NYT Books

The poems in Mary Jo Bang’s latest collection, “A Film in Which I Play Everyone,” are full of pleasure, color, sound and light — but also torment.

The title of Taylor Swift’s next album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” spurred strong responses from a typically quiet bunch.

For decades, the author of “In the Night Kitchen” and “The Nutshell Library” fortified himself with art and words.

Her children’s books on matters of sex and sexuality — notably “It’s Perfectly Normal” — became fodder for the culture wars.

“Praiseworthy,” Alexis Wright’s bracing satire of clashing worldviews in Australia, more than lives up to its name.

In Margot Livesey’s new novel, “The Road From Belhaven,” a 19th-century farm girl’s life and maturity are complicated by her uncontrollable visions of accident and disaster.

In Francis Spufford’s new novel, “Cahokia Jazz,” a detective must solve the mystery of a staged killing before its repercussions destroy his city’s social and political order.

In “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here,” Jonathan Blitzer connects the dots between U.S. foreign policy in Central America and the migrant crisis.

Lucy Sante recounts the trials and joys of her gender transition in the memoir “I Heard Her Call My Name.”

Paul Theroux’s new novel, “Burma Sahib,” explores the writer’s formative experiences in colonial Myanmar.