NYT Books

“Crook Manifesto,” set in the 1970s, finds the “Harlem Shuffle” protagonist Ray Carney drawn back into the game in order to score Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter.

The title character in Jon Klassen’s new chapter book, “The Skull,” is the personification of his unique brand of expressionless humor.

In “The Militia House,” by John Milas, an abandoned building in Afghanistan captivates and terrifies the Marines stationed nearby.

New short fiction by Agustina Bazterrica, Joyce Carol Oates, Nishanth Injam and Kathleen Alcott.

“Blight,” by Emily Monosson, chronicles the threats fungal pathogens pose to humans, animals and plants as the world’s most devastating agents of disease.

In “Jews in the Garden,” the journalist Judy Rakowsky helps a relative uncover the truth of what happened to their family during World War II.

New books by Heidi Julavits, Amelia Possanza and Fern Brady explore a future of self-discovery by mining the past.

“Not Even the Dead,” a novel by Juan Gómez Bárcena, is a transhistorical epic with echoes of Cormac McCarthy and Joseph Conrad.

Andrew Lipstein’s shrewd novel finds a moneyed Brooklynite so unmoored that he starts to identify with animals he has long overlooked.

In her memoir “Thunderclap,” the British art critic Laura Cumming explores her passion for the virtuosic images of everyday life by painters from Dutch art’s golden age.