NYT Books

In Anne Tyler’s new novel, a socially inept mother faces hurdles in her personal, professional and family lives.

A new biography of Charles W. Chesnutt, by Tess Chakkalakal, explains the friendships and tensions he had with his white literary contemporaries.

In her fifth memoir, “Cleavage,” Jennifer Finney Boylan writes about her 36-year marriage, her adult children and why she keeps telling her story.

In “Memorial Days,” Geraldine Brooks retreats to an island off Australia hoping to pick up the pieces after the sudden death of her husband.

“Something Rotten,” Andrew Lipstein’s latest examination of male self-delusion, finds a Brooklyn journalist falling under the sway of a Svengali.

What are three popular tropes that romance novels use? Jennifer Harlan, a New York Times books editor, recommends three romance novels that show off those tropes at their best.

Rachel Ingalls’s lion god; Haruki Murakami’s cat whisperer.

Allegra Goodman’s novel “Isola” tells the story of a 16th-century Frenchwoman’s extraordinary fight for survival.

In Julie Iromuanya’s novel “A Season of Light,” a Nigerian American family in Florida experiences aftershocks from their father’s trauma during the Biafran War.

Virginia Feito’s relentlessly gory novel “Victorian Psycho” announces its narrator’s grisly intentions from the start.