Ruth Reichl retrieves memories of her own childhood as she reviews Nina Stibbe’s guide to making it through the holidays, “An Almost Perfect Christmas.”
Both Turner’s “My Story,” a sequel to 1986’s “I, Tina,” and “Anything for a Hit,” from the music scout Dorothy Carvello, expose the sleazy power dynamics of the rock ’n’ roll business.
Readers will delight in the unexpected characters in three new mysteries, from the female police cadet in Louise Penny’s new book to a crime-solving cub reporter down on his luck.
Anna Burns, who for the last four and a half years has suffered from debilitating back pain and spent much of that time relying on state benefits, talks about the future.
The actress and author of the essay collection “My Squirrel Days” never finished “The Woman in White,” by Wilkie Collins: “Why did the woman wear so much white? I couldn’t sit with it long enough to find any answers.”
A self-titled coffee-table book — subtitled “Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness” — collects the photographer’s black-and-white images to challenge global racism.
Vivien Schweitzer’s history of the genre, “A Mad Love,” and Heidi Waleson’s intricate account of the New York City Opera, “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias,” testify to an art that inspires deep passions.
“Food on the Move,” edited by Sharon Hudgins, is a collection of essays exploring the glamorous past and occasionally delectable present of dining on trains around the world.
In “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” Idle remembers the Pythons and other famous friends; in “Professor at Large,” Cleese revisits his years at Cornell.