book review best sellers

‘Night Watch,’ ‘King: A Life,’ among 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners

Why we can’t manage to work for less than 40 hours a week

Brittney Griner’s ordeal riveted the nation. Now she tells her own story.

What the final trials of Nazis teach us about guilt and memory

A deep dive into one of science’s great unknowns: Extraterrestrial life

‘Hunted’ has the rush of a thriller without the unnecessary violence

In this Kafka-inspired novel, anxiety is inescapable

‘The Ministry of Time’ is part thriller, part romance and a lot of fun

Nellie Bowles thinks you should outgrow progressivism

The 10 best books of 2023

50 notable works of fiction, 50 notable works of nonfiction, the 10 best audiobooks of 2023. sample them yourself., the 10 best mystery novels of 2023.

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• ATTACHMENTS Lucas Mann

• CHAIM WEIZMANN Jehuda Reinharz, Motti Golani, Haim Watzman

• A LIGHT THROUGH THE CRACKS Beth Rodden

• THE DARKEST WATER Mark Edwards

• MISSING WHITE WOMAN Kellye Garrett

• DEATH OF AN AUTHOR E.C.R. Lorac

• THE STONES OF BURREN BAY Emily De Angelis

• THE LETTERS WE KEEP Nisha Sharma

• THE LILIES Quinn Diacon-Furtado

• SOUND THE GONG Joan He, Tida Kietsungden

• EXTINCTION Douglas Preston

• OCEAN'S GODORI Elaine U. Cho

• TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY Alexandria Bellefleur

• LOVE YOU, MEAN IT Jilly Gagnon

• ONE ALLEY SUMMER Anne Ylvisaker

• BEHIND MY DOORS Hena Khan, Nabila Adani

• DUCK GOES MEOW Juliette MacIver, Carla Martell

• THE LOCKMASTER Christoph Ransmayr, Simon Pare

• SAYING NO TO HATE Norman H. Finkelstein

• LIFE UNDER PRESSURE Anna S. Mueller, Seth Abrutyn

• SUFFERANCE Charles Palliser

• HOME IS WHERE THE BODIES ARE Jeneva Rose

• THE DEMON OF UNREST Erik Larson

• FAIR SHAKE Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, Nancy Levit

• SPIRAL Aidan Koch

• VICTORY PARADE Leela Corman

• THE WEREWOLF AT DUSK David Small, David Small

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33 books that made it to #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list this year (so far)

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• The New York Times Bestseller List shows the bestselling fiction and nonfiction books of the week.
• On top of new releases, old favorites continue to make the list, sometimes years after publication.
• We've collected some of the best fiction and nonfiction books that held the #1 spot in 2022 so far.

There are so many ways to discover a great book, but the New York Times Best Sellers list has compiled the most popular fiction, nonfiction, and children's books from vendors across the country for almost a century and has become a measure of success for writers everywhere. 

Titles that reach the coveted #1 spot are usually highly anticipated releases from beloved authors, sequels to which readers have been counting down, or juicy celebrity memoirs. But with the rise of influencer recommendations on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, books published years prior still make appearances again and again, like "It Ends With Us" , which was published in 2016 but has been a #1 New York Times Bestseller for nine weeks so far in 2022. 

The full list is posted weekly on the New York Times website , but we collected some of the best new fiction and nonfiction books to hold the #1 spot so far in 2022. 

33 books that ended up as #1 bestsellers on the New York Times Best Sellers list in 2022 so far:

Fiction and poetry, "dream town" by david baldacci.

"Dream Town" by David Baldacci, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.50

"Dream Town" is the third book in David Baldacci's "Archer" series but can be read as a standalone. As private investigator and World War II veteran Archer plans to celebrate the New Year with a friend, Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter, feels her life is in danger and hires him to investigate. When a body is found in Eleanor's home and she suddenly disappears, Archer winds through the glamor of 1950s Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Hollywood in a suspenseful and exciting series of events to find Eleanor and the murderer in this noir crime thriller. 

"Book Lovers" by Emily Henry

"Book Lovers" by Emily Henry, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.58

Nora Stephens is a literary agent who is ready to become the heroine of her own story when her sister, Libby, invites her on a trip away from the city to the little town of Sunshine Falls, North Carolina. Though Nora is expecting a month of romance novel-like meet-cutes and bookshop days, she continually runs into Charlie Lastra, a book editor from the city with whom she has a deep-seated rivalry. "Book Lovers" is one of our favorite romance reads of the summer — check out our full review here . 

"House of Sky and Breath" by Sarah J. Maas

"House of Sky and Breath" by Sarah J. Maas, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.74

The highly anticipated sequel to Sarah J. Maas' "House of Earth and Blood" hit shelves in February 2022 and quickly rose to the top of the bestseller list. Readers follow Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar on their search for normalcy after saving Crescent City, but as oppression grows around them, the duo knows they must continue to fight for what's right in this incredible fantasy novel with a deeply satisfying conclusion.

"In the Blood" by Jack Carr

"In the Blood" by Jack Carr, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.49

As former Navy SEAL James Reece watches the news from his Montana home, he sees a name he recognizes from his time in Iraq listed as a victim of a missile attack on a passenger aircraft in Burkina Faso, Africa. With ties to the intelligence services in two nations, James is sure her death is no accident and enlists old and new friends on his mission to track down her killer, unaware of the dangers that may await him. 

"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens

"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.98

Readers still can't get enough of this 2018 Reese's Book Club pick as it continues to outshine new releases for the top spot on the New York Times Best Seller list, four years after its original publication. In this historical fiction read, Kya Clark is known as the "Marsh Girl," who learns and lives from the land until a popular boy is found dead and her community immediately suspects her as the murderer.

"Nightwork" by Nora Roberts

"Nightwork" by Nora Roberts, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

"Nightwork" blends romance and suspense as Harry Booth leaves Chicago, continuing his work as a subtle thief-for-hire after his mother's death. Though his work requires him to remain unattached, he finds his resolve softening as he grows nearer to Miranda Emerson until his past catches up to him and casts a dark shadow over his life once more. 

"It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover

"It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.17

This 2016 Colleen Hoover novel continues to reach the #1 spot on the New York Times Best Seller list due to its huge popularity on BookTok . "It Ends with Us" is a fast-paced contemporary romance novel about Lily, who dives heart-first into a relationship with the almost-too-good-to-be-true neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid. When a past love and life resurface, her relationship with Ryle becomes threatened. 

"Sparring Partners" by John Grisham

"Sparring Partners" by John Grisham, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.47

Josh Grisham is a bestselling author of legal thrillers like "A Time to Kill" and "The Pelican Brief." His new collection, "Sparring Partners," consists of three novellas, one starring his beloved character Jake Brigance, another featuring a death row inmate three hours before execution, and the final story following two feuding brothers who inherited a law firm when their father went to prison. You can find more of John Grisham's best books here .

"Call Us What We Carry" by Amanda Gorman

"Call Us What We Carry" by Amanda Gorman, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.80

2021 Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman's latest collection, "Call Us What We Carry," was the first read to top the New York Times Bestseller List in 2022, praised by readers for Gorman's insightful and profound views. These poems include brilliant reflections upon history, society, and the human experience including painful memories of the COVID-19 pandemic and hopeful dedications to the future. 

"Run, Rose, Run" by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

"Run, Rose, Run" by Dolly Parton and James Patterson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.00 

Written by a beloved music legend and the bestselling author of all time, "Run Rose Run" is an entertaining and suspenseful James Patterson mystery about a young woman running both from her past and towards a promising future in the music industry. As AnnieLee Keys lands in Nashville, she still finds herself constantly looking over her shoulder as her past and secrets lurk ever nearer. 

"The Paris Apartment" by Lucy Foley

"The Paris Apartment" by Lucy Foley, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $25.98

When Jes moves into her half-brother's Parisian apartment in search of a fresh start, she's not only surprised by his apparent wealth but his sudden disappearance. As she begins to dig into his situation in an effort to find him, Jes's worry grows and her brother's peculiar and unfriendly neighbors each emerge as suspects. 

"Abandoned in Death" by J.D. Robb

"Abandoned in Death" by J.D. Robb, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.34

J.D. Robb is the pseudonym under which Nora Roberts publishes her "in Death" series, with "Abandoned in Death" as the 54th installment. In this latest mystery novel, detective Eve Dallas begins to investigate the peculiar homicide of a woman found neatly arranged on a New York City playground bench, with a fatal wound hidden beneath a ribbon on her neck and an ominous note reading "Bad Mommy." As Eve investigates a clearly troubled killer, other similar disappearances emerge and intensify the urgency of the case. 

"The Hotel Nantucket" by Elin Hilderbrand

"The Hotel Nantucket" by Elin Hilderbrand, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.99

When billionaire Xavier Darling purchases The Hotel Nantucket, he renovates and revitalizes the abandoned lodge that was once popular until a 1922 fire killed a young girl. As the hotel's new general manager, Lizbet, pulls together a passionate staff, they fight against the hotel's bad reputation, the lingering ghost, and each other to change fate and find a brighter future. 

"The Match" by Harlan Coben

"The Match" by Harlan Coben, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.37

This action-packed sequel to "The Boy from the Woods" follows Wilde as he discovers the identity of his father through a DNA genealogy website and a second match that pulls him into a secret community of online doxxers. As the story unfolds through murder, scandal, and gripping suspense, it seems a serial killer is targeting the online community — and Wilde might be poised as the next target.

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" by Tessa Bailey

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" by Tessa Bailey, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.38

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" is a swoon-worthy contemporary romance about Fox Thornton, a notorious charmer, and Hannah Bellinger, who's in town for work, staying in Fox's spare bedroom, and completely immune to his charming ways. Though Hannah initially has her eye on a coworker, she can't seem to resist slowly falling for Fox as they spend more and more time together as he tries to prove he's not interested in another temporary fling.

"The Investigator" by John Sandford

"The Investigator" by John Sandford, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.64

Letty Davenport is bored at her desk job when her boss, Senator Colles, offers her an investigative role with the Department of Homeland Security to uncover a series of reported crude oil thefts, possibly part of something much larger and more sinister. As Letty and her partner head to Texas, they soon find a far deadlier and more dangerous situation than they could have imagined.

"The Judge's List" by John Grisham

"The Judge's List" by John Grisham, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.94

"The Judge's List" is John Grisham's sequel to his 2016 thriller, "The Whistler,"  and continues Lacy Stoltz's story three years later as she uncovers a startling case — that of a Florida judge turned serial killer. As the judge stays one step ahead of the law and continues to hunt down those who have wronged him, Lacy must end his murderous crusade before she becomes the next name on his list. 

"Finding Me" by Viola Davis

"Finding Me" by Viola Davis, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.53

This honest and unforgettable memoir is Viola Davis' reflection upon her journey to self-love by facing herself and her past. From poverty and bullying to systemic racism in Hollywood, Davis recounts the challenges she faced during childhood, her rise into stardom, and those she continues to face today.  

"The Office BFFs" by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey

"The Office BFFs" by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.18

"The Office" characters Pam Beesley and Angela Martin have little in common, but the actresses that brought them to life bonded from the first days on set. "The Office BFFs" is a dual memoir of Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey's experiences as they made memories with the cast, walked their first red carpet, became moms, and created a lifelong friendship that continues to this day. 

"Happy-Go-Lucky" by David Sedaris

"Happy-Go-Lucky" by David Sedaris, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.79

"Happy-Go-Lucky" is a collection of funny personal essays about how David Sedaris' life changed during the COVID-19 lockdown and continues to change as the world adjusts to a new normal. In these essays, Sedaris captures the humor and irony of these experiences and the ultimate desire for connection that drives our society. 

"The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk

"The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.40

Written by a trauma expert with over 30 years of experience working with trauma survivors, "The Body Keeps the Score" is a psychology book about how traumatic stress "rewires" our brains. As an alternative to drugs or talk therapy, Dr. van der Kolk asserts how we can reactivate many trauma-affected areas of our brains through innovative treatments and therapies. 

"Tanqueray" by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton

"Tanqueray" by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.49

In 2019, Stephanie Johnson was featured in a "Humans of New York" story, capturing the attention of millions of readers as they learned of her rise from a brutal childhood to becoming one of the best-known burlesque dancers in New York City known as Tanqueray. Written alongside Brandon Stanton, the author of "Humans of New York," "Tanqueray" tells Stephanie Johnson's full story, including all the challenges and triumphs that led to her success and fame. 

"Bittersweet" by Susan Cain

"Bittersweet" by Susan Cain, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.48

Bittersweetness is often thought of as a moment or feeling where something good and bad intersect, but in this psychology read, Susan Cain demonstrates how embracing a "bittersweet" state of mind can help us connect to ourselves and each other. Already known for her heartfelt and enlightening writing style in her other bestseller, "Quiet,"  this nonfiction book uses bittersweetness to teach readers about our relationships with creativity, compassion, leadership, longing, and love. 

"The Storyteller" by Dave Grohl

"The Storyteller" by Dave Grohl, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.99

Dave Grohl has become internationally renowned as the drummer for Nirvana and the Foo Fighters and in this memoir, he details the incredible musical and personal experiences that made him the man he is today. Grohl's personality naturally shines through his writing and is further brought to life in his audiobook narration.

"The 1619 Project," edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein

"The 1619 Project," edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $22.80

In 1619, a cargo ship of 20-30 enslaved people from Africa arrived on the shores of Virginia, igniting a system of brutal slavery and racism that would span centuries. Originally published in The New York Times as a collection of 18 essays and 36 poems and works of fiction, "The 1619 Project" demonstrates how this often-buried history radiates through contemporary American society and offers a new origin story for the United States.

"Unthinkable" by Jamie Raskin

"Unthinkable" by Jamie Raskin, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.59

"Unthinkable" is a new memoir by Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin whose life permanently changed at the beginning of 2021 as he mourned his son's sudden and tragic passing, lived through the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, and led the impeachment efforts against President Trump for inciting violence. This read recounts these painful events by intertwining personal and professional narratives into a single vivid memoir.

"James Patterson" by James Patterson

"James Patterson" by James Patterson, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.50

James Patterson is one of the world's most successful writers and his memoir is a collection of interesting and remarkable stories from his life. Written with a comfortable and casual tone, Patterson explains how he developed a love of reading as an adult, met famous musicians and actors before he made a name of his own, and even wrote the famous "Toys 'R Us" jingle while working in advertising. You can find some of James Patterson's best books here .

"Enough Already" by Valerie Bertinelli

"Enough Already" by Valerie Bertinelli, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.29

Valerie Bertinelli is an award-winning actress whose new memoir uses personal and relatable stories to offer readers advice on how to achieve a healthier and happier outlook on life. Bertinelli shares her struggles with harsh personal criticism and the journey on which she embarked to transcend our need for perfectionism and reach, instead, for joy. 

"From Strength to Strength" by Arthur C. Brooks

"From Strength to Strength" by Arthur C. Brooks, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.99

This self-help read identifies how many people, including the author himself, struggle to find purpose and success as they age, often feeling as though they may be "declining" as a sense of professional or social irrelevance emerges with age. In "From Strength to Strength," Arthur C. Brooks demonstrates how readers can refocus their priorities and habits in order to make their older years equally full of happiness, purpose, and success.

"One Damn Thing After Another" by William P. Barr

"One Damn Thing After Another" by William P. Barr, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $21.91

William P. Barr was the attorney general during two different presidential administrations — President George H.W. Bush and President Donald Trump. This memoir traverses the most memorable and affecting events Barr faced in his years as attorney general while comparing the vast similarities and differences between the Bush and Trump presidential legacies. 

"Freezing Order" by Bill Browder

"Freezing Order" by Bill Browder, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.80

After Bill Browder's lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder set out to uncover why Magnitsky was killed and bring the killers to justice. In his investigation, Browder followed a trail beyond a tax refund scheme, through Russian government involvement, and to the corruption that runs far deeper than he could have imagined. 

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ELLE Editors Share the New Books They Loved Best In 2023

Hand-picked favorites for your holiday reading ahead.

One of the great joys of working for a publication like ELLE is that, despite our obvious united focus on women’s issues and high fashion, the editors all have wildly different entertainment tastes. That extends to our reading habits: Over time, I’ve learned which of us keeps up with the best in YA romance, and who would prefer to chew through as many murder mysteries as the Big Five can print. I might personally favor literary fiction, fantasy , and essay collections, but I know exactly whose desk to target when the latest celebrity memoir lands. When December hits, it’s always a pleasure (and a surprise) to poll the team for their favorite new books of the year . Which bestsellers resonated most, and which lesser-known gems deserve more love? Ahead, a group of editors from across sections—culture, fashion, beauty, and more—discuss their favorite reads published in 2023. Don’t forget to pack a few for wherever you’re headed this holiday season. — Lauren Puckett-Pope , staff culture writer

The Guest by Emma Cline

“Reading Emma Cline’s latest book, set in the Hamptons, in the actual Hamptons might have colored my POV, but my enthusiasm for The Guest remains unmatched regardless. The chaotic narrative of a sex worker-turned-grifter as a fish out of water in the toniest part of Long Island will have you anxiously awaiting each secondhand-embarrassing encounter until the very last page—and leave you questioning the ending, too.”— Claire Stern , digital director

Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

“ Chain Gang All-Stars might have the most exhilarating opening chapter of a book I’ve ever read. Right from the jump, Adjei-Brenyah pulls you into a gritty, gory world where prisoners fight one another to the death to earn their freedom—and people love it. Here, in this not-so-distant future, these gladiator-like matches are televised and widely popular; the public worships the fighters like celebrities, and corporations profit off of them. He writes with such vigor, you’re transported right into the arena; but you also see the parallels to our own issues with mass incarceration, classism, and capitalism.”— Erica Gonzales , senior culture editor

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

“I only have notifications on Instagram for one person: Britney Spears. So when her book came out, I was excited to read and hear her story, in her words. Her story is heartbreaking, and you easily get engrossed—I read it in two days. However, I did think that it could have also delved more into her rise to fame in the early aughts to truly set the foundation and illustrate how invasive and unfair the media was to her. The book feels like it focused more on her conservatorship and relationships. Nevertheless, it’s still an engrossing read. #TeamBritney.”— Danielle James , digital beauty director

Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst

“Inspired by events from Tembe Denton-Hurst’s own life, her debut novel, Homebodies, follows Mickey Hayward, a twenty-something journalist who unexpectedly gets laid off from her media job. The prose was so engaging, and I found myself really rooting for Mickey (a Sagittarius sun with a Virgo moon, according to Denton-Hurst) when she decided to return home to Maryland to figure out her next move.”— Juliana Ukiomogbe , assistant editor

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

“I stayed up three hours over my bedtime to read this book. While the rest of the family watched Top Gun: Maverick during Thanksgiving, I secretly read this on my Kindle for two more hours (even during the shirtless volleyball scene). I love an underdog female character, and this story takes the high stakes of The Hunger Games , combined with dragons and some steamy love scenes. It’s completely addicting, and I can’t wait until my hold on the second book is up.”— Kathleen Hou , beauty director

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer

“Claire Dederer takes that all too cumbersome topic—the artists we love, the evil they do—and, miraculously, makes it elegant. Her essays assessing the monstrous behavior and artistic accomplishments of ‘geniuses’ including Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Picasso are emotional but measured, allowing for great nuance but never failing to condemn bad behavior. I find myself thinking about Monsters all the time, and I can’t wait to comb through it again for further insight.”— Lauren Puckett-Pope , staff culture writer

If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch

“It’s Groundhog Day meets Heartstopper in this speculative YA romance. When Clark wakes up on the same 310th Monday, something is different this time: There’s a new character in his plot, Beau. Are Beau and Clark meant to be? Is Beau the key to getting out of this time warp? Will Clark get trapped in this timeline forever? All will be revealed in a grand journey around Chicago in author Robbie Crouch’s third novel. Trust me, this one will make the hopeless romantic in your life sing (and also might just make you book a trip to the Windy City).”— Samuel Maude , assistant to the editor-in-chief

Down the Drain by Julia Fox

“ Julia Fox ’s masterpiece, Down the Drain , was everything I hoped it would be. The memoir has all the juicy details about her life thus far—from her highly-publicized relationship with a man she calls ‘The Artist’ to her brief stint as a dominatrix. Every single chapter had me on the edge of my seat.”— JU

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

“When the book world’s Next Big Thing, Asian American author Athena Liu, suddenly dies, her white acquaintance and fellow writer June Hayward steals her manuscript and publishes it as her own, under an ethnically ambiguous pseudonym. That’s just a taste of how far she’ll go to succeed. R.F. Kuang’s brutal satire of the publishing world is also a nuanced exploration of identity, ownership, and race. It had me both infuriated and in awe, not only of June’s audacity but also the real-life systems set in place to protect people like her. Yellowface will make you cringe, but it will also leave you amazed.”— EG

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

“Bret Easton Ellis is a master stylist, honing in time and time again on the most mysterious and alluring city in America, Los Angeles. The book is slightly gay, definitely murderous, and includes zigzag directions around the Valley and Mulholland Drive, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was by far the most absorbing read of the year for me, and the 600-plus pages zoomed by. It’s also being optioned for a limited series by HBO , and my fingers and toes are crossed that Jacob Elordi’s name is on the shortlist to star.”— Kevin LeBlanc , fashion associate

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

“I’ve never gone wrong picking up a book by National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward , so I immediately added her 2023 release, Let Us Descend , to my To Be Read list for the upcoming year. The historical fiction novel follows the story of Annis, a Black woman enslaved before the Civil War, and involves spirits in the way I’ve come to expect from Ward after reading (and loving) her 2017 novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing .”— Madison Feller , digital deputy editor

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

“In Big Swiss , Jen Beagin introduces us to Greta, a transcriptionist for a sex therapist in Hudson, New York, who becomes enthralled by the voice of a patient. The plot has everything I love: revenge, dogs, and small-town eccentricities. Best of all, you can already look forward to a screen adaption: HBO is developing a series based on the book starring Jodie Comer.”— Rose Minutaglio , senior editor

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

“I couldn’t have read through Disha Bose’s (debut!) novel any faster if I tried. I love a good thriller, and Dirty Laundry was filled with all the twists and turns one could ever need against the backdrop of a seemingly perfect life in suburbia.”— Carine Lavache , senior social media editor

The Spare Room

“Andrea Bartz is a master of suspense. From the very first page of her latest thriller, I was hooked, desperate to find out what would happen when Kelly and her cat, Virgo, move in with a hot couple in a gorgeous suburban mansion during the pandemic lockdown. At first, it seems Kelly has lucked into a dream life, but with time she discovers she isn’t the first woman the couple has welcomed into the marriage…and their last partner is missing. I flew through The Spare Room ’s short chapters (my favorite kind), propelled not only by the gripping, well-plotted storyline but by the steamy will-they, won’t-they sexual tension and several surprising twists.” — Kayla Webley Adler , deputy editor

Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim

“Elizabeth Lim’s specialty is fairytales with an East Asian focus, pairing good against evil but not shying away from darker, complicated characters or a non-obvious female hero. Her Radiant Curse is an origin story with complex world-building, and I savored the richness of the writing from beginning to end.”— KH

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The Best Books of 2024 (So Far)

This list is updated monthly with new “best of the year” worthy titles.

The year may still be young, but 2024 has already brought a treasure trove of surprising new books. Multiple celebrated first-time authors have returned with highly anticipated, ambitious follow-up novels . Memoir and reportage are skillfully blended together for a collection of essays on the climate crises. A former Village Voice journalist delivers a vibrant oral history of the beloved alternative weekly. And we’d be remiss not to mention a brilliant debut novel that deftly brings humanity and humor to existential dread. Here are the titles that we already can’t stop thinking about.

Titles are listed by U.S. release date.

Headshot , by Rita Bullwinkel

In a shabby gym in Reno, Nevada, teenage girls face off in a youth boxing tournament under a shifting ray of daylight that “fills the whole space with a dull, dusty brightness” and surrounded by a sparse crowd of mostly uninterested coaches and parents. The novel enters deep into the girls’ minds as they assess one another’s weaknesses and coax themselves through the rounds, which are described in brutal, bloody detail. Each fighter has her own source of competitive energy, but they’re all realistically ambivalent, too — unsure about why, exactly, they’re drawn to a sport that gives them so little for their trouble. Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel is as tense and disciplined as its characters, and she has a gift for capturing the way their minds wander far from the ring and back again: One girl counts off the digits of pi, while another obsesses over a death she witnessed as a lifeguard. There’s a mesmerizing sense of limitlessness to the narrative, which roams far into the future of these fighters even as they’re absorbing hits in the ring. — Emma Alpern

Lessons for Survival , by Emily Raboteau

Raboteau emerged on the scene some two decades ago as a writer of sharp, incisive fiction that mapped the contours of identity and race. In recent years, she has become a literary voice of consciousness about the ongoing climate crisis. Across a series of essays, book reviews, and conversations, Raboteau has charted the progression of the crisis, our shared culpability, and our responsibility to develop practical solutions. Lessons for Survival is, in many ways, a culmination and continuation of this work. Raboteau travels locally and abroad to capture stories about the impact of the environmental crisis, and the resilience of communities that find themselves on the front lines. She also writes authentically — her prose seamlessly melds slang and heightened language — about her own experiences as a Black mother, whose identity has shaped her understanding of these issues. This is scintillating work, an essential primer for our times. — Tope Folarin

The grand irony of this juncture in history is that at the very moment when the problems we’re facing — climate change, economic inequality, cross-border violence — require global solutions, our societies have become more atomized than ever. This is the case both within various societies, in which individual concerns increasingly trump collective interests, and between societies, whereby individual countries pursue their objectives at the expense of global cooperation. In their new book, Solidarity: The Past, Present and Future of a World-Changing Idea , Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor offer an essential antidote: a renewed commitment to solidarity. Their book is ambitious and comprehensive. It traces the evolving meaning of solidarity from ancient Rome through the Black Lives Matter movement and identifies different kinds of solidarity, how they arise, and how effective they are in forming and maintaining social bonds. They persuasively argue that in order to create a more “egalitarian world,” we must learn to cultivate and practice the kind of solidarity that “chang[es] the social order toward one that is both freer and more just.” — T.F.

Help Wanted , by Adelle Waldman

Set at a big-box store in upstate New York, Help Wanted recalls Mike White’s Enlightene d in its textured portrayal of how small humiliations and injustices at work inevitably boil over into righteous rage. It’s a novel that lingers in the imagination, by which I mean, after you read it you’ll think of it every time you shop at Target, forever. — Emily Gould

➽ Read Emily Gould’s interview with Help Wanted author Adelle Waldman on The Cut .

Stranger , by Emily Hunt

Emily Hunt’s second book of poems considers real intimacy mediated by apps. In “Company,” a long poem originally published as a chapbook, the speaker works for a flower delivery startup, gently pulling roots from soil, culling, clipping, and handing off arrangements. These moments are sensorily rich, slotted into 15-minute assembly-line shifts, and short lines. In “Emily,” Hunt uses messages from Tinder as her source material, not to mock (or not only to mock) the senders or the stilted situation of meeting online, but to construct a self in relief, as seen and spoken to by strangers. A funny and surprising interaction with dailiness, including our phones — the hardware and the relationships maintained through them — and whatever else is still tactile. — Maddie Crum

Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm, by Emmeline Clein

Emmeline Clein’s Dead Weight seems destined to fundamentally reshape how we think and write about the subject of eating disorders. What separates Clein’s book from others on the topic is her commitment to treating the sufferers of eating disorders with the kind of dignity that clinicians tend to withhold. She writes as an insider, telling both her personal story and sharing the stories of her “sisters,” which range from Tumblr accounts to clinical studies co-authored by their subjects. Throughout, she refrains from including the graphic details that have historically plagued books about the subject. “Too many people I love have misread a memoir as a manual,” she writes. The book she writes instead confronts the complicated entanglement between eating disorders, race, capitalism, and the ongoing erosion of social safety nets. Stereotypes about eating disorders commonly portray the illness as one rooted in control. Dead Weight not only exposes how little control patients have had over their own narratives and bodies, it returns the narrative to those who have suffered from the disease. This is a moving, brilliant, and important book. — Isle McElroy

The Freaks Came Out to Write , by Tricia Romano

If you were reading The Village Voice in the 1990s, as I was, it wasn’t as good as it used to be. That was also true ten years later, and 20 years before, and frankly it was probably what people started saying upon reading issue No. 2 in 1955. What the Voice was, inarguably, was shaggy, sometimes under-edited, alternately vigorous and undisciplined and brilliant and exhausting and fun. The infighting in its pages and in its newsroom was relentless, amped up by the very aggressiveness that made its reporters and editors able to do what they did. You’ll encounter more than one office fistfight in The Freaks Came Out to Write , this oral history by Tricia Romano, who worked there at the very end of its life. She got a huge number of Voice survivors to talk, including almost every living person who played a major role in this beloved, irritating paper’s life, and good archival interviews fill in the gaps. If you read the Voice in its glory days (whenever those were!) you’ll miss it terribly by the end of this book; if you weren’t there, you will be amazed that such a thing not only existed but, for a while, flourished. — Christopher Bonanos

Wandering Stars , by Tommy Orange

Orange’s Pulitzer-finalist debut, 2018’s There There , is a tightly constructed, polyphonic book that ends with a gunshot at a powwow. His follow-up, which shares the first one’s perspective-hopping structure (and several of its characters), is a different beast, an introspective novel about addiction and adolescence. The story begins in the 1860s, when a young Cheyenne man becomes an early subject in the U.S. government’s attempts to assimilate Native Americans. The consequences of this flurry of violence and imprisonment will reverberate through generations of his family, eventually landing in present-day Oakland, California, where three young brothers live with their grandmother and her sister. The oldest brother, Orvil, was shot at There There ’s powwow, and even though he survived, the heaviness of that day is weighing on him and his family. Prescribed opioids for the pain, he finds that — like several of his ancestors, though he has no way of knowing that — he likes the sense of removal they give him. Orange’s novel is unusually curious and gentle in its treatment of addiction; he lets his characters puzzle out why they’re drawn to intoxication, managing to balance a lack of judgment with an understanding of the danger they’re in. — E.A.

➽ Read Emma Alpern’s full review of Wandering Stars .

Come and Get It , by Kiley Reid

In Come and Get It , the second novel from the breakout author of Such a Fun Age , the University of Arkansas serves as the backdrop for Kylie Reid’s assessment of race, class, and social hierarchy on a college campus. Over the course of a semester that shifts between the perspectives of Millie, a meek yet dutiful R.A., Kennedy, a shy transfer student with a traumatic secret, and Agatha, a visiting professor out of her depths, the primary characters are forced to grapple with the heady concepts of desire, privilege, and the rules of social conduct in an environment where the the game is rigged and fairness is reserved for a select few. Light on plot and heavy on character development and social commentary, Come and Get It is the kind of book you put down and immediately want to discuss . But fair warning: If you ever lived in a college dorm in the U.S., this book might inflict a non-negligible amount of PTSD. — Anusha Praturu

Martyr! , by Kaveh Akbar

In Poet Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, Cyrus Shams is a nexus of dissonant identities: He’s a 20-something Iranian-American, a straight-passing queer, a recovering addict, a depressive insomniac, and a writer who’s recently gotten some unflattering feedback. He’s also grieving his parents, who he considers to have died meaninglessly, his mother on a passenger flight out of Tehran that was accidentally shot down by the U.S. military (a real event that occurred in 1988), his father “anonymous[ly] after spending decades cleaning chicken shit on some corporate farm.” Martyr! traces Cyrus’s obsession with the idea of dying with a purpose, disrupting linear time and moving miraculously between worlds and perspectives. Sometimes, the dead speak for themselves; we hear from Cyrus’s mother and his uncle, who recounts his life as a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war. The book also shines with humor, including an imagined conversation between Cyrus’s mother and Lisa Simpson. Akbar’s prose courses with lyrical intelligence and offers an interrogation of whose pain matters — and what it means to live and die meaningfully — that is as politically urgent as it is deeply alive. — Jasmine Vojdani

The Rebel’s Clinic , by Adam Shatz

In these chaotic times, Franz Fanon’s work is constantly and enthusiastically referenced. A new generation of activists — as many before them — has repurposed Fanon’s words to describe our current travails, and to propose how we might move forward. Fanon persists in the activist imagination as a kind of radical soothsayer, an intellectual who can speak authoritatively about our moment because of his identity as a Black man and colonial subject who personally experienced the barbarity of a colonizing power. In The Rebel’s Clinic , Adam Shatz complicates our understanding of Fanon’s life and work, and persuasively conjures the human being who wrote the words that have inspired so many. Among Shatz’s most important interventions is to highlight Fanon’s vocation as a doctor who “treated the torturers by day and the tortured at night.” Shatz’s book is a chronicle of a man who, because of his identity and gifts, was obliged to constantly reconcile opposing ideas and ways of being. — T.F.

• best of 2024
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• the freaks came out to write

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Book Review: Novelist Amy Tan shares love of the natural world in ‘The Backyard Bird Chronicles’

This combination of cover images shows “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” by Amy Tan, left, and “The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness” by Kenn Kaufman. (Knopf via AP, left, and Avid Reader Press via AP)

This cover image released by Avid Reader Press shows “The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness” by Kenn Kaufman. (Avid Reader via AP)

This cover image released by Knopf shows “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” by Amy Tan. (Knopf via AP)

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Birdwatching has become a cherished pastime for many since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people stuck at home for months looked out their windows for entertainment and immersed themselves into the natural world, many of them for the first time.

Best-selling novelist Amy Tan of “The Joy Luck Club” fame is among about 45 million Americans the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has estimated are birders, with many investing seriously in their passion by purchasing birdseed and bird watching accessories.

Now, with entries from her nature journal and astonishing illustrations thanks to lessons in bird illustration, Tan has published “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” about an obsession that dates back to before the pandemic.

Tan’s book is the latest to grab onto the popularity of birdwatching.

It joins “Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World,” last year’s memoir by Christian Cooper , who famously clashed with a white woman walking her dog in New York’s Central Park. The confrontation came on May 25, 2020, the same day George Floyd was killed after a knee on his neck by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Coming out on May 7 is another book sure to delight amateur naturalists: “The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness” by Kenn Kaufman.

Kaufman, an avid birder since he was a boy, has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including his own Kaufman Field Guides.

In his latest, he tells of the vicious competition among naturalists and John James Audubon, who is known for his efforts in the 1800s to describe and illustrate all the birds he could find.

But amid the rivalries, fraud and plagiarism, “The Birds in America,” Audubon’s seminal collection of 435 life-size prints, missed many winged creatures that were not discovered for years, including some common songbirds, hawks and sandpipers.

Tan could only identify three bird species when she first embraced birdwatching as a pastime.

The number of species she could identify steadily grew to 63 as she lured more birds to the area behind her home with a view of San Francisco Bay, dangling seed and nectar feeders from a stand and planting her rooftop garden with succulents sporting white, yellow and pink blossoms.

Her winged visitors amid the fragrant Meyer lemon trees and lavender bushes have included an American robin, mourning doves, dark-eyed Juncos, a purple finch and orange crowned sparrows.

“I’ve been spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing,” she notes at one point. “How can I not? Just outside my office, four fledgling scrub jays are learning survival skills.”

“We’ve been shut down by COVID-19, required to stay home,” she wrote on March 19, 2020. “Almost everything seems like a potential transmitter of disease and death — the groceries, a door knob, another person. But not the birds. The birds are a balm.”

Like a loving mother, Tan watches in delight as fledglings learn how to get get food from her patio cage feeders, She worries whether they’ll be affected by smoke from fires in California’s north.

Tan eventually becomes controlled by birds, feeding them 700-800 squirmy beetle larvae a day at a cost of some $250 a month. She leaves alpaca yarn outside so an Oak Titmouse can line her nest with the soft fuzz. Tan hopes that the mealworms, tiny balls of suet and sunflower chips she leaves on the patio will ensure more fledglings reach adulthood.

As time passes, Tan becomes intentionally curious in nature, fascinated as a pair of Great Horned Owls take up residence in her backyard, depleting the rat population as they regurgitate pellets comprised of bits of indigestible bone and fur.

She learns to stay motionless for long periods, even in the cold, to silently observe.

“One must suffer for beauty, happily, for birds,” she writes.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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TV tonight: the adaptation of bestselling book The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Jonah Hauer-King , Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey star in the chilling drama. Plus, Taskmaster on top form. Here’s what to watch this evening

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

9pm, sky atlantic.

The remarkable true story of Lali Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who was ordered to tattoo prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Gita Furman, the fellow inmate who he fell in love with in the camp and married after they both survived, inspired Heather Morris’s bestselling 2018 novel. This devastating six-part adaptation doesn’t shy away from the horrors – Lali being told he is one of the few Jewish people to walk out of a gas chamber is just one horribly chilling scene. Jonah Hauer-King is young Lali and Anna Próchniak is Gita, while Harvey Keitel is older Lali and Melanie Lynskey is Heather – who we see conduct the interviews that made the book happen. Hollie Richardson

The Other War

9pm, bbc three.

Reporter Isobel Yeung and her team are on the ground in the occupied West Bank, as they navigate gun battles, combat raids and secret meetings while the conflict continues to cause devastation. What they find, they say, “raises serious questions about the conduct of the Israeli military” and they uncover “a dangerous situation that is on the brink of exploding”. HR

Murder, They Hope

9pm, bbc two.

Am-dram Shakespeare is the backdrop to Gemma and Terry’s latest crime-fighting adventure. The town’s bakery is sponsoring a production of Romeo and Juliet – but someone is poisoning their food and soon people are dropping like flies. As ever, Sian Gibson and Johnny Vegas are affable leads, just about sustaining a flimsy premise. Phil Harrison

Instagram’s Worst Con Artist

The ultimate proof that you should never believe what you’re fed on social media – the Instagram influencer Belle Gibson gained money and fame by claiming she had cured her terminal cancer through wellness and healthy eating. In this second part of the juicy documentary investigating what happened, it picks up with Gibson deleting her posts as journalists circled, plus a disastrous TV interview. HR

9pm, Channel 4

Sophie Willan has found many things challenging in this series, but this week she outdoes herself by struggling to achieve mastery over a bottle of water. To be fair to her, Nick Mohammed faces similar difficulties. Elsewhere, there’s an eloquent message of peace from Steve Pemberton . As ever, a gloriously effortless hour of entertainment. PH

Joe & Katherine’s Bargain Holidays

10pm, channel 4.

Despite their drastically different approaches, these travel companion comedians haven’t fallen out yet. This week they’re in the Bulgarian resort of Sozopol, where it’s possible to beach-holiday at bargain prices. That’s according to penny-pinching Joe, anyway. Whether the local spa facilities and windmill-based restaurants will pass muster with Katherine remains to be seen. Ellen E Jones

Film choices

The Idea of You (Michael Showalter, 2024), Prime Video In this slick romantic drama from the director of The Big Sick, the always effervescent Anne Hathaway plays LA art gallery owner and divorcee Solène. When she takes her teenage daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) to Coachella she has a meet-cute with the English boyband star Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine). Despite the 16-year age gap they fall in love, but the level of his fame – and the social media fallout – causes difficulties for their relationship. With big Notting Hill vibes (minus the comedy), the film aims skilfully for the swooning heart of its target audience. Simon Wardell

The History Boys (Nicholas Hytner, 2006), 10pm, BBC Four

In 2006, Alan Bennett’s Tony-laden play was turned into a terrific film by Nicholas Hytner (an interview between the two follows this screening). Suffused with Bennett’s brand of ambivalent nostalgia, it follows eight sixth-form students at a Sheffield grammar school (played by the likes of Dominic Cooper, James Corden and Russell Tovey) as they are tutored for the entrance exams for Oxbridge, with teacher Hector (a moving Richard Griffiths) the prime mover in trying to expand their teenage minds. SW

Uefa Europa Conference League: Aston Villa v Olympiacos 7pm, TNT Sports 1. The semi-final first-leg match.

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The 10 Best Books of 2020

The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.

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A Children’s Bible

By lydia millet.

In Millet’s latest novel, a bevy of kids and their middle-aged parents convene for the summer at a country house in America’s Northeast. While the grown-ups indulge (pills, benders, bed-hopping), the kids, disaffected teenagers and their parentally neglected younger siblings, look on with mounting disgust. But what begins as generational comedy soon takes a darker turn, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. The ensuing chaos is underscored by scenes and symbols repurposed from the Bible — a man on a blowup raft among the reeds, animals rescued from a deluge into the back of a van, a baby born in a manger. With an unfailingly light touch, Millet delivers a wry fable about climate change, imbuing foundational myths with new meaning and, finally, hope.

Fiction | W.W. Norton & Company. $25.95. | Read the review | Listen: Lydia Millet on the podcast

Deacon King Kong

By james mcbride.

A mystery story, a crime novel, an urban farce, a sociological portrait of late-1960s Brooklyn: McBride’s novel contains multitudes. At its rollicking heart is Deacon Cuffy Lambkin, a.k.a. Sportcoat, veteran resident of the Causeway Housing Projects, widower, churchgoer, odd-jobber, home brew-tippler and, now, after inexplicably shooting an ear clean off a local drug dealer, a wanted man. The elastic plot expands to encompass rival drug crews, an Italian smuggler, buried treasure, church sisters and Sportcoat’s long-dead wife, still nagging from beyond the grave. McBride, the author of the National Book Award-winning novel “The Good Lord Bird” and the memoir “The Color of Water,” among other books, conducts his antic symphony with deep feeling, never losing sight of the suffering and inequity within the merriment.

Fiction | Riverhead Books. $28. | Read the review | Listen: James McBride on the podcast

By Maggie O’Farrell

A bold feat of imagination and empathy, this novel gives flesh and feeling to a historical mystery: how the death of Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596, may have shaped his play “Hamlet,” written a few years later. O’Farrell, an Irish-born novelist, conjures with sensual vividness the world of the playwright’s hometown: the tang of new leather in his cantankerous father’s glove shop; the scent of apples in the storage shed where he first kisses Agnes, the farmer’s daughter and gifted healer who becomes his wife; and, not least, the devastation that befalls her when she cannot save her son from the plague. The novel is a portrait of unspeakable grief wreathed in great beauty.

Fiction | Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95. | Read the review

Homeland Elegies

By ayad akhtar.

At once personal and political, Akhtar’s second novel can read like a collection of pitch-perfect essays that give shape to a prismatic identity. We begin with Walt Whitman, with a soaring overture to America and a dream of national belonging — which the narrator methodically dismantles in the virtuosic chapters that follow. The lure and ruin of capital, the wounds of 9/11, the bitter pill of cultural rejection: Akhtar pulls no punches critiquing the country’s most dominant narratives. He returns frequently to the subject of his father, a Pakistani immigrant and onetime doctor to Donald Trump, seeking in his life the answer to a burning question: What, after all, does it take to be an American?

Fiction | Little, Brown & Company. $28. | Read the review | Listen: Ayad Akhtar on the podcast

The Vanishing Half

By brit bennett.

Beneath the polished surface and enthralling plotlines of Bennett’s second novel, after her much admired “The Mothers,” lies a provocative meditation on the possibilities and limits of self-definition. Alternating sections recount the separate fates of Stella and Desiree, twin sisters from a Black Louisiana town during Jim Crow, whose residents pride themselves on their light skin. When Stella decides to pass for white, the sisters’ lives diverge, only to intersect unexpectedly, years later. Bennett has constructed her novel with great care, populating it with characters, including a trans man and an actress, who invite us to consider how identity is both chosen and imposed, and the degree to which “passing” may describe a phenomenon more common than we think.

Fiction | Riverhead Books. $27. | Read the review | Read our profile

[ See all of our 10 Best Book lists . ]

Hidden Valley Road

By robert kolker.

Don and Mimi Galvin had the first of their 12 children in 1945. Intelligence and good looks ran in the family, but so, it turns out, did mental illness: By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin sons had developed schizophrenia. “For a family, schizophrenia is, primarily, a felt experience, as if the foundation of the family is permanently tilted,” Kolker writes. His is a feat of narrative journalism but also a study in empathy; he unspools the stories of the Galvin siblings with enormous compassion while tracing the scientific advances in treating the illness.

Nonfiction | Doubleday. $29.95. | Read the review | Listen: Robert Kolker on the podcast

A Promised Land

By barack obama.

Presidential memoirs are meant to inform, to burnish reputations and, to a certain extent, to shape the course of history, and Obama’s is no exception. What sets it apart from his predecessors’ books is the remarkable degree of introspection. He invites the reader inside his head as he ponders life-or-death issues of national security, examining every detail of his decision-making; he describes what it’s like to endure the bruising legislative process and lays out his thinking on health care reform and the economic crisis. An easy, elegant writer, he studs his narrative with affectionate family anecdotes and thumbnail sketches of world leaders and colleagues. “A Promised Land” is the first of two volumes — it ends in 2011 — and it is as contemplative and measured as the former president himself.

Nonfiction | Crown. $45. | Read the review

Shakespeare in a Divided America

By james shapiro.

In his latest book, the author of “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” and “1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare” has outdone himself. He takes two huge cultural hyper-objects — Shakespeare and America — and dissects the effects of their collision. Each chapter centers on a year with a different thematic focus. The first chapter, “1833: Miscegenation,” revolves around John Quincy Adams and his obsessive hatred of Desdemona. The last chapter, “2017: Left | Right,” where Shapiro truly soars, analyzes the notorious Central Park production of “Julius Caesar.” By this point it is clear that the real subject of the book is not Shakespeare plays, but us, the U.S.

Nonfiction | Penguin Press. $27. | Read the review

Uncanny Valley

By anna wiener.

Wiener’s stylish memoir is an uncommonly literary chronicle of tech-world disillusionment. Soured on her job as an underpaid assistant at a literary agency in New York, Wiener, then in her mid-20s, heads west, heeding the siren call of Bay Area start-ups aglow with optimism, vitality and cash. A series of unglamorous jobs — in various customer support positions — follow. But Wiener’s unobtrusive perch turns out to be a boon, providing an unparalleled vantage point from which to scrutinize her field. The result is a scrupulously observed and quietly damning exposé of the yawning gap between an industry’s public idealism and its internal iniquities.

Nonfiction | MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27. | Read the review | Listen: Anna Wiener on the podcast

By Margaret MacMillan

This is a short book but a rich one with a profound theme. MacMillan argues that war — fighting and killing — is so intimately bound up with what it means to be human that viewing it as an aberration misses the point. War has led to many of civilization’s great disasters but also to many of civilization’s greatest achievements. It’s all around us, influencing everything we see and do; it’s in our bones. MacMillan writes with impressive ease. Practically every page of her book is interesting and, despite the grimness of its argument, even entertaining.

Nonfiction | Random House. $30. | Read the review

[ Want more? Check out our list of 100 notable books of 2020 . ]

Illustration by Luis Mazon. Produced by Lauryn Stallings.

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