Nonfiction: A Dumping Ground for the Poor, the Criminal and the Mad
In “Damnation Island,” Stacy Horn traces the appalling history of the East River institutions where 19th-century New York exiled its undesirables.
Bookshelf: ‘Central Park Love Song’
Reading Stephen Wolf‘s combined guidebook and autobiography of his time spent in Manhattan’s largest green space is the next best thing to being there.
By the Book: Ottessa Moshfegh: By the Book
Ottessa Moshfegh, author most recently of the novel “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” would invite Edith Wharton, Ralph Ellison and Charles Bukowski to dinner: “I’d ... want to know what it’s like to be dead, and whether writing great books has earned them any merit in the afterlife.”
Nonfiction: Christie Watson Is a Lovely Writer — and, Judging From This Book, a Gifted Nurse
In the memoir “The Language of Kindness,” Watson — better known as a novelist — looks back at her two decades as a nurse at an urban British hospital.
Nonfiction: Writing as Drag: Alexander Chee’s Essays Consider the Novelist’s Craft
In “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel,” a new essay collection, the author of “The Queen of the Night” argues that writing fiction involves allowing yourself to become someone else.
Fiction: Fleeing a Caribbean Plantation Into a Mythic Wilderness
Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel “Slave Old Man” is a kind of action pastoral, tracing a desperate escape from a savage master and his monstrous mastiff.
Books of The Times: What the Living Can Learn by Looking Death Straight in the Eye
In “Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them),” Sallie Tisdale writes about what she’s learned from spending time with the dying.
Nonfiction: Are More and More People Working Meaningless Jobs?
In “Bull__ Jobs,” the anthropologist David Graeber argues that technological advances have led to people working more, not fewer, hours at useless jobs.
New & Noteworthy
A selection of books published this week; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading.
Nonfiction: Gerald Ford, President Nice Guy
Donald Rumsfeld’s “When the Center Held” is a sympathetic portrait of the man who pardoned Richard Nixon.
Nonfiction: Deep Below Rockefeller Center Lies a Legendary Botanical Garden
In “American Eden,” Victoria Johnson unearths the story of David Hosack, doctor and friend to both Hamilton and Burr, who gave botany a place in early America.
The Shortlist: How Elastic Is Your Brain?
Three new books try to complicate our understanding of the brain — what it does, biologically, and how capable it is of changing.
Front Burner: A Glimpse Into Parisian Dining Life
“Paris à Table” is a new translation of an 1846 book by the journalist Eugène Briffault.
Newsbook: 3 Books Explain Why the Supreme Court’s Stance on Gerrymandering Matters
It’s an issue of race, power and politics.
Fiction: Surviving AIDS, but at What Cost?
Rebecca Makkai’s novel “The Great Believers” ricochets between an era when AIDS was a death sentence and the present, when its shadow still looms.
Nonfiction: Must Science Conflict With Spirituality?
The astrophysicist and novelist Alan Lightman doesn’t think so. And his new book, “Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine,” explains why.
The Book Review Podcast: The Life of Atticus Finch
On this week’s podcast, Joseph Crespino talks about “Atticus Finch: The Biography,” and Philip Dray discusses “The Fair Chase: The Epic Story of Hunting in America.”
Nonfiction: Falling Crime Rates Are Good — at a Cost. A Writer Sees Both Sides.
In “Uneasy Peace,” Patrick Sharkey sees disparities when the homicide rate drops. The country is safer, but some people are now afraid of the police.
Children’s Books: Grandmas and Grandpas Are a Kid’s Natural Allies in These Books
Affecting stories by the Fan Brothers, Dan Santat and Minh Le, and more celebrate the bonds between grandparents and grandkids.
Nonfiction: Woodrow Wilson Achieved a Lot. So Why Is He So Scorned?
Patricia O’Toole’s “The Moralist” is the latest biography of Wilson, who has inspired fierce arguments ever since his death in 1924.
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