A grumpy dwarf who rebels, a scared mini-dragon, and a green creature who’s not sure what he is in new books from Adam Gidwitz, Rebecca Stead and more.
One novel follows a group of gay ballroom dancers, another traces the life of a wealthy single mother and a third tells the story of a Brooklyn artist.
“Beneath a Ruthless Sun,” by the Pulitzer winner Gilbert King, is a searing true account of corrupt law enforcement, racial violence and heroism in Jim Crow Florida.
Senator John McCain, whose new book is “The Restless Wave,” thinks all children should read “Huckleberry Finn”: “It’s funny and it’s scary, and it teaches us to see past our differences.”
In “Dancing Bears,” the Polish journalist Witold Szablowski uses the stories of liberated circus animals to illuminate various nations’ uncertain paths to democracy.
The actor David Duchovny’s third novel was inspired by a Yeats play, “The Only Jealousy of Elmer,” while Theasa Tuohy’s book was inspired by a 2010 Times obituary.
Nikolai Gogol, the 19th-century author and playwright, understood better than any artist since what “perfect nonsense goes on in the world.” Julian Lucas explains.
The transcript from El Faro’s voyage data recorder is the most detailed record of a maritime disaster ever, and with “Into the Raging Sea” Rachel Slade makes excellent use of it.