Every week, the critics and editors at the New York Times Book Review pick the most interesting and notable new releases, from literary fiction and serious nonfiction to thrillers, romance novels, mysteries and everything in between.
You can save the books you’re most excited to read on a personal reading list, and find even more recommendations from our book experts.
Pop culture
Barbieland
by Tarpley Hitt
Love her or hate her, you can’t ignore Barbie. As Mattel’s creation enjoys a new moment of cultural ascendence, Hitt examines the life and times of an American icon whose ever-shifting perception has so often mirrored that of American culture. In her review, Amanda Hess called the book a “rollicking tale of how Mattel spied, copied and stole its way to market dominance, then fought with military intensity to compel us to buy more and more.” Read our review.
Hollywood Satire
Television
by Lauren Rothery
In a shambolic magazine interview, an A-list movie star pledges to give away the millions he will earn from his upcoming blockbuster in a lottery. His best friend and occasional lover is unfazed: Over their years together, she’s witnessed all manner of erratic, eyebrow-raising behavior. Rothery’s debut novel shifts between their perspectives and that of a young female filmmaker with a keen eye for Hollywood’s hypocrisies and absurdities. Read our review.
biography
The Sea Captain’s Wife
by Tilar J. Mazzeo
Mazzeo (“The Widow Clicquot”) tells the thrilling 1856 story of a young New England couple, Joshua and Mary Ann Patten, who entered a race to sail from New York to San Francisco. Disaster soon struck: Joshua fell dangerously ill, the crew tried to mutiny and the ship ran into an 18-day gale. It was up to 19-year-old Mary Ann to safely sail the ship to port, becoming in the process the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain. Read our review.
Gothic thriller
Cape Fever
by Nadia Davids
A young Muslim maid and her white, British employer tangle in an unnamed colonial town in the 1920s. Mrs. Hattingh may be lonely and eccentric, but Soraya is grateful to work for her — until her perversion and deceit become inescapable. If you ever wondered whether a Gothic thriller had room for racial microaggressions and critiques of empire, this is the book for you. Read our review.
journals
The Complete Notebooks
by Albert Camus; translated by Ryan Bloom
“Camus’s notebooks, which run from 1935 to 1959, aren’t to be confused with diaries,” our critic Dwight Garner wrote. “They contain almost nothing about his friends or his family, his experiences during wartime or much about his personal life. … What these journals do contain are philosophical notes for the novels published during his lifetime — ‘The Stranger,’ ‘The Plague’ and ‘The Fall’ — books that are sui generis explorations not just of the absurdity of existence but of isolation, guilt, redemption and resilience.” Read our review.
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