NYT Books

You don’t need to be on the sand to enjoy these novels. You just need a certain willingness to be swiftly transported.

How did streetwear become high fashion? Why are there so many serial killers in the Pacific Northwest? Prize-winning writers tackle these questions, while memoirists consider celibacy, spycraft and Erica Jong.

In “The South,” a Malaysian man recalls the life-changing period he spent on his family’s dilapidated farm when he was a teenager.

In “Murder in the Dollhouse,” Rich Cohen tells the story of Jennifer Dulos — and our queasy fascination.

Abandoned by both her mother and a really bad ex, the 25-year-old narrator of “Gingko Season” avoids her own traumas by focusing on grand historical ones.

In “Wild Thing,” Sue Prideaux draws on recently discovered source material, delivering an enthralling account of an artist whose life was as inventive as his art.

In her entrancing, disturbing “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” Barbara Demick traces the wildly divergent paths of twins born in China under the one-child rule.

In “Deep Breath,” by the Hungarian novelist Rita Halász, a woman flees her abusive husband in order to slowly regain her sanity, and her self.

Fiction by Taylor Jenkins Reid and V.E. Schwab; a memoir of a year without sex; new thrillers from James Patterson and S.A. Cosby; and more.

Virginie Despentes is pivoting to theater. Playgoers “really show up, even for demanding or radical works,” she says.