new york times book review august 20 2023

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The New York Times Book Review – August 6, 2023

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – August 6, 2023 : The issue features Daniel Kraus’s new thriller, “ Whalefall ,” the story of a teenage diver inadvertently swallowed by an 80-foot whale; the reissue of Claude Anet’s provocative 1920 novel, “Ariane: A Russian Girl ”;  a biography of the Gilded Age heiress and international spy Marguerite Harrison ;  a handful of audiobook recommendations ; even  the biography of a venerable scam.  

Swallowed by a Sperm Whale, and Mourning His Father

In Daniel Kraus’s novel “Whalefall,” a teenage diver is gulped down by a 60-ton whale and must try to escape.

By  Sarah Lyall

In marine biology, a whale fall is the body of a dead whale that has slowly descended to the bottom of the ocean. Scavengers strip its flesh, crustaceans and other creatures colonize its skeleton and its decaying bones help sustain countless organisms for years to come, part of the delicate balance of the undersea ecosystem.

Talking About Love in the Afternoon, Morning, Evening and Night

Reading Claude Anet’s provocative 1920 novel “Ariane: A Russian Girl,” the reader may yearn for a little less conversation.

By Gemma Sieff

It would be nice if we had put to bed, so to speak, witless and reductive double standards about female promiscuity. Have you heard the one that goes, “A key that opens many locks is a master key, yet a lock that is opened by many keys” is … unprintably bad? Me neither — until I saw it on TikTok.

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Locus Online

The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field

The New York Times Best Books of 2023

For more information, including the complete list, see The New York Times  website .

©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.

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The New York Times Book Review, August 27, 2023 (Community Roots: James McBride's "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store") Single Issue Magazine – January 1, 2023

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40 Most Anticipated Books of 2023

JAN. 3, 2023

by Deepti Kapoor

A bit too long-winded but a whole lot of fun. Full review >

JAN. 10, 2023

by Leigh Bardugo

Well-drawn characters introduce the criminal underworld to the occult kind in a breathless and compelling plot. Full review >

by Kashana Cauley

Funny and fresh, Cauley’s prose moves dynamic characters through a vivid, living New York City. Full review >

FEB. 7, 2023

by Cherie Dimaline

Fast, fun, and full of charm(s). Full review >

by Salman Rushdie

A grand entertainment, in a tale with many strands, by an ascended master of modern legends. Full review >

by Chetna Maroo

A debut novel of immense poise and promise. Full review >

FEB. 14, 2023

by Fiona McFarlane

A masterpiece of riveting storytelling. Full review >

FEB. 21, 2023

by Rebecca Makkai

Well plotted, well written, and well designed to make its points. Full review >

MARCH 7, 2023

by Eleanor Catton

This blistering look at the horrors of late capitalism manages to also be a wildly fun read. Full review >

MARCH 14, 2023

by Elizabeth McKenzie

McKenzie has created a wonderful addition to the crew of damaged characters beloved by readers, so very endearing and real. Full review >

by Rick Rubin

Learn, do, have fun: terrific encouragement for anyone embarking on a creative project, no matter what it might be. Full review >

by Tracy Kidder

A searching, troubling look at the terrible actualities of homelessness. Full review >

JAN. 31, 2023

by V (formerly Eve Ensler)

An elegant and timely book. Full review >

by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway

A timely, well-argued contribution to the literature of economic inequality and regulation. Full review >

by Michael Schulman

This Oscars history mixes all the expected glitz and glamour with enough industry intrigue to power an award-winning drama. Full review >

by Dina Nayeri

An unflinching, compelling look at how “calcified hearts believe”—and disbelieve. Full review >

by Alexandra Robbins

An important and eye-opening book that all parents, teachers, and educational administrators should read. Full review >

MARCH 21, 2023

by Matthew Desmond

A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America. Full review >

APRIL 25, 2023

by Claire Dederer

Bringing erudition, emotion, and a down-to-earth style to this pressing problem, Dederer presents her finest work to date. Full review >

JUNE 20, 2023

by Chris Paul with Michael Wilbon

A fresh and refreshing take on the athlete memoir. Full review >

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT

by Talia Hibbert

A zippy rom-com with strong characterization, bursting with Gen Z–approved verbal sparring and stolen kisses. Full review >

by Shannon Gibney

An innovative and captivating reflection on identity and self. Full review >

by Frances Hardinge

Brightening toward the end, frightening throughout, psychologically acute. Full review >

by Siri Pettersen ; translated by Tara Chace

An immersive, darkly exhilarating read. Full review >

FEB. 28, 2023

by Trang Thanh Tran

Both the ghosts and the humans in this richly layered work are alluring and deadly. Full review >

by Monica Edinger & Lesley Younge

An excellent way to understand a remarkable individual and his times. Full review >

by Patrick Ness ; illustrated by Tea Bendix

[Blanking] masterful. Full review >

MARCH 28, 2023

by Mark Oshiro

An important and searing read on the value of family, agency, and belief. Full review >

by Scott Reintgen

Truly fantastic. Full review >

by Ari Tison

Remarkably compelling. Full review >

CHILDREN'S

by Kwame Alexander ; illustrated by Dare Coulter

With powerful art from a bold new talent, this is a probing and sensitive take on a devastating chapter of U.S. history. Full review >

by Lucy Strange

So engrossing a tale and world that readers won’t want to come up for air. Full review >

by Leonard S. Marcus

A fresh angle offering yet another reason to regard Lincoln as our presidential G.O.A.T. Full review >

by Zeno Sworder ; illustrated by Zeno Sworder

A clever and poignant tribute to the love of all those who made the journey. Full review >

by Emma Straub ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez

Raise your hats, everyone; raise them high! Full review >

by Joy Harjo ; illustrated by Michaela Goade

A contemplative, visually dazzling masterpiece that will resonate even more deeply each time it is read. Full review >

by Shadra Strickland ; illustrated by Shadra Strickland

A moving, grooving snapshot of urban life where kids create the fun and beckon everybody in. Full review >

by Anita Sanchez

Fact-loving, sea-loving, science-loving, and just plain curious readers will find much to chew over here. Full review >

by Dan Santat ; illustrated by Dan Santat

Full of laughter and sentiment, this is a nudge for readers to dare to try new things. Full review >

by Daniel Nayeri ; illustrated by Daniel Miyares

An enticing taste of a rich historical world. Full review >

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The Best Reviewed Fiction of 2023

Featuring anne enright, lorrie moore, zadie smith, anne patchett, colson whitehead, and more.

The points are tallied, the math is done, and the results are in.

Yes, all year long the diligent and endearingly disgruntled Book Marks elves have been mining reviews from every corner of the literary internet. Brows furrowed, stomachs growling, they’ve worked from break of dawn to blink of dusk, seven days a week, scouring the book review sections of over 150 publications—from the New York Times to the Sydney Morning Herald , the Toronto Star to the London Review of Books —all so that we can now say with certainty that these are the best reviewed fiction titles of 2023.

Happy reading!

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

1. The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright (W.W. Norton & Company)

18 Rave • 2 Positive Read an interview with Anne Enright here

“So convincingly has Ms. Enright conjured the archetype of the wandering Irish bard who leaves behind him a legacy of abandoned women and melodious, honey-tongued verse … Is it possible for poems to be fictitious? In fact, these nostalgic odes to love and Ireland are limpid, lilting, wholly credible stand-alone works … One of Ms. Enright’s remarkable feats is to write believably across three generations, capturing epochal differences but also a buried, or even repressed, continuity. The fullness of Ms. Enright’s talent is reflected as well in her treatment of what has come to be known, a bit glibly, as the ‘art monster.’”

–Sam Sacks ( The Wall Street Journal )

2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Harper)

19 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an interview with Ann Patchett here

“Not that a heart is not broken at some point, but it breaks without affecting the remarkable warmth of the book, set in summer’s fullest bloom … This generous writer hits the mark again with her ninth novel … Knowing Patchett’s personal history with motherhood makes the fullness of the maternal feelings she imagines for Lara Kenison particularly poignant.”

–Marion Winik ( The Washington Post )

3. After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley (Knopf)

15 Rave • 6 Positive Read an interview with Tessa Hadley here

“This new collection is a great introduction to her work and for those of us already familiar with Hadley, it’s a great addition. Throughout the collection, Hadley spins out character studies of (mostly) women at odds with themselves, their partners, their families, or life in general … Hadley does a wonderful job of weaving past and present together as the sisters are forced to confront their memories and relationships. And, of course, there are those moments of shining prose … Rife with deft and often beautiful prose, and astute but compassionate characterization, this is a wonderful collection.”

–Yvonne C. Garrett ( The Brooklyn Rail )

4. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore ( Knopf)

20 Rave • 9 Positive • 6 Mixed • 1 Pan Read an interview with Lorrie Moore here

“Moore excels in…[the] neurotic but intimate conversations that go nowhere, and the scenes in the hospice are viscerally done … Moore shows that grief and ghosts can be written about persuasively, and wittily, without turning a novel into a horror story … A triumph of tone and, ultimately, of the imagination. For Moore, death doesn’t necessarily mark the end of a story.”

–Abhrajyoti Chakraborty ( The Guardian )

5. Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions)

15 Rave • 9 Positive Read an excerpt from Kairos here

“A cathartic leak of a novel, a beautiful bummer, and the floodgates open early … If Kairos were only a tear-jerker, there might not be much more to say about it. But Erpenbeck, a German writer born in 1967 whose work has come sharply to the attention of English-language readers over the past decade, is among the most sophisticated and powerful novelists we have. Clinging to the undercarriage of her sentences, like fugitives, are intimations of Germany’s politics, history and cultural memory … She is writing more closely to her own unconscious … I don’t generally read the books I review twice, but this one I did … Profound and moving.”

–Dwight Garner ( The New York Times )

6. August Blue by Deborah Levy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

13 Rave • 8 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Ms. Levy rewards close readers by packing her sardine-can-slim novels with tight connections … August Blue, which builds to a moving climax, is more emotionally accessible than Ms. Levy’s previous novels. But it too encompasses the cerebral and the sentimental, realism and surrealism, love and loss, the drive to create art—and the ambiguities of human relations.”

–Heller McAlpin ( The Wall Street Journal )

7. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

18 Rave • 5 Positive • 5 Mixed Read an excerpt from The Bee Sting here

“ The Bee Sting …ought to cement Murray’s already high standing. Another changeup, it’s a triumph of realist fiction, a big, sprawling social novel in the vein of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom . The agility with which Murray structures the narrative around the family at its heart is virtuosic and sure-footed, evidence of a writer at the height of his power deftly shifting perspectives, style and syntax to maximize emotional impact. Hilarious and sardonic, heartbreaking and beautiful—there’s just no other way to put it: The Bee Sting is a masterpiece.”

–Jonathan Russell Clark ( The Los Angeles Times )

8. Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

21 Rave • 7 Positive • 3 Mixed • 1 Pan Read an excerpt from Birnam Wood here

“Bold, ambitious … A grand, chilling thriller tightly bound by inescapable concerns … Birnam Wood moves at a faster clip with arguably higher stakes. Make no mistake: It’s a book that grips you by the throat until its final paragraph. Catton successfully scorches the earth with her prose … Little feels certain or safe. The literary novel binds itself with a genre thriller in Catton’s hands … Free to play with form, Catton winds methodically through the minds of her characters … I’ll unabashedly state that Birnam Wood is a brash, unforgettable novel.”

–Lauren LeBlanc ( The Boston Globe )

9. Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

15 Rave • 10 Positive • 4 Mixed • 1 Pan Read an interview with Colson Whitehead here

“Both deceptively substantive and sneakily funny, a wise journey through Harlem days and nights as lived by Ray Carney, a conscientious furniture salesman and family man who happens to run a little crooked … Whitehead has always had a sharp instinct for the workings of culture … Whitehead’s New York of the ‘70s is a fully realized universe down to the most meticulous details, from the constant sirens and bodega drug fronts to a sweltering, abandoned biscuit factory … A…reminder, as if we still needed one, that crime fiction can be great literature. These books are as resonant and finely observed as anything Whitehead has written.”

–Chris Vognar ( The Los Angeles Times )

10. The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)

20 Rave • 6 Positive • 9 Mixed • 1 Pan

“It offers a vast, acute panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters … Touchet is the most morally intelligent character Smith has written … The book’s structure is uneven. One wishes, for instance, that the chapters would signal their time jumps more consistently … But these infelicities stop mattering when we are deep into the trial and the book turns into a portrait of people with thwarted ambitions, of people who, like Ainsworth, become frauds without knowing … As always, it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive.”

–Karan Mahajan ( The New York Times Book Review )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points The ten books with the highest points totals are then ranked by weighted average 

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Morning joe, the new york times reveals 'the 10 best books of 2023'.

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Editor of The New York Times Book Review, Gilbert Cruz, joins Morning Joe to discuss the 10 best books of 2023 and the meticulous process behind their selection. Nov. 29, 2023

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The 10 Best Books of 2023, According to the New York Times

Always books. Never boring.

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These are the five fiction and five nonfiction books that the staff of the New York Times agree are the best of the year — after a lot of debate. If you want to browse the long list of all 100, check out their previous list .

Some of the New York Times top ten are consistent across other lists we’ve seen recently, like Chain-Gang All-Stars and Master Slave Husband Wife . Others have seen less attention on other best books of the year lists, like Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs . See all ten below.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray: “This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love and resilience even as their world crumbles around them.”

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: “The United States of Chain-Gang All-Stars is like ours, if sharpened to absurd points.”

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal: “The insecurity of existence across this vastness and on board the train emphasizes the significance of human connection.”

The Fraud by Zadie Smith: “As always, it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself.”

North Woods by Daniel Mason: “Mason’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic novel ushers readers over the threshold of a house in the wilds of western Massachusetts and leaves us there for 300 years and almost 400 pages”

The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen: “ The Best Minds is a thoughtfully constructed, deeply sourced indictment of a society that prioritizes profit, quick fixes and happy endings over the long slog of care.”

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley: “…a book that is riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable.”

Fire Weather by John Vaillant: “…the real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites.”

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo: “…Woo’s immersive rendering, which conjures the Crafts’ escape in novelistic detail, is equally a feat — of research, storytelling, sympathy and insight.”

Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista: “Offering the intimate disclosures of memoir and the larger context of Philippine history, Evangelista also pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer.”

Check out the full list with commentary, as well as links to their reviews, at the New York Times .

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in  Breaking in Books .

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Book Nation by Jen

Best book blog for reviews, recommendations and author interviews, ny times book recommendations – fiction 2023.

What to Read This Spring…

The New York Times recommends a variety of new fiction books to check out, from mystery, romance and horror to science, contemporary and historical fiction. Something for everyone in this well rounded list.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Mystery/Thriller)

Birnam Wood is on the move . . . 

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker–or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of  The Luminaries ,  Birnam Wood  is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (Contemporary Fiction)

Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected, carefully guarded, old-money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and inheritance for motherhood, sacrificing more of herself than she ever intended. Sasha, middle-class and from New England, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider, wondering how she might ever understand their WASP-y ways. Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t (and really shouldn’t) have and must confront the kind of person she wants to be. 

Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters,  Pineapple Street  is a smart escapist novel that sparkles with wit. It’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots and everything in between, and the insanity of first love.

River Spirit by Leila Aboulela (Historical Fiction)

The spellbinding new novel from New York Times Notable Author and Caine Prize winner Leila Aboulela about an embattled young woman’s coming of age during the Mahdist War in 19th century Sudan. 

Leila Aboulela, hailed as “a versatile prose stylist” (New York Times) has also been praised by J.M. Coetzee, Ali Smith, and Ben Okri, among others, for her rich and nuanced novels depicting Islamic spiritual and political life. Her new novel is an enchanting narrative of the years leading up to the British conquest of Sudan in 1898, and a deeply human look at the tensions between Britain and Sudan, Christianity and Islam, colonizer and colonized. In River Spirit, Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people who—against the odds and for a brief time—gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge, and sacrifice.

When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan, they’re taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As a revolutionary leader rises to power – the self-proclaimed Mahdi, prophesied redeemer of Islam – Sudan begins to slip from the grasp of Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. A scholar of the Qur’an, Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, even as his choice splinters his family. Meanwhile, Akuany moves through her young adulthood and across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with Yaseen as her inconsistent lifeline. Everything each of them is striving for – love, freedom, safety – is all on the line in the fight for Sudan.

Through the voices of seven men and women whose fates grow inextricably linked, Aboulela’s latest novel illuminates a fraught and bloody reckoning with the history of a people caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. River Spirit is a powerful tale of corruption, coming of age, and unshakeable devotion – to a cause, to one’s faith, and to the people who become family.

Take What You Need by Idra Novey (Contemporary Fiction)

In her most powerful book yet, award-winning writer Idra Novey has conjured a novel of “astonishing and singular” honesty (Rumaan Alam) with two determined, unforgettable female voices.

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia,  Take What You Need  tracks the aftermath of a long estrangement between a stepmother and daughter. Leah is a web editor and young mother who’s sought an urban life and clean break from her rural childhood. But with her stepmother Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.

What Leah discovers is astonishing: Jean has filled the house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who’s played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.

With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeroes in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits. 

Passionate and resonant,  Take What You Need  explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most, and what can be built from what others have discarded–art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.

Heart Sutra by Yan Lianke (Contemporary Romance)

Multi-prizewinning and internationally acclaimed Yan Lianke — ‘China’s most controversial novelist’ ( New Yorker)  — returns with a campus novel  like no other following a young Buddhist as she journeys through worldly temptation

To tell the truth, religious faith is really just a matter of believing stories. The world is governed by stories, and it is for the sake of stories that everyone lives on this earth.

Yahui is a young Buddhist at university. But this is no ordinary university. It is populated by every faith in China: Buddhists, Daoists, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims who jostle alongside one another in the corridors of learning, and whose deities are never far from the classroom.

Her days are measured out making elaborate religious papercuts, taking part in highly charged tug-of-war competitions between the faiths and trying to resist the daily temptation to return to secular life and abandon the ascetic ideals that are her calling. Everything seems to dangle by a thread. But when she meets a Daoist student called Mingzheng, an inexorable romance of mythic proportions takes hold of her.

In this profoundly otherworldly novel, Chinese master Yan Lianke remakes the campus novel in typically visionary fashion, dropping readers into an allegorical world ostensibly far from our own, but which reflects our own questions and struggles right back at us.

** Beautiful edition illustrated throughout with beautiful original papercuts **

‘One of China’s greatest living authors’  Guardian

‘His talent cannot be ignored’  New York Times

‘China’s foremost literary satirist’  Financial Times

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (Contemporary Fiction)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes an emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?

William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household.

But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?

Vibrating with tenderness, Hello Beautiful is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

Flux by Jinwoo Chong (Science Fiction)

A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his employers have inadvertently discovered time travel and are covering up a string of violent crimes.

Combining elements of neo-noir, speculative fiction, and ’80s detective shows, FLUX is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

In FLUX, a brilliant debut in the vein of William Gibson’s  Neuromancer  and Ling Ma’s  Severance,  Jinwoo Chong introduces us to three characters —Bo, Brandon and Blue— who are tortured by these questions as their lives spin out of control.

* After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father, attempting to hold their lives together, begins to gradually retreat from the family.

* 28-year-old Brandon loses his job at a legacy magazine publisher and is offered a new position. Confused to find himself in an apartment he does not recognize, and an office he sometimes cannot remember leaving, he comes to suspect that something far more sinister is happening behind the walls.

* 48-year-old Blue participates in a television exposé of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity eventually claimed the lives of three people and nearly killed him. Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, stalks his old manager while holding his estranged family at arms-length.

Intertwined with the saga of a once-iconic ’80s detective show,  Raider,  whose star has fallen after decades of concealed abuse, the lives of Bo, Brandon and Blue intersect with each other, to the extent that it becomes clear that their lives are more interconnected and interdependent than the reader could have ever imagined.

Can we ever really change the past, or the future? What truth do we owe our families? What truth do we owe ourselves?

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (LGBT Fiction)

From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist. When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification. 

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow,  Biography of X  follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America’s divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction,  Biography of X  is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle (Horror/Historical Fiction)

Blue skies, empty land—and enough room to hide away a horrifying secret. Or is there? Discover a haunting new vision of the American West from the award-winning author of  The Changeling.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense,  Lone Women  blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

Commitment by Mona Simpson (Mental Health/Historical Fiction)

A masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.

When Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from Los Angeles to college at UC Berkeley, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who maintains a wishful belief that her children can attain all the things she hasn’t, she’s worked hard to secure their future in caste drive 1980s Los Angeles, gaining them illegal entry to an affluent public school. When she enters a state hospital, her closest friend tries to keep the children safe and their mother’s dreams for them alive.

At Berkeley, Walter discovers a passion for architecture just as he realizes his life as a student may need to end for lack of funds. Back home in LA, his sister, Lina, who works in an ice-cream parlor while her wealthy classmates are preparing for Ivy league schools, wages a high stakes gamble to go there with them. And Donny, the little brother everybody loves, begins to hide in plain sight, coding, gaming and drifting towards a life on the beach, where he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs.

Moving from Berkeley to Los Angeles and New York and back again, this is a story about one family trying to navigate the crisis of their lives, a crisis many know first-hand in their own families or in those of their neighbors. A resonant novel about family and duty and the attendant struggles that come when a parent falls ill,  Commitment  honors the spirit of fragile, imperfect mothers and the under-chronicled significance of friends, in determining the lives of our children left on their own. With  Commitment , Mona Simpson, one of the foremost chroniclers of the American family in our time, has written her most important and unforgettable novel.

Sea Change by Gina Chung (Contemporary Fiction/Fantasy)

A novel about a woman tossed overboard by heartbreak and loss, who has to find her way back to stable shores with the help of a giant Pacific octopus.

Ro is stuck. She’s just entered her thirties, she’s estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at a mall aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (mountain dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeno). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro’s only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro’s last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager.

When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction. Wading through memories of her youth, Ro has one last chance to come to terms with her childhood trauma, recommit to those around her, and find her place in an ever-changing world. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

The New Earth by Jess Row (Literary Fiction)

A globe-spanning epic novel about a fractured New York family reckoning with the harms of the past and confronting humanity’s uncertain future, from award-winning author Jess Row  For fifteen years, the Wilcoxes have been a family in name only. Though never the picture of happiness, they once seemed like a typical white Jewish clan from the Upper West Side. But in the early 2000s, two events ruptured the relationships between them. First, Naomi revealed to her children that her biological father was actually Black. In the aftermath, college-age daughter Bering left home to become a radical peace activist in Palestine’s West Bank, where she was killed by an Israeli Army sniper. Now, in 2018, Winter Wilcox is getting married, and her only demand is that her mother, father, and brother emerge from their self-imposed isolations and gather once more. After decades of neglecting personal and political wounds, each remaining family member must face their fractured history and decide if they can ever reconcile. Assembling a vast chorus of voices and ideas from across the globe, Jess Row “explodes the saga from within—blows the roof off, so to speak, to let in politics, race, theory, and the narrative self-awareness that the form had seemed hell-bent on ignoring” (Jonathan Lethem). The New Earth is a commanding investigation of our deep and impossible desire to undo the injustices we have both inflicted and been forced to endure. 

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (Contemporary Romance)

A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamily handsome pop star flips the script on all her assumptions.  Romantic Comedy  is a hilarious, observant and deeply tender novel from  New York Times –bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for “The Night Owls,” the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actor who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the “Danny Horst Rule,” poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder whether there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy; it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her…right?

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

Greek Lessons by Han Kang (Contemporary Fiction)

A powerful novel about the saving grace of language and human connection, from the author of the International Booker Prize winner  The Vegetarian

“Now and then, language would thrust its way into her sleep like a skewer through meat, startling her awake several times a night…”

In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. 

Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it’s the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence. 

Greek Lessons  tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to one another. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity—their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression. 

Greek Lessons  is the story of the unlikely bond between this pair and a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection—a novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Mystery/Thriller)

“ Small Mercies  is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.” — Stephen King The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River —an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history. In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business. Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.

Chain-Gang All Stars by Nana Kwme Adjei-Brenyah (Science Fiction/Dystopia)

The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the  New York Times -bestselling author of  Friday Black , about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own. 

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond,  Chain-Gang All-Stars  is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Historical Fiction)

From the  New York Times –bestselling author of  Cutting for Stone  comes a stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret. The Covenant of Water  is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of  Cutting for Stone . Published in 2009,  Cutting for Stone  became a literary phenomenon, selling over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remaining on the  New York Times  bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977,  The Covenant of Water  is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life. All of Verghese’s great gifts are on display in this new work: there are astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself,  The Covenant of Water  is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin (Science Fiction/Dystopia)

Founded by the mysterious genius known as the Designer, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera’s lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.

Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process–and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he’s been dreaming–which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.

Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group–known as “Arrivalists”–who may be fomenting revolution.

Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized–and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.

From the  New York Times  bestselling author of  The Passage  comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia–where the truth isn’t what it seems.

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks

From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.

Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.

Cut to 1970:  The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.

Cut to the present day:  A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.

Cue the cast:  We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.

Bonus material:  Interspersed throughout are three comic books that are featured in the story–all created by Tom Hanks himself–including the comic book that becomes the official tie-in to this novel’s major motion picture masterpiece.

Retrospective by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Historical Fiction)

An epic yet intimate novel about a Colombian man caught up in the sweep of global historical and ideological revolutions.  

The Colombian film director, Sergio Cabrera, is in Barcelona for a retrospective of his work. It’s a hard time for him: his father, famous actor Fausto Cabrera, has just died; his marriage is in crisis; and his home country has rejected peace agreements that might have ended more than fifty years of war. In the course of a few intense days, as his films are on exhibit, Sergio recalls the events that marked his family’s unusual and dramatic lives: especially his father’s, his sister Marianella’s and his own.

Growing up in Colombia as the children of famous actors, Sergio and Marianella were privileged and artistic, until their parents became disillusioned with bourgeois conventions and moved the entire family to China. Mao’s Cultural Revolution was underway and the family lived in an entirely ex-pat hotel where they learned Chinese and joined the revolution, became members of the Red Guard, and trained as guerilla fighters. When they returned to Colombia to support the revolution there, they were sent into the countryside to join the guerilla force, were shot at and nearly died. Out of these lives molded by ideology and zealotry, came an artistic second life for Sergio as he escaped the movement and became his country’s most celebrated film director.

From the Spanish Civil War to the exile of his family to Latin America, and from the Cultural Revolution in China to the guerrilla movements of 1960s Colombia, Sergio and his family’s experience is extraordinary by any standards. Equal parts family saga and epic historical novel,  Retrospective  reveals the story of one man and his family — based on real people and events — and a devastating portrait of the forces that shaped their lives, and for half a century turned the world upside down.

The Guest by Emma Cline (Mystery/Fiction)

A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this stunning novel by the  New York Times  bestselling author of  The Girls .

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarified world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s  The Guest  is a spellbinding literary achievement.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (Contemporary Fiction)

What’s the harm in a pseudonym?  New York Times  bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly  not  Asian American–in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R. F. Kuang in the vein of  White Ivy  and  The Other Black Girl. 

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song–complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the  New York Times  bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

With its totally immersive first-person voice,  Yellowface  takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

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By The New York Times Updated June 13, 10:25 A.M. ET

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Twenty-one states ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which governed reproductive rights for nearly half a century until the Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2022.

In some states, the fight over abortion access is still taking place in courtrooms, where advocates have sued to block bans and restrictions. Other states have moved to expand access to abortion by adding legal protections.

Latest updates

• The United States Supreme Court upheld access to a widely available abortion pill, rejecting a bid from anti-abortion groups to undo federal approval of the medication. The pills account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions.

The New York Times is tracking abortion laws in each state after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

Where abortion is legal

In a few states that have enacted bans or restrictions, abortion remains legal for now as courts determine whether these laws can take effect. Abortion is legal in the rest of the country, and many states have added new protections since Dobbs.

Ban in effect

Note: TK note here.

Legal for now

State details.

More details on the current status of abortion in each state are below.

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State

Status of abortion	Legal until	More details
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An earlier version of this article misstated the legal status of abortion in Utah. As of 4 p.m. on June 24, the state attorney general had issued a statement saying the state’s abortion ban had been triggered, but it had not yet been authorized by the legislature’s general counsel. By 8:30 p.m., the counsel authorized the ban and it went into effect.

A table in an earlier version of this article misstated which abortion ban is being challenged in Texas state court. Abortion rights supporters are challenging a pre-Roe ban, not the state’s trigger ban.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the legal status of abortion in Indiana. While Indiana abortion providers stopped offering abortion services in anticipation of an abortion ban taking effect on Aug. 1, the law did not take effect.