NYT Books

Immerse yourself in tales of Machiavellian statecraft, Depression-era scandal and emotional turmoil on an R.A.F. air base.

Immerse yourself in tales of Machiavellian statecraft, Depression-era scandal and emotional turmoil on an R.A.F. air base.

Three new books document obstacles to gender equality that, in the era that brought us #MeToo, Taylor Swift and the ‘girlboss,’ we thought we’d left behind.

Our columnist on three riveting new reads.

Even after doing research in Montana, a draft of the book that became “The Heart in Winter” was “dead on the page,” he says. Back in Ireland, the runaway lovers now at its center “suddenly appeared to me.”

Kadare received the inaugural International Booker Prize in 2005. In his books, the prolific Albanian author offered a window into the psychology of oppression. Here’s where to start.

Often compared to Orwell and Kafka, he walked a political tightrope with works that offered veiled criticism of his totalitarian state.

“The material that he uses for the songs is powerfully moving, involving his own personal losses,” the 88-year-old poet says. Also name-checked in “So What”: an Italian motorcycle magnate.

To write “Exhibit,” the queer novelist says she had to pretend that no one would read it. “By writing things I’m afraid of saying, I might stand a chance of voicing what I, too, really need and long to see in words.”

Bill Hall, the proprietor, has assembled a vast collection of hard-to-find fashion books and magazines coveted by designers and influencers.