NYT Book Reviews

Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s parents were leaders of the Weather Underground. His new book traces how their revolutionary ideals collided with their family life.

For her latest book, the popular British scholar Mary Beard gets personal about how she fell for ancient Greece and Rome.

In “An Inconvenient Widow,” Lois Romano defends the most reviled first lady from her detractors past and present.

In his first book, Theo Baker chronicles an outrageously eventful year navigating an enigmatic center of power.

The two-time National Book Award winner collects essays, profiles and appreciations in a new book, “On Witness and Respair.”

In “The Theater,” the journalist James Verini recounts the bombing of a performing arts space turned refugee shelter in the middle of war-torn Mariupol.

In “The Wonderful World That Almost Was,” Andrew Durbin reconstructs the coterie that surrounded the artist-lovers Peter Hujar and Paul Thek.

Steven Rowley’s new novel, “Take Me With You,” asks who we are without our partners.

Aea Varfis-van Warmelo’s novel follows a commitment-averse liar who is plagued by visions of violence.

The popular astrophysicist can be witty and informative when making science accessible. You wouldn’t know it from his new book, “Take Me to Your Leader.”

In Veronica Roth’s “Seek the Traitor’s Son,” a soldier in a pandemic-ravaged world is forced to become the hope of her people.

“Nerve Damage,” by Annakeara Stinson, is a jittery psychological thriller about a woman whose creepy ex simply won’t leave her alone.

In “AI for Good,” Josh Tyrangiel travels to the classrooms, hospitals and research labs where people are using artificial intelligence that might benefit society.

“Men Like Ours,” a novel by Bindu Bansinath, follows an immigrant family through a community crisis.

Suzanne Simard’s new book urges Western science to take a lesson from the more holistic Indigenous approach to forest preservation.

In John Lanchester’s “Look What You Made Me Do,” a widow is unnerved when a hit TV series airs details from her marriage a little too closely.

In “Selling Opportunity,” Mary Lisa Gavenas tells the not-always-rosy story of Mary Kay, the brand — and its founder.

In “One Leg on Earth,” a young college grad’s idealistic move to Lagos turns into a nightmare.

In “Screen People,” Megan Garber looks at how we all became famous for 15 minutes.

Two new biographies of the Supreme Court justice show how his career was propelled by a legal movement that coalesced to take down Roe v. Wade.

Fonda Lee’s “cyberpunk samurai in space” novel follows a sword-wielding warrior trying to finish one last job.

In a new book, the journalist Suzy Hansen plumbs an Istanbul community for insights into Turkey’s hard-right turn.

“The Family Man,” by the novelist and poet James Lasdun, brings a literary voice and elaborate detail to a case that gripped the nation.

Partly inspired by her life, Harriet Clark’s “The Hill” portrays a young girl navigating between her beloved mother’s jail cell and the world outside.

“Riverwork,” by Lisa Robertson, considers the lost history of the Bièvre and the lives of working women once linked to it.

In a new novel told in interlinked stories, Dylan Landis revisits a dauntless family she has written about since 2009.

Séamas O’Reilly’s new novel is a boisterous sendup of “prestige” media and its distortion of Northern Ireland’s complex past.

In the powerful and surprising “John of John,” Douglas Stuart sends a young art student back home to a family he thought he’d left behind.

“The Things We Never Say” leaves behind Crosby, Maine, for Massachusetts, where a middle-aged history teacher discovers a long-buried family secret.

In a new book, Siri Hustvedt recalls her life with the writer Paul Auster and the story of his illness.

Kathryn Stockett’s prodigious second novel, “The Calamity Club,” brings together an unlikely group of spinsters, sex workers and orphans in Depression-era Mississippi.

Her new memoir, “True Crime,” traces how she survived a Southern Gothic upbringing to emerge as one of the world’s most famous thriller writers.

In her memoir “Backtalker,” Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw shows how personal trauma spurred her influential and controversial ideas about race and gender.

In “The Successor,” the exiled journalist Mikhail Fishman tells the story of a charming Russian politician who might have made his country into a liberal democracy.

Eleven-year-old Genya plays the pretending game as she crams for an art school entrance exam in Chernobyl’s wake.

Benjamin Hale’s book “Cave Mountain” connects the brief disappearance of his cousin in 2001 to a grisly true-crime story in 1978.

In “Prophecy,” Carissa Véliz explores how generative A.I. relies on prediction, enriching Big Tech while making the rest of us less safe.

In “Japanese Gothic,” a 21st-century college student and a 19th-century samurai find themselves occupying the same house.

The worldly men of the cloth in Héctor Abad’s new novel find divinity both inside and outside the church.

In “Project Maven,” Katrina Manson shows us how close we are to artificial intelligence picking targets and dropping bombs without human input.

The German writer Wolfgang Koeppen’s postwar trilogy crackles with life and unsparing details of a broken society.

The music journalist Bob Spitz, a keeper of numerous rock ’n’ roll flames, has turned out a colorful and authoritative new take on a much-documented band.

A new book by Jayne Anne Phillips, a Pulitzer-winning novelist, recalling her childhood is a bittersweet triumph.

A middle-aged novelist sifts through memories of growing up in New Jersey in Tom Perrotta’s frustratingly formulaic book.

In her engaging, sympathetic book “Like, Follow, Subscribe,” the journalist Fortesa Latifi digs into growing up in the spotlight.

In her engaging, lyrical “Homesick for a World Unknown,” Miriam Horn tells the story of the famed naturalist George Schaller.

The translator Daniel Hahn makes the case that Shakespeare can be appreciated “even if we don’t hear a single one of his words.”

In “The Radiant Dark,” life is upended after humanity receives a signal from a distant planet. But extraterrestrial contact takes a back seat to more earthly problems.

In his chatty, compulsively readable first book for adults, Mac Barnett champions his career choice and urges our culture to hold kids in higher esteem.

In “Israel: What Went Wrong?,” Omer Bartov charts how a nation founded in the wake of trauma abandoned the emancipatory impulse of its origins.

In Sophie Mackintosh’s novel “Permanence,” cheating couples find themselves in an alternate world free of complication — and missing the mess.

“How It Feels to Be Alive,” by Megan O’Grady, blends criticism with personal history to explore how and why art affects us.

In “The Palm House,” Gwendoline Riley offers understated yet cleareyed observations of human behavior — this time about middle-aged Londoners struggling to stay relevant.

A new biography of Jan Morris shows why the journalist, world traveler, historian and essayist was far more than a trailblazer.

In “This Vast Enterprise,” Craig Fehrman refreshes a familiar story with a rich chorus of voices.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s precise and devastating memoir chronicles the 328 days her son was held hostage in Gaza, and what came after.

In “How to Be a Dissident,” Gal Beckerman offers an inspiring tour of famous renegades with lessons for the rabble-rousers of today.

Both authors share uncanny similarities of upbringing. But their culinary paths diverged sharply.

Julia Langbein’s novel considers the legions of women whose lives have been forever marred by compromising early relationships.

Through accounts of relatives and direct witnesses, Adriana E. Ramírez examines a pivotal, and brutal, period of history.

In a new book, Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff argue that Elon Musk’s disruptive approach to business is transforming both politics and the economy.

In “Rasputin,” the biographer Antony Beevor delves into the mysterious life of the last czarina’s mystic adviser.

Nicholas Enrich’s tell-all memoir, “Into the Wood Chipper,” has advice for others caught between their conscience and their government.

Jim Windolf’s new book, “Where the Music Had to Go,” traces the influence of Dylan on the Beatles and the Beatles on Dylan.

Solvej Balle’s cult hit series about a woman trapped in a time loop continues with a fourth volume.

In “RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise,” a New York Post reporter paints an intimate portrait of the Kennedy scion and cabinet member.

A new history by Jonathan Cheng argues that an influx of missionaries in the late 19th century profoundly shaped the ruling Kim family dynasty.

“Go Gentle” throws together art heists, sexual assault and a coven of middle-aged divorcées on the Upper West Side.

Jay McInerney has written about the literary party boy Russell Calloway once a decade since the 1990s. He returns in the Covid novel “See You on the Other Side.”

Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon both lost loved ones to the conflict in the Middle East. In “The Future Is Peace,” they look for hope and understanding.

In 10 minutes or less, this mom-and-pop London institution produced stylish snapshots for some of the world’s biggest stars.

“Lázár,” by Nelio Biedermann, is a multigenerational novel that spans the collapse of a monarchy, two world wars and a revolution.

A new book by the historian Melvin Patrick Ely draws on court records to highlight the complex relationships between enslavers and the enslaved.

In “Empire of Skulls,” Paul Stob explores how a mania took over America.

After devoting her first novel to her wild mother, Violaine Huisman focuses her second on her father, a man who amassed wealth, love affairs and stories.

Tae Keller’s new novel, “When Tomorrow Burns,” offers reassuring answers to the question, “What do you do when your biggest fear comes true?”

In his excellent “The Oracle’s Daughter,” Harrison Hill looks at the people and the questions beyond the headlines.

A new book by Patrick Radden Keefe retraces the secret life of a 19-year-old Londoner who fell in with a gangster underworld.

In this novel, a group of authors race to finish a mystery manuscript, only to find themselves part of a lethal plot.

In Emma Straub’s latest novel, “American Fantasy,” a pop group’s midlife return provides fodder for both comedy and redemption on the high seas.

“Corto Maltese,” Hugo Pratt’s influential 1967 graphic novel, returns, with just as much to say about childhood during wartime.

The Polish best seller “Hexes of the Deadwood Forest” is like a post-porn fever dream of Eastern European magic realism crossed with a plant-based “Joy of Sex.”

The well-born protagonist of Nancy Lemann’s novel “The Oyster Diaries” returns home and immediately feels like an outsider.

In “Here Where We Live Is Our Country,” Molly Crabapple tells the story of a Jewish labor movement that fought antisemitism and nationalism with equal fervor.

In Caro Claire Burke’s novel, “Yesteryear,” a homesteading momfluencer can no longer hide the scandal swirling just below the surface.

The lexicographer Kory Stamper’s “True Color” is a sneakily insightful philosophical treatise on what it means to define anything at all.

Matt Phelan’s bear cub named Bartleby and Scott Rothman’s judgy bunny aren’t wicked or misbehaved. Like our reviewer, they simply prefer not to.

In anticipation of the nation’s 250th anniversary, a Pulitzer winner visited 300 sites to see how history is displayed and, sometimes, erased.

The sloppy, solipsistic narrator of Kirsten King’s novel, “A Good Person,” casts a witchy spell on a guy who dumped her. Hours later, he’s been stabbed to death.

Yann Martel’s “Son of Nobody” joins many recent books that reimagine the classics, but offers a Nabokovian twist.

Samuel Pepys’s journals are an invaluable record of British history. A new book reconsiders his infamous sexual exploits.

Part horror, part fable, the latest novel by Marie NDiaye to be translated into English is an exacting portrait of domestic entrapment and psychological turmoil.

In “Transcription,” Ben Lerner considers a famous father, a loyal protégé and a distant son, bound by devotion and separated by miscommunication.

“The Keeper,” the final book in her Cal Hooper trilogy, returns readers to an insular village in rural western Ireland.

Philip Stead’s “A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic” gleefully ignores all the storytelling rules.

In a new book, the historian Mark Peterson argues that our founding document is rooted in ideals of expansion and conquest ill suited to the nation we’ve become.

A new history by Trevor Jackson argues that the economic system that transformed global living standards depends on endless growth impossible to sustain.

In “How Flowers Made Our World,” David George Haskell makes a case for their soft power.

Just in time for Opening Day, Robert Coover’s prescient 1968 baseball novel is back in print.

“American Men,” by Jordan Ritter Conn, and “Who Needs Friends,” by Andrew McCarthy, report from the front lines of the epidemic of male loneliness.

In a new book, the Harvard scholar Marjorie Garber suggests how Americans targeted during the Red Scare used literature to confound their interrogators.

“Open Space,” by David Ariosto, suggests there are few limits on human ingenuity that could prevent us from colonizing the cosmos.

A new book by Rhae Lynn Barnes examines how minstrelsy once occupied the center of the nation’s cultural life.

In Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s novel “Almost Life,” a passionate love affair between two college women gives way to a lifetime of what-ifs.

In “Playmakers,” Michael Kimmel traces, and celebrates, the immigrant roots of the American toy industry. (Batteries not included.)

In “The Feather Wars,” James H. McCommons pays tribute to the nation’s first conservationists.

As his new memoir demonstrates, he himself would achieve fame as a visual artist, filmmaker, TV host and formative tastemaker.

“Paradiso 17,” by Hannah Lillith Assadi, considers the toll of displacement through the tale of a Palestinian émigré.

A new book by the historian Christopher Clark chronicles a nearly 200-year-old scandal with echoes of the present day.

Joshua Bennett’s two new collections, “We” and “The People Can Fly,” take different paths to the same destination.

In “Chain of Ideas,” Ibram X. Kendi argues that a modern form of xenophobia has come to dominate conservative movements across the world.

In a new book, Caroline Tracey explores the mysteries and beauty of salt lakes.

Mieko Kawakami’s novel “Sisters in Yellow” follows a group of dreaming and scheming young women through society’s margins.

In “Stay Alive,” Ian Buruma paints a picture of the city dwellers who survived in Germany under the Nazis.

A new history by Luke Barr chronicles the innovations, excesses and chauvinism of the French chefs who spawned a revolution in cooking.

Charlotte Wood’s “The Natural Way of Things” conjures a not-so-implausible world in which girls and young women are thrown into prison for their sexual shames.

From 1940 to 1973, Ursula Nordstrom transformed kids’ books into real art and big business. A new middle grade biography attempts to capture her magic.

Jordy Rosenberg’s second novel, “Night Night Fawn,” approaches a closed-minded matriarch with compassion, even at her child’s expense.

In an affecting new memoir, Tom Junod, a prizewinning magazine writer, grapples with unsettling discoveries about his larger-than-life dad.

From his perch in Hawaii, the hero of Patricia Finn’s first novel, “The Golden Boy,” revisits his dark past in rural Ontario.

“Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!” is a familiar reminder that growing up in showbiz can lead to awards and adulation, but also to heartache.

Karan Mahajan’s new novel, “The Complex,” tracks the fortunes of a political family in a rapidly changing India.

In Andrew Martin’s keenly observed new novel, a group of friends navigate a society reshaped by the pandemic.

“Nonesuch,” the new novel by Francis Spufford, conjures a plot laced with magic to change the course of history.

In “Whidbey,” three women reckon with the aftermath of sexual assault.

“Gunk,” a novel by Saba Sams, follows a woman through the trials and tenuous jobs of young adulthood.

A newly released collection of the Australian master’s short fiction shows her sympathy, her virtuosity and her ear.

In “Chosen Land,” Matthew Avery Sutton argues that, despite the intentions of certain founders, the First Amendment guaranteed that the United States would be a godly country.

In “Days of Love and Rage,” Anand Gopal creates an indelible portrait of revolution and civil war in Syria.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s new novel, “Lake Effect,” is the latest in a specific contemporary subgenre: “Four Adult Siblings Reconvene to Rehash Their Privileged but Fraught Adolescence.”

In “Reproductive Wrongs,” the classicist Sarah Ruden traces efforts to exert political control over family planning back 2,000 years.

A new book by the journalist Beth Gardiner argues that oil companies are upping production of the material as a safeguard against falling revenue.

Ivana Sajko’s novel “Every Time We Say Goodbye” explores personal and political crises in lengthy, lyrical sentences.