12 New Books We Recommend This Week

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

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Bright Young Things, Revisited: War Clouds a Childhood Idyll

Joanna Quinn’s “The Whalebone Theatre” breathlessly follows a trio of British youngsters from frolics on the beach to service and spycraft.

BY ALEXANDRA JACOBS | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

A Study of Friendship Where the Past Really Is Another Country

Kamila Shamsie’s new novel, “Best of Friends,” follows its title characters from their Pakistani girlhoods to their adult lives in London.

BY MOLLY YOUNG | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone

Joe Hagan discusses “Sticky Fingers,” his 2017 biography of Wenner, and a panel of Times critics talks about their 2019 list of outstanding memoirs.

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

6 Paperbacks to Read This Week

Looking for something to read? We’ve got plenty on offer this week, including Karl Ove Knausgaarg, Maggie Nelson and Colm Toibin.

BY MIGUEL SALAZAR | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

What to Read by (and About) Hilary Mantel

Mantel’s body of work spanned memoir, short stories, essays — and, of course, historical fiction. Here’s a guide to her writing.

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKS STAFF | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Hilary Mantel, Prize-Winning Author of Historical Fiction, Dies at 70

The two-time Booker Prize-winning author was known for “Wolf Hall” and two other novels based on the life of Thomas Cromwell.

BY ALEX MARSHALL | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Swashbuckling Nautical Adventure Meets the 18th-Century Slave Trade

A West African girl thrust from her family’s private Eden confronts awful truths on the high seas in Timothée de Fombelle’s “The Wind Rises.”

BY M.T. ANDERSON | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

‘The Furrows’ captures the disorienting nature of grief

Namwali Serpell's second novel follows a woman grieving the loss of her brother.

By Jake Cline | Washington Post Book World | Disclosure

A migrant child’s long journey to Gringolandia

In his memoir, poet Javier Zamora recounts in gripping detail his boyhood travels from El Salvador to the United States.

By Steven V. Roberts | Washington Post Book World | Disclosure

John Train, Paris Review Co-Founder and Cold War Operative, Dies at 94

His career, ranging from literature to finance to war, and from France to Afghanistan, seemed to cover every interest and issue of his exalted social class.

BY ALEX TRAUB | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Myths That Made, and Still Make, Russia

In a new book, the historian Orlando Figes argues that the war on Ukraine is only the latest instance of a nation twisting the past to justify its future.

BY GREGORY FEIFER | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Consumerism and Catastrophe

Stories set in China, the U.S. and Hong Kong are deadpan, dysfunctional, sentimental — and weird.

BY WEIKE WANG | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

‘The English Understand Wool’ is a little gift to Helen DeWitt fans

DeWitt is a master of the witty fable, and she pulls off her trick here through marvelous specificity of voice and a plot that hums like German machinery.

By Julius Taranto | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Jenny Xie Explores the Subversive Power of the Concealed and the Overlooked

In her new poetry collection, “The Rupture Tense,” Xie peeks at the past — her family’s, and China’s — to examine the consequences of “how we see, what we see, and also what we allow to remain unseen.”

BY HAN ZHANG | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Advocacy Groups Are Helping Drive a Rise in Book Bans

A report from the free speech organization PEN America looked at the role of politics and advocacy groups in the growing number of book bans in schools across the country.

BY ELIZABETH A. HARRIS | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Thursday Murder Club is back in action and as entertaining as ever

Richard Osman's "The Bullet that Missed" reconvenes his septuagenarian crime fighters.

By Malcolm Forbes | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

The queen of their dreams

Many books have been written about Queen Elizabeth II. One of them explored how she frequently appeared to her subjects in their sleep.

By Dennis Duncan | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

In the 1990s, the GOP got a hard push to the right

Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and other figures extolled Ronald Reagan but led the Republican Party away from his principles, Nicole Hemmer argues.

By Michael Bobelian | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

9 New Books We Recommend This Week

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

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Essential Judy Blume

For 50 years, her books have educated, entertained and connected young readers. Whether you want to revisit a classic or inspire a new fan, here’s what to read.

By ELISABETH EGAN | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Washington Post hardcover bestsellers

A snapshot of popular books.

By | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Javier Marías, celebrated Spanish author, dies at 70

His books sold nearly 9 million copies around the world with intricate and multilayered plots of crime, espionage and moral quandaries.

By Brian Murphy | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Rasheed Newson’s debut is entertainment with a side of education

"My Government Means to Kill Me" follows a gay, Black activist in 1980s New York.

By Ilana Masad | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Strong Women, Madwomen, Mob Women

Our critic recommends old and new books.

BY MOLLY YOUNG | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

3 new audiobooks to kick off your fall playlist

Titles for many tastes: a posthumous memoir by Michael K. Williams, a new recording of an 18th-century romance and a sweeping African novel

By Katherine A. Powers | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

How disability advocate Alice Wong turned her anger into action

In her memoir, the activist tells her story — and warns that it's no sentimental tale.

By Anna Leahy | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Anne Garrels, intrepid war correspondent for NPR, dies at 91

Her dispatches from Baghdad during the U.S. airstrikes and ground assault in 2003 brought vivid accounts of the war's toll and the Pentagon's future struggles.

By Brian Murphy | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Washington Post paperback bestsellers

A snapshot of popular books.

By Brian Murphy | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Are we ready to poke fun at pandemic times? Christopher Buckley is.

Buckley’s “Has Anyone Seen My Toes?,” a novel about a screenwriter who’s gone off the rails, takes aim at pandemic-fueled neuroses.

By Mark Athitakis  | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Five new thrillers to kick off your fall reading

New books by Megan Goldin, Jonathan Ames, Laurie Loewenstein, William Kent Krueger and Tracey Lien offer a murder-and-mayhem tour across the globe

By Dan Fesperman | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

A Black mother’s wary embrace of her neighborhood’s White mommy group

In her gentrifying D.C. neighborhood, Helena Andrews-Dyer confronts issues of race and belonging — and, as a new mom, finds a place to vent.

By Julie Lythcott-Haims | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Schoolchildren’s pandemic struggles, made worse by U.S. policies

Alongside heartbreaking snapshots of kids' challenges as schools closed, Anya Kamenetz explains the systemic failures that made so many vulnerable.

By Hannah Natanson | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

A peek at the landmark exhibition ‘In the Black Fantastic’

"In the Black Fantastic" has gotten rave reviews. Now there's a companion book by curator Ekow Eshun.

By Stephanie Merry | Washington Post Books | Disclosure

Miss Marple is Agatha Christie’s best character. A new book reminds us why.

In “Marple,” contemporary writers such as Val McDermid, Elly Griffith, Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware contribute new stories starring St. Mary Mead’s favorite resident

By Rhys Bowen | Washington Post Books | Disclosure