NYT Books

Michael MacCambridge’s “The Big Time” rewinds to the ’70s, when showy personalities and compelling rivalries turned sports into mass entertainment.

Tim O’Brien’s manic satire follows a disgraced journalist on a criminal road trip through a myth-addled nation.

In “Endangered Eating,” the food historian Sarah Lohman explores the onetime staples disappearing from our tables.

In “Opposable Thumbs,” Matt Singer recalls the risky business of putting newspaper movie critics on TV — and the “combustible chemistry” that made it a hit.

Collections by Vauhini Vara, Shannon Sanders and LaToya Watkins feature characters caught in the challenges and contradictions of being alive.

In “Judgment at Tokyo,” the political scholar Gary J. Bass examines the post-World War II prosecution of Japanese military atrocities and makes the case for the real efficacy of international law.

Access to the late rapper’s journals gives Staci Robinson’s authorized biography a rare intimacy, without delving deeply into his music.

“The Woman in Me” reveals plenty about her life in the spotlight, and tempers well-earned bitterness with an enduring, insistent optimism.

The journalist McKay Coppins takes stock of the politician and former presidential candidate’s career as he prepares to retire from elective office.

In “Hunting the Falcon,” the historians John Guy and Julia Fox take a fresh look at an infamous Tudor marriage — and find there is indeed more to know.