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, fantasies, 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.
LITERARY FICTION
The Maltese Version
by Katy Simpson Smith
In this philosophical and disarmingly dishy novel, a travel writer named Leonie freaks out when her boyfriend, Max — a literary translator working on a collection of Maltese poetry — goes radio silent after departing for the Mediterranean. Even as she sends another writer to track him down, Leonie is not sure she wants to learn the truth — of what’s going on between Max and the sexy, reclusive poet he’s translating; of their future together; or of her own artistic ambitions. Read our review.
literary fiction
Dèy
by Edwidge Danticat
While shopping for a birthday present for her young daughter, Magnolia survives a mass shooting in a Florida mall — but doesn’t tell her loved ones that she was even there. Danticat connects this trauma response to the experience of Magnolia’s parents and relatives in their native Haiti, where gang violence lurks around every corner, with no help coming from the politicians who are supposed to protect them. Read our review.
history
The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
by Jill Lepore
Lepore’s latest book brings the dystopian horror of “The Matrix” to terrifying life. How did we find ourselves in a world where human beings unwittingly hand over the levers of government to tech billionaires and their bots? The Harvard historian traces the rise of the modern “artificial state,” from the 1930s technocracy movement to contemporary Silicon Valley, decrying “a future in which humans are ruled, and many replaced, by machines” at the expense of liberal democracy and the environment. Read our review.
music
Days of Miracle and Wonder
by Ashley Kahn
It may be hard to believe, but “Graceland” is turning 40 this year. It’s a welcome surprise to read this careful look at Paul Simon’s 1986 masterpiece by a music historian: By bringing both the album’s beauty and its uglier aspects into the light, Kahn, far from ruining its strange magic, lets readers appreciate its intricacies and paradoxes all the more. Read our review.
Literary fiction
Range
by Dorthe Nors; translated by Caroline Waight
Gunn Haven, an astrophysicist, has decamped to the Danish countryside to track gamma-ray bursts and investigate the origins of the universe. “This is an obliquely composed novel of advances and withdrawals and buried clues, and the reader, like the astronomer, must patiently ‘observe, note, conclude,’” our reviewer wrote. “As you watch and wait you’re sometimes rewarded with a narrative burst of fiery activity, or a subtler, more beautiful afterglow of revelation.” Read our review.
Literary fiction
The Book of Chuck
by LaToya Watkins
In Nannie’s family, clairvoyance is a terrible inheritance: Those blessed with it can tell when people are going to die. Despite this supernatural framing, our reviewer wrote, “The Book of Chuck” is no horror novel, “unless the horror is the withholding of love. Mostly, this is a slow burn of a tale about family and legacy that casts a wide emotional net, exploring how denials, secrets and repeated rejection can distort a person’s identity and development in life.” Read our review.
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