The New York Times Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

The New York Times

When Rebecca Hall first read Nella Larsen’s groundbreaking 1929 novel, “Passing,” she felt an intense, immediate attachment to it. The story seemed to clarify so much that was mysterious about her own identity and the unnameable gaps in her family history. https://t.co/nohZbCmAcM

The New York Times

McCann’s latest novel begins with a fairly straightforward narrative... But through authorial wiles and expertly placed sentences, McCann... makes this premise both urgent and enigmatic. Unexpected sunderings form the core emotional motif of the novel.

The New York Times

The narrator of this smart and sneering novel... is an unnamed Palestinian schoolteacher..who becomes involved in a scheme to buy Hermès Birkin bags... In a spiraling, hallucinogenic plot, the narrator seesaws between jaded American consumerism and the sadness and guilt of displacement.

The New York Times

“My Brilliant Friend” is entrenched as one of the premier examples of so-called autofiction, a category that has dominated the literature of the 21st century. Reading this uncompromising, unforgettable novel is like riding a bike on gravel: It’s gritty and slippery and nerve-racking, all at the same time.

The New York Times

Sheff’s new biography of Yoko Ono ... convincingly argues for her relevance as a feminist, activist, avant-garde innovator, and world-class sass. The book is predictably sympathetic, but not fawning ... for a figure who was not just dismissed but demonized.

The New York Times

Many novels take place over the course of a single day... Fewer chart the course of a single evening, as does Zink’s narrative of one excruciating, tangled, exhilarating, humiliating night in Berlin... a voice that is cool...and possessed of a screwball comic sensibility rooted in pain.

The New York Times

In "Persuasion," Dakota Johnson smirks her way through a Netflix adaptation of the rekindled romance in Jane Austen's last novel. "There is a crisis of contemporaneity at the heart of this pretty adaptation," our critic writes. https://t.co/bHnYVjzT8o

The New York Times

The Mexican writer Enrigue recasts the fateful meeting between Hernán Cortés and the Aztecs in this hallucinatory novel, translated by Natasha Wimmer. Moctezuma is fearsome yet depressed, often tripping on magic mushrooms, while the conquistadors grow increasingly anxious.

The New York Times

Ernest Hemingway left a trove of items in a Key West bar more than 80 years ago. The items, including four unpublished short stories, drafts of manuscripts and boxes of personal effects, are now part of a new archive at Penn State. https://t.co/A3UVSzYayR https://t.co/ut0N8zbEh0

The New York Times

Two friends decide to walk the length of the Grand Canyon. What could go wrong? As this wildly entertaining book demonstrates, everything you can imagine, and then some. Fedarko takes us for a ride that’s often harrowing, frequently hilarious and full of wonderful nature writing.