NYT Books

In Lee Lai’s “Cannon,” a lonely, repressed line cook allows herself to be taken advantage of by several people in her life, until she can’t stand it any longer.

In “Ghosted,” Alice Vernon explores the human urge to pierce the veil — and the many mediums, charlatans and true believers who made it an enduring industry.

In “The Arrogant Ape,” the primatologist Christine Webb takes a hard look at our human superiority complex, and is not impressed.

Born dirt poor, Victoria Woodhull rose to heights of wealth and fame in the Gilded Age, reinventing herself along the way. A sprightly new biography recounts her unlikely story.

The journalist Mark Whitaker tracks the afterlife and influence of one of the 20th century’s most famous agitators.

“Sympathy Tower Tokyo,” which was a best seller in Japan, is a social novel for the age of A.I.

Amie Barrodale’s dazzlingly weird novel, “Trip,” is about a mother and son adrift — in the afterlife and in the South Atlantic, respectively.

In the enchanting memoir “The Season” Helen Garner writes about her grandson’s Australian Rules football team — and so much more.

The ambitious but intimate sweep of Patrick Ryan’s new novel, “Buckeye,” recalls classic storytelling of another era.

In the essay collection “Our Fragile Freedoms,” Eric Foner wades again and again into the biggest debates surrounding human bondage in America.