NYT Books

The new and selected poems in Ada Limón’s “Startlement” reveal her to be garrulous, funny and heart-on-sleeve even when she’s being a little wicked.

“I look for the subjective pulse of the author,” says the novelist, hailing Hamsun while sensing “cynicism” in Nabokov. “A Wooded Shore” is his 18th book.

The pop star’s ex-husband Kevin Federline had said in a new book that since her conservatorship ended, “It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK.”

“Spunk,” a fable weaving together music and movement, is getting its first full staging since being rediscovered in 1997.

“1929,” by the New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, is a tale of greed, corruption and incompetence to shock the conscience.

Her ex-husband says in his book that since the pop star’s conservatorship ended, “It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK.”

Branching plots and dark humor animate “Eye of the Monkey,” set in an unnamed dystopian country.

In “Three or More Is a Riot,” the Columbia Journalism School dean Jelani Cobb collects his writings on race and culture for The New Yorker.

The author of “Vampires of El Norte” and “The Possession of Alba Díaz” recommends books that dial up the darkness by turning back the clock.

The mighty ship, immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot, sank 50 years ago on Lake Superior. Our reporter spent a week on a Great Lakes freighter that survived the storm.