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There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by time and location. Arthur Smyth (whose full name is "King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums") is born in ...

Beyond the Book

Cuneiform and Ashurbanipal's Library

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Bright Objects

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Gather 'round — we have some fall reading recommendations for you. Above, children listen to a story in Central Park on Oct. 23, 2017. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Here are the new books we're looking forward to this fall

September 4, 2024 • Bad news: Summer's over. Good news: Fall books are here! We've got a list of 16 titles — fiction and nonfiction — you'll want to look out for.

Anne Lamott reflects on aging. Sam Lamott/Sam Lamott hide caption

Perspective

Consider this from npr, anne lamott has some ideas on getting older in the united states.

September 12, 2024 • Getting older has been a punchline for as long as anyone can remember. And while there are plenty of jokes to be made about aging, it can also have some negative implications for how we see ourselves and others.

Hanif Abdurraqib on Wild Card with Rachel Martin Megan Barnard/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Hanif abdurraqib is a 'genius.' his friends aren't impressed.

September 12, 2024 • Hanif Abdurraqib's writing has earned him a MacArthur "genius" grant. His most recent book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension , landed a spot on Barack Obama's summer reading list. But those accolades don't matter to him as much as being a good friend and neighbor. Abdurraqib talks to Rachel about a youth spent unhoused and incarcerated, and the zen of making mixtapes.

After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk changed the company's name to X. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

What Musk's Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment

September 11, 2024 • After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk instituted sweeping changes — including rebranding the social media platform as "X." Authors Kate Conger and Ryan Mac recount the takeover in Character Limit.

The StraightForward Foundation helps Russian authors publish abroad. Here are the French and Russian edition covers of a book about the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, by Ilia Barabanov and Denis Korotkov. Edition Flammarion; Meduza.io hide caption

Russian publishers in exile release books the Kremlin would ban

September 11, 2024 • In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, writing about the war in Ukraine, the church or LGBTQ+ life could land you in jail. A new organization helps authors publish books in Russian they couldn't back home.

Crater Lake Simon and Schuster hide caption

Rachel Kushner's new espionage thriller may be her coolest book yet

September 10, 2024 • In Creation Lake, a hard-drinking American spy infiltrates a radical farming collective in a remote region of France. Kushner challenges readers to keep up with her and not to flinch.

By the time he left 10 Downing Street in 2007, Tony Blair had gone from being Britain's most popular prime minister when he entered office to a deeply divisive leader a decade later. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images hide caption

Tony Blair urges leaders to ignore 'waves of populist opinion'

September 10, 2024 • Tony Blair's On Leadership: Lessons for the 21st Century is the political leadership guide he says he would have wanted in 1997, at the start of his 10-year tenure as British prime minister.

ON LEADERSHIP - TONY BLAIR

'We're Alone,' but together, in Edwidge Danticat's remarkable essays

September 9, 2024 • With clear, concise prose that delves into harsh topics without losing its sense of humor, Danticat once again proves that she is one of contemporary literature's strongest, most graceful voices.

'Colored Television' is an ungentle satire set in post-post-racial America

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PICTURE THIS: No More Señora Mimí

Ian Frazier's Paradise BRonx Farrar, Straus and Giroux hide caption

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

The history of the bronx with writer ian frazier.

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The cover of the Yup'ik alphabet coloring book. Courtesy of Nikki Corbett hide caption

These Alaska moms couldn’t find a Yup’ik children’s book. So they made one themselves

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is sworn-in during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 21, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson shares the poem she's kept in every one of her offices

September 4, 2024 • The first Black woman appointed to the Supreme Court says Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Ladder of Saint Augustine," has been a guiding principle. Jackson's new memoir is Lovely One.

Ketanji Brown Jackson talks with All Things Considered co-host Juana Summers. Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR hide caption

Ketanji Brown Jackson chronicles her path to the Supreme Court

September 3, 2024 • When Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson entered the national spotlight, she found praise and also criticism.

Danzy Senna says her first novel, Caucasia, was met with acclaim. "But one of the things I kept hearing from publishers was: Don't do this again. Don't keep writing about mixed-ness. ... it's that idea that you're a predicament. You're not a world." Her latest novel is Colored Television. Dustin Snipes/Penguin Random House hide caption

'I want to write myself into existence,' says 'Colored Television' author

September 3, 2024 • Danzy Senna was born in 1970, just a few years after Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage. “Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time,” she says.

Algorithms are in everything from your social media use to how many companies curate your playlists. Researcher Joy Buolamwini and writer Kyle Chayka question the extent of their influence and helpfulness. Qi Yang/Getty Images hide caption

Algorithms don't just pick playlists. They're changing your life

September 3, 2024 • Humans hallucinate. Algorithms lie.

'The Dictionary Story' is a kids' book that defies definition

August 31, 2024 • Dictionary wants to bring her pages to life but then a hungry alligator chasing a donut crashes into a queen who slips on some soap and chaos ensues. Can Dictionary put herself back together again?

Grief is complicated, but author Annie Sklaver Orenstein tells Morning Edition there are simple ways to help those grieving a loss. Getty Images hide caption

Mental Health

Grieving the dead is complicated. here's how you can help someone experiencing loss.

August 31, 2024 • Annie Sklaver Orenstein, author of Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner’s Guide to Grief , tells Morning Edition that grief is complicated but there are simple things someone can do for those going through it.

Complex grief: Coping with the loss of a sibling

Lynda Barry was a 2019 recipients of MacArthur "Genius" Grant. John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation hide caption

Cartoonist Lynda Barry

August 30, 2024 • Lynda Barry is a legend of alternative comics. These days, she teaches at the University of Wisconsin. Her book What It Is , was recently re-issued on paperback. When we talked to Lynda in 2020, she'd just released Making Comics . It's sort of an illustrated guide on how to create comics. At the heart of the book is a belief Lynda has: Anybody can draw. Anyone can make comics. Yes, even you!

This is genius: A new graphic novel imagines conversations between Einstein and Kafka

August 28, 2024 • Turns out Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka lived in Prague at the same time and had the same circle of friends. In a new graphic novel, Ken Krimstein puts us in the room with two 20th century geniuses.

An illustrated portrait of the famous intellectual and writer James Baldwin. Jackie Lay hide caption

Code Switch

What james baldwin can teach us about israel, and ourselves.

August 28, 2024 • It's been more than ten months since devastating violence began unfolding in Israel and Gaza. And in the midst of all the death, so many people are trying to better understand what's going on in that region, and how the United States is implicated in it. So on this episode, we're looking back to the writing of James Baldwin, whose views on the country transformed significantly over the course of his life. His thoughts offer some ideas about how to grapple with trauma, and how to bridge the gap between places and ideas that, on their surface, might seem oceans apart.

Leonard Riggio, then chairman of Barnes & Noble, arrives at a bookstore in New York on Sept. 12, 2017. Riggio died on Tuesday. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption

Leonard Riggio, who built Barnes & Noble into a bookselling empire, dies at 83

August 27, 2024 • Leonard Riggio transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.

What Book Should You Read Next?

Finding a book you’ll love can be daunting. Let us help.

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By The New York Times Books Staff

• Published April 16, 2023 Updated Sept. 4, 2024

Fiction | Nonfiction

For more recommendations, subscribe to our Read Like the Wind newsletter, check out our romance columnist’s favorite books of the year so far or visit our What to Read page.

At The New York Times Book Review, we write about thousands of books every year. Many of them are good. Some are even great. But we get that sometimes you just want to know, “What should I read that is good or great for me ? Well, here you go — a running list of some of the year’s best, most interesting, most talked-about books.

Give me a ferocious drama about family and art

The Hypocrite , by Jo Hamya

On an August afternoon in 2020, an aging British author arrives at a London theater to watch his daughter’s latest play — only to learn it’s a thinly veiled fictionalization of an argument they had on a Sicilian holiday years earlier. This sharp and agile novel is an art monster story and a dysfunctional family saga that explores the ethics of creating work inspired by real life. (Join the discussion of the book in the Book Review Book Club .)

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