NYT Books

The journalist Richard Behar communicated extensively with the disgraced financier. His rigorous if irreverent book acknowledges his subject’s humanity.

The books in this month’s column have something in common: unforgettable main characters.

In a memoir and a novel, the characters deal with grief by singing in front of strangers.

In Fernanda Trías’s novel “Pink Slime,” one woman holds out in her town after an environmental disaster, trapped in a limbo of indecision.

In “All the Worst Humans,” Phil Elwood recounts a career spent engineering headlines for some of the world’s villains.

In “Swimming Pretty,” Vicki Valosik connects the evolution of an unlikely sport with the century-long struggle of women to be taken seriously in the water.

Bullwinkel’s debut novel sheds light on the culture of youth women’s boxing through an ensemble cast of complicated characters. It packs a punch.

New novels from J. Courtney Sullivan and Liz Moore, a memoir by a “hacktivist” member of Anonymous — and more.

From silly rhymes to lively sound effects to stealthily-building suspense, these old standbys and new classics have something for everyone.

The watercolor cover art for the first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was painted in 1996 by a recent art school graduate from Britain who was working at a bookstore.