NYT Books

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.

Murder mysteries by the men who brought you Winnie-the-Pooh and Daniel Day-Lewis.

Murder mysteries by the men who brought you Winnie-the-Pooh and Daniel Day-Lewis.

In “The Furies,” the journalist Elizabeth Flock reports the stories of three women who fought back — to defend themselves, other women or their people.

Reading her audiobook memoir, “How to Say Babylon,” the poet gives voice to her Jamaican roots, her early ambition and the Rastafari father who would have quashed it.