NYT Books

Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.

Her novels reveal a deeply American desire for freedom and adventure, and one of her work’s great joys lies in always finding something new to discover. Here’s where to start.

“I love to fall asleep with a book nearby,” says the “Autobiography of Cotton” author. “Dreaming and reading merge in beautiful, uncompromising ways.”

In “A Killing in Cannabis,” Scott Eden tells the story of a man who tried to straddle the lines between the legal and black-market cannabis worlds, with deadly consequences.

The best-selling author Hannah Bonam-Young recommends swoon-worthy love stories with spicy beginnings.

She fished off the New England coast for more than 80 years, and intended to continue until she died. “It’s not hard work for me,” she said at 101.

“Superfan,” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, explores the parallel struggles of a K-Pop-inspired star and the lonely college student who adores him.

In “Bernie for Burlington,” Dan Chiasson’s affection for his subject risks turning history into a sales pitch.

In “The Family Snitch,” the reporter Francesca Fontana delves into her father’s criminal history — and their complicated, painful relationship.

Larry Levis’s work, gathered in the expansive new book “Swirl & Vortex,” was equally concerned with the soul and the void.