NYT Books

“I Love Russia,” a collection of Elena Kostyuchenko’s reporting over the past 15 years, captures the lives of ordinary, often struggling, people in far-flung parts of the country.

In “The Lumumba Plot,” the Foreign Affairs editor Stuart A. Reid asks whether the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in the death of one of Africa’s most famous post-colonial politicians.

Fuchsia Dunlop’s “Invitation to a Banquet” is a cultural investigation of an impossibly broad and often misunderstood cuisine.

In Rupert Thomson’s new novel, “Dartmouth Park,” the sound of a mundane beep triggers in one man what may be either a revelatory metaphysical journey or a bout of male existential angst.

In “I Must Be Dreaming,” the cartoonist serves up nutty nocturnal admissions, considers theories of sleep and, yes, imagines losing her teeth.

Rachel Maddow’s “Prequel” and Heather Cox Richardson’s “Democracy Awakening” follow plots against America hatched by homegrown autocrats.

In Molly McGhee’s debut, “Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind,” debt-laden citizens are recruited to “audit” others’ dreams — all in the name of productivity.

In her vivid second novel, “My Work,” Olga Ravn evokes the disorientation of new parenthood.

Lisa Tuttle’s “My Death” is short, uncanny, provocative, and pays tribute to a body of forgotten literature.

In “The Upside-Down World,” Benjamin Moser roams the galleries of the Netherlands in search of clues to the artists’ biographies.