New York Times Books
Nonfiction: Why the Legend of Al Capone Still Fascinates
In “Al Capone,” Deirdre Bair investigates Public Enemy No. 1 through the unexpected lens of home and family.
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Nonfiction: A Millennium of Undergarments
Karen Bowman’s “Corsets and Codpieces” is a brisk romp through a millennium of fashion’s victims.
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Nonfiction: 45 Pop Music Hits, in the Words of Their Creators
In Marc Myers’s “Anatomy of a Song,” songwriters and performers speak in their own voices about one of their signature songs.
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Nonfiction: Every Englishman Wants a Wood of His Own
Richard Fortey’s “The Wood for the Trees” includes a striking, immensely detailed portrait of the flora and fauna contained in four acres.
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Nonfiction: Is ‘Rashomon’ Kurosawa’s Best Film?
“Kurosawa’s Rashomon,” by Paul Anderer, is part biography of Kurosawa, part cultural history of modern Japan and part film monograph.
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Nonfiction: Locks, Mops and Bouffants: Two Books on Hair
A look at the international hair trade, and a handsome coffee table book by the celebrity hairdresser John Barrett.
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Nonfiction: Examining the Artists of the Revolutionary Era
Paul Staiti’s “Of Arms and Artists” and Jane Kamensky’s “A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley” focus on Revolutionary-era culture.
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Nonfiction: Next to the Horrors of Eugene O’Neill’s Life, His Plays Were Light Comedy
“By Women Possessed,” Arthur and Barbara Gelb’s third biographical volume about Eugene O’Neill, suggests that next to the horrors of his actual life, the plays are charming diversions.
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Bruce Mazlish, Who Fused Psychoanalysis and History in His Books, Dies at 93
Mr. Mazlish created controversy with psychoanalytic biographies of living world leaders, including one about Richard M. Nixon.
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10 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading by book critics and editors at The New York Times.
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Fiction: Robert Harris’s Thriller Goes Inside the Vatican
Robert Harris’s new thriller, “Conclave,” is a tightly woven tale about power machinations at the top of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Nonfiction: A Biography of Moses, the Man
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg’s “Moses: A Human Life” shows a man facing the divine and the elusive meaning of life.
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Roundup: Great Outdoors: Landscapes, Both Natural and Created by Human Hands
New books include “Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America’s National Parks.”
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Books of The Times: Review: Michael Lewis on Two Well Matched (but Finally Mismatched) Men
“The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds” looks at the groundbreaking collaboration between the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
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Nonfiction: What’s So Funny About Jewish Humor?
Michael Krasny’s “Let There Be Laughter” is celebration of Jewish humor.
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Nonfiction: Islands in the Sun
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s “Island People,” about the Caribbean, is the product of more than a dozen years of extended visits to the region.
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Nonfiction: Wordless Short Stories by Richard McGuire
Richard McGuire’s charming “Sequential Drawings” collects over a decade’s worth of spot illustrations for The New Yorker.
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Nonfiction: ‘The Women Who Made New York’: Icons, Trailblazers and Visionaries
Julie Scelfo’s book positions itself as an antidote to the historiographical tradition of forgetting — and belatedly remembering — women.
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Nonfiction: When Fake News Was Funny
Chris Smith’s oral history traces the 16-year sprint that turned “The Daily Show” from a second-rate cable presentation into a vital institution in American politics and the media.
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