NYT Books

Our columnist reviews books with lessons about perseverance, an undead girl and bizarre food.

The world is a gift, not a giant Amazon warehouse, Robin Wall Kimmerer said. In her new book, “The Serviceberry,” she proposes gratitude as an antidote to prevailing views of nature as a commodity.

Our columnist on some recent favorites.

Julia Armfield’s “Private Rites” is a contemporary reimagining of the Shakespearean tragedy, set in a flooded London.

Her Haight-Ashbury clothing store was ground zero for the counterculture. But she was best known for a tawdry book — which she later disavowed — published after Ms. Joplin’s death.

“If I come across ‘Dad’ or ‘Mommy,’ I’m out,” says the former U.S. poet laureate. “‘Grandma’ gets a pass.” His new collection is “Water, Water.”

In “The Miraculous From the Material,” the best-selling author Alan Lightman examines the science behind the wonder.

“The New India,” by Rahul Bhatia, combines personal history and investigative journalism to account for his country’s turn to militant Hindu nationalism.

A Hitchcockian thriller, an off-the-grid memoir, novels by Weike Wang and Lily Tuck, and more.

He displayed some 10,000 cat-themed artifacts at the American Museum of the House Cat in North Carolina, which welcomed several thousand people a year.