NYT Books

Each January, the director Steven Soderbergh lists his previous year’s cultural consumption — every movie and TV series watched, every book read. On this week’s episode, we talk books!

In a series of revealing essays, the NPR contributor Nell Greenfieldboyce views the events of her life through the lens of natural phenomena.

How John Lewis and Coretta Scott King embodied the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy while each creating their own.

In these novels, detectives — some real, others self-appointed — investigate deaths in a small town, on board a train, in a haunted French chateau.

The audiobook might be less, well, useful than it is entertainingly honest, unfiltered and even bizarre.

For Álvaro Enrigue, a novelist fascinated with historical detail, the first meeting of the Aztecs and Spanish conquistadors is the obsession of a lifetime. He brings it to life in “You Dreamed of Empires.”

Fifty years ago this week, “How to Be Your Own Best Friend” nipped at the heels of “The Joy of Sex.” Here’s the story behind its longevity.

“Invisible Man” “made me feel seen and heard,” the rapper-actor says. “I can return the favor.” His new book, “And Then We Rise: A Guide to Loving and Taking Care of Self” is out this month.

In “How to Be a Good Savage,” Mikeas Sánchez’ poems help preserve her language, Zoque, and allow it to commingle with English and Spanish, in an effort that is both global and deeply local.

In “Pure Wit,” Francesca Peacock makes a fresh case for the writer Margaret Cavendish’s place in the feminist canon.