdorfer

In “Diary of a Crisis,” Saul Friedländer takes the violence and upheaval in Israel day by day.

By Ruth Margalit

An Oct. 7 survival memoir and a chronicle of theft in 1948 grapple with the history of a war-torn region.

By Max Strasser

John Edgar Wideman’s new book connects reflections on his own life to imaginative studies of historical figures.

By Randy Boyagoda

Once called “probably the funniest and most malicious” of the postmodernists, his books reflected a career-long interest in reimagining folk stories, fairy tales and political myths.

By John Williams

At 96, Lore Segal is approaching death with the same startling powers of perception she brought to her fiction.

By Matthew Shaer

In “The Hidden Globe,” the journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian examines the rise of spaces where wealthy countries and companies bend rules and regulations to their advantage.

By Alana Semuels

Tipped off by the detective Frank Serpico, he wrote an explosive series on police corruption in New York City, sparking an investigation by the Knapp commission.

By Trip Gabriel

Stephen McCauley’s novel about ex-spouses reuniting, in a sense; Jim Shepard’s noir about a fateful hit-and-run.

The writer discusses her follow-up to her best-selling 2021 novel “The Plot.”

Our crime columnist on books by Kate Atkinson, Nicholas Meyer, Marcie R. Rendon and Nilanjana Roy.

By Sarah Weinman