This Josephine Baker Oral History Has Never Been Published Here. Now We Know Why.

“Fearless and Free,” recorded between 1926 and 1949, is full of heroism, glamour, righteous anger — and things you wish you could unsee.

Lesley M. M. Blume | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Best Spicy Romance Novels, According to Ali Hazelwood

These steamy reads bring the emotion and the heat.

Ali Hazelwood | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Hanif Kureishi Wonders What Dostoyevsky’s Characters Did in Bed

It’s among the more playful matters on his mind in “Shattered,” a memoir of the injury that took away his ability to turn pages — but not his hunger to tell a story.

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

No Writer Better Understood the Agony of Expectation

Antonio Di Benedetto’s characters are repellent and constantly frustrated. Why are they so captivating?

Michael Greenberg | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Ironic Fight Against Liberty in the American Revolution

In “A Perfect Frenzy,” Andrew Lawler reveals the hypocrisies of the patriots on the battleground of colonial Virginia.

Alexis Coe | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

3 Chilling Horror Books to Read This Month, Including a Reissued Classic

Our columnist reviews January’s new horror titles.

Gabino Iglesias | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

An Unsolved Murder Haunts an Elite Black Family in New England

Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Good Dirt” weaves together grief, suspense and the story of a jar made by an enslaved potter generations earlier.

Deesha Philyaw | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

A Lonely 20-Something Finds Her Ideal Mate. It’s a Blob.

In Maggie Su’s funny debut novel, a Frankenstein-like monster turns on his flailing creator.

Weike Wang | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

A Cinco de Mayo Time Travel Fantasy

For the three Latino kids transported to 1862 Mexico in Emma Otheguy’s latest novel, the outcome of the American Civil War hangs in the balance.

Juan Vidal | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

You Know Emerson and Thoreau. Why Not Their Female Counterparts?

In “Bright Circle,” Randall Fuller shines a light on the women behind — and before — the male philosophers of 19th-century Massachusetts.

Francesca Wade | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

10 Winter Reads for Cold Nights

Chilly thrillers, snowy fantasies and Alpine adventure novels exquisitely capture the atmosphere of the season.

Calum Marsh | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The ‘Hellboy’ Artist Makes a New Playground

Mike Mignola’s “Bowling With Corpses” is full of suspicious shadows and offbeat jokes.

Sam Thielman | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

In African Publishing, ‘There Is a Renaissance Going On’

A new ecosystem of publishers, bookstores, literary magazines and festivals is promoting African writers and changing the stories told about the region.

Abdi Latif Dahir | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Absurd, Dizzying Humanity of a 20th-Century Genius

Mavis Gallant wrote short stories full of brutal humor that examined the hell of other people.

Laurence Scott | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

In Han Kang’s Latest, a Quixotic Bird Rescue Expedition Turns Tragic

The Nobel laureate’s new novel, “We Do Not Part,” revisits a violent chapter in South Korean history.

Lydia Millet | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Books on Drug Trafficking, and Kant, Line Adam Haslett’s Shelves

His new novel is titled after Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons,” he says, “given the theme of incomprehension between generations in that book.”

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Gay Talese Keeps Notes, Especially on Everyone’s Clothes

In a new collection about New York City, the writer turns his gimlet eye on its icons, its architecture, its hot spots — and its suits. “Clothes matter — especially when you get old,” he says.

Sadie Stein | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Pregnant and Abused, These Young Women Fight Back With Witchcraft

Grady Hendrix’s new novel, “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls,” is a timely look at the mistreatment of women, with a dose of horror, monsters and magic.

Hugh Ryan | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Sex, Drugs and Clubbing Are a Means of Escape for This ‘Good Girl’

Aria Aber’s exciting debut novel finds the daughter of an Afghan refugee sidestepping disapproval and racism as she dives into Berlin’s nightworld.

R.O. Kwon | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Writing Fantasy Came Naturally. Reality Was Far More Daunting.

After winning just about every major science fiction and fantasy award, Nnedi Okorafor explores a traumatic event in her own history in her most autobiographical novel yet.

Alexandra Alter | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

She Published a Blockbuster Book. Was It a Blessing or a Curse?

In Nnedi Okorafor’s new novel, “Death of the Author,” a once-struggling writer grapples with power, privilege, agency and art after her book becomes a life-changing hit.

Zakiya Dalila Harris | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

3 New Thrillers Fueled by Obsession and Blackmail

Our columnist on the month’s most exciting releases.

Sarah Lyall | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

In a Dystopian Nepal, an Earthquake’s Aftershocks Are Mostly Political

Samrat Upadhyay’s new novel, “Darkmotherland,” is a sprawling epic in which a natural disaster gives way to an authoritarian takeover.

Siddhartha Deb | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

A Sex Tape, a Senate Race and a Centuries-Old Family Curse

The scion siblings at the center of Sara Sligar’s Gothic thriller “Vantage Point” try desperately to outrun the calamity that is their inheritance.

Joumana Khatib | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Graham Norton Isn’t Insulted to Be Called an ‘Undemanding’ Writer

“I’m very comfortable with the level of ambition I have for my books,” says the ubiquitous BBC talk show host, who calls “Frankie” his “first happy romance.”

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Jenna Bush Hager: ‘Today’ Show Co-Host, Literary Tastemaker and Now, Publisher

Nearly six years after becoming a literary heavyweight with “Read with Jenna,” she’s starting her own publishing venture with Penguin Random House.

Alexandra Alter | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

They Save Others for a Living, but Struggle to Save Themselves

In Adam Haslett’s “Mothers and Sons,” crisis reconnects an asylum lawyer and his estranged mother, the co-founder of a women’s retreat.

Tom Crewe | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Where in the World Do These Popular Detectives Solve Crimes?

Try this short quiz on investigators and inspectors cracking their cases around the globe.

J. D. Biersdorfer | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Anita Desai Has Put Down Roots, but Her Work Ranges Widely

Her new novella, “Rosarita,” takes place in Mexico, a country she finds so like her native India that, she says, “I feel utterly at home there.”

Anderson Tepper | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Hero of This Novel Is 14. His Married Girlfriend Is 36.

Adam Ross’s “Playworld” is about a child actor and the real-world dramas that engulf his adolescence.

Alexandra Jacobs | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

An Overdose Sends a Widower Hunting for His Wife’s Lost Descendants

The new novel by Bernhard Schlink, the author of “The Reader,” explores the legacies of World War II and reunification in contemporary Germany.

Randy Boyagoda | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

2 Books About the Moneyed Class

A novel of British nobility; a memoir of American aristocracy.

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

A Student’s Mystery: How Did This Enigmatic Author Shape Her Family?

In “The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus,” a college student balances her new independence while investigating the demise of her parents’ marriage.

Eleanor Dunn | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

War Tore Them Apart and Fate Reunited Them. Could Their Love Last?

Karissa Chen’s debut, “Homeseeking,” follows two childhood sweethearts who meet in Shanghai, and whose lives are upended by the forces of history.

Kayla Maiuri | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Life in the Tudor Industrial Complex: Sex, Beheadings, Fur

In “The Waiting Game,” the historian Nicola Clark tells a lively and vivid story of the women who served Henry VIII’s queens.

Eva Wolchover | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

Encyclopedia Brown Got Alafair Burke Started on Crime Fiction

The author of “The Note” traces her “real obsession” to discovering “a slew of smart, gritty female sleuths who began to feel like friends.”

Unknown Author | NYTimes Books | Disclosure

The Secret Lives of Vikings

In “Embers of the Hands,” the historian Eleanor Barraclough looks beyond the soap-opera sagas to those lost in the cracks of history.

Timothy Farrington | NYTimes Books | Disclosure