NYT Books

“Field Notes From an Extinction,” by Eoghan Walls, follows a naturalist who wants to study birds but ends up with a much harder task.

In “Reproductive Wrongs,” the classicist Sarah Ruden traces efforts to exert political control over family planning back 2,000 years.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s new novel, “Lake Effect,” is the latest in a specific contemporary subgenre: “Four Adult Siblings Reconvene to Rehash Their Privileged but Fraught Adolescence.”

A new book by the journalist Beth Gardiner argues that oil companies are upping production of the material as a safeguard against falling revenue.

Ivana Sajko’s novel “Every Time We Say Goodbye” explores personal and political crises in lengthy, lyrical sentences.

In Vigdis Hjorth’s novel “Repetition,” a writer recalls a pivotal period of transformation, sex and family crises.

In “The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts,” a therapist’s home turns into a nightmare manifestation of her sadness and grief.

Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel, “Now I Surrender,” weaves past and present in a baroque anti-Western set in contested borderlands.

In M.L. Stedman’s new novel, “A Far-Flung Life,” the beauty and breadth of her setting stand in counterpoint to the horrors of the human lives playing out upon it.

“Backstitch,” a novel by Marian Mitchell Donahue, examines the stark contrast between public talent and private troubles.