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Highlights

  1. Fiction

    Friends With Benefits, but Without Illusions

    In “Don’t Be a Stranger,” Susan Minot once again explores female desire, staging a romantic collision between a divorced mother and a much younger musician.

     By Alexandra Jacobs

    CreditLaura Edelbacher
  2. Nonfiction

    The Toxic Sludge That Ate Tennessee

    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

    An employee for the Tennessee Valley Authority surveys a home damaged by a huge spill of toxic coal ash sludge from a T.V.A. plant in December 2008.
    An employee for the Tennessee Valley Authority surveys a home damaged by a huge spill of toxic coal ash sludge from a T.V.A. plant in December 2008.
    Credit J. Miles Cary/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated Press
    2. Fiction

      A Tender Ode to a 1960s ‘Women’s Hotel’

      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

      Credit

  1. These ‘Saturday Night Live’ Books Bring Studio 8H to Your Living Room

    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

    The 1977-78 cast of “Saturday Night Live,” which is now in its 50th season. The story of the making of the show’s first episode is the subject of the new film “Saturday Night.”
    CreditNBC, via Everett Collection

  2. A Fact Checker Reflects on Our Age of Political Lying

    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

    CreditIgor Bastidas
    Nonfiction

  3. Lisa Marie Presley Makes Her Voice Heard, Once and For All

    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

    “Sometimes I’d walk into my mom’s bedroom and find her sitting on the floor alone, drunk, listening to her father’s music, crying,” Riley Keough writes of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. “But she’d never talk about it, or listen to his music sober.”
    CreditKaty Winn/Associated Press
    Nonfiction

  4. From Melania Trump: Modeling, Motherhood and a Brazen Whitewash of a Presidency

    Slim and full of obfuscations, her memoir touches on business ventures and raising her son, but barely grapples with the mysteries of her marriage.

     By Alexandra Jacobs

    Melania Trump on the final night of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
    CreditHaiyun Jiang for The New York Times
    Nonfiction

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Books of the Times

More in Books of the Times ›

  1. Fitting In Was Never Randy Newman’s Jam

    A biography of the singer behind “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and “Short People” considers a complicated man with a satirical edge.

     By Dwight Garner

    Randy Newman in 2017.
    CreditJulian Berman for The New York Times

  2. Scoops, Dupes and Kooks: A History of The New York Post

    A new book chronicles the last 50 years of a notorious American tabloid.

     By Dwight Garner

    The New York Post’s headlines and jolting brew of gossip, politics and sports have been a city mainstay for decades.
    CreditCaitlin Ochs/Reuters

  3. Michel Houellebecq’s Outlook for an Ailing France: C’est Fini

    In what the author says is his last novel, both a family and a society are on the verge of collapse.

     By Dwight Garner

    Michel Houellebecq
    CreditPhilippe Matsas/Editions Flammarion

  4. Ta-Nehisi Coates Returns to the Political Fray, Calling Out Injustice

    “The Message” marks his re-entry as a public intellectual determined to wield his moral authority, especially regarding Israel and the occupied territories.

     By Jennifer Szalai

    Ta-Nehisi Coates in Brooklyn, in September 2024.
    CreditMichael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times

  5. Sally Rooney, Heart on Her Sleeve, Writes a Weeper

    Her new novel, “Intermezzo,” considers love in its various permutations.

     By Dwight Garner

    CreditGeoff McFetridge
  1. TimesVideo

    4 Creepy Books to Read This Halloween

    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

     
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  6. Scary Books for Scaredy-Cats

    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

     
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