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Book Review

Highlights

  1. I Swear This Poem Didn’t Make Me Cry

    George Oppen’s “From a Photograph” turns a wintry snapshot into a moving meditation on parenthood and the passage of time. Our critic A.O. Scott shows you what he loves about it.

     By

    CreditIsabella Cotier
    1. By the Book

      Robert Harris Likes the ‘Conclave’ Movie, But …

      An adaptation of “Fatherland,” the best-selling novelist’s first solo work, “sets my teeth on edge,” he admits. His newest book, “Precipice,” is about a former British prime minister in love.

       

      CreditRebecca Clarke
  1. If Talking Politics With Family Has Become a Horror Show, This Book’s for You

    Clay McLeod Chapman kept hearing friends say, of their Fox News-watching parents, “It’s like they were possessed.” That’s what inspired him to write “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.”

     By

    Clay McLeod Chapman at his home in Brooklyn. “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes” is his 12th book, but he’s also worked horror themes into film, stage monologues and podcasts.
    CreditNathan Bajar for The New York Times
  2. Why Scott Turow Brought Back His Most Famous Hero: He ‘Changed My Life’

    The novelist is 75. Rusty Sabich, the now-retired prosecutor he introduced in “Presumed Innocent,” is 77 — and taking on a new case in “Presumed Guilty.”

     By

    CreditScott McIntyre for The New York Times
  3. The Dalai Lama Shares Thoughts on China and the Future in a New Book

    The spiritual leader of Tibet has published amply but seldom written in depth about politics. Now, as he approaches 90, he shares a detailed and personal account of his decades dealing with China.

     By

    The Dalai Lama is Tibet’s spiritual leader. He fled in 1959 after China’s occupation, and has worked to uphold Tibet’s culture, religion and language from exile since then.
    CreditVincent Kessler/Reuters
  4. 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.

     By

    CreditDajah Callen
    Fiction
  5. Heartbreak and History in a Single Color

    Imani Perry’s impressionistic “Black in Blues” finds shades of meaning — beautiful and ugly — in art, artifacts, music, fashion and more.

     By

    An 1882 cyanotype photograph of Black sea captains is among the images that illustrate Imani Perry’s book.
    CreditArchives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
    Nonfiction

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Books of the Times

More in Books of the Times ›
  1. Heartbreak and History in a Single Color

    Imani Perry’s impressionistic “Black in Blues” finds shades of meaning — beautiful and ugly — in art, artifacts, music, fashion and more.

     By

    An 1882 cyanotype photograph of Black sea captains is among the images that illustrate Imani Perry’s book.
    CreditArchives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
  2. In Pop Culture, the End of the World Is Always Nigh

    A new book by the British cultural journalist Dorian Lynskey chronicles our centuries-old obsession with doomsday scenarios.

     By

    An atomic bomb test at the Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1946. The bomb has inspired grisly prophecies, not only of the sudden carnage of a fiery blast but also of the prolonged suffering of a nuclear winter.
    CreditJack Rice/Associated Press
  3. You’ve Been Invited to a Secret House Party in London

    Details are in Caleb Femi’s new poetry collection, “The Wickedest.”

     By

    One of Caleb Femi’s photographs, included in his new poetry collection, “The Wickedest.”
    CreditCaleb Femi
  4. Remember Body Glitter and Chat Rooms? ‘Y2K’ Won’t Let You Forget.

    In a vibrant collection of “essays on the future that never was,” Colette Shade takes a cold look at the cheery promise of the 2000s.

     By

    Despite the fears, the year 2000 arrived without crisis, but Y2K stands in for what has been a very anxious era, a new book with that title argues.
    CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times
  5. The Secret to a Good Life? Thinking Like Socrates.

    In “Open Socrates,” the scholar Agnes Callard argues that the ancient Greek philosopher offers a blueprint for an ethical life.

     By

    Callard says that Socrates has too often been treated like a “sauce” that could enhance one’s critical thinking instead of as the main event, whose ethics, if properly understood, were nothing short of radical.
    CreditPrisma/UIG, via Getty Images
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  9. Children’s Books

    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.

    By Juan Vidal

     
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