Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
At the National Book Awards last night, the nonfiction chair Ada Ferrer explained what she and her fellow judges had been looking for as they narrowed the field from hundreds of submissions to five finalists and finally one winner (Ned Blackhawk’s “The Rediscovery of America”): They wanted books that somehow made a difference, in any of the many ways that books can do that, and that were well written, in any of the many ways that books can meet that definition.
That turns out to be a pretty handy guide to the things we look for each week, too, when we recommend books to you. Without further ado, then, this week’s nominees. In nonfiction, we recommend Roz Chast’s whimsical book of dream interpretations, Patricia Evangelista’s investigation of state-sanctioned murder in the Philippines and Tiya Miles’s environmental history of activist women, along with an exposé of the world’s biggest hedge fund (by the Times reporter Rob Copeland) and Lisa M. Hamilton’s study of immigration as seen from the perspective of a Laotian rice farmer in Fresno, Calif.
In fiction, our choices include new novels by Alice McDermott, Maria Vale, and Martin Clark, and in poetry we recommend Major Jackson’s expansive new career-spanning collection, “Razzle Dazzle.” Happy reading.
—Gregory Cowles
MOLLY MOLLOY AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH
Maria Vale
In this electric, slapstick stunner, a young woman’s unlikely friendship with Death sidles into profound love, simultaneously challenging the romance genre’s tradition of happy endings and embracing the truth that we all love people who are bound to die.
“A weird, adorable stunner of a romance. … Sometimes the most direct way to defy death is to celebrate the life — and lusts — of the body.”
From Olivia Waite’s romance column
Sungrazer | Paperback, $14.99
I MUST BE DREAMING
Roz Chast
The cartoon chronicler of urban neurosis sketches scenes from her nocturnal imagination (food plays an outsize part) and wryly chews on the many theories of what the mind does when our eyes close. It’s a little odds-and-endsy, but a pleasurable rummage nonetheless.
“Chast’s dreams are a window cracked open onto her creative process; a grab bag of treats more salty than sweet.”
From Alexandra Jacobs’s review
Bloomsbury | $27.99
SOME PEOPLE NEED KILLING:
A Memoir of Murder in My Country
Patricia Evangelista
This powerful book focuses on the years between 2016 and 2022, when President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines pursued a campaign of extrajudicial killings. Evangelista, then a reporter for an independent news site, evokes the fear and grief she felt as she chronicled the horror.
“She pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer. Language can be used to communicate, to deny, to threaten, to cajole. Duterte’s language is coarse and degrading. Evangelista’s is evocative and exacting.”
From Jennifer Szalai’s review
Random House | $30
ABSOLUTION
Alice McDermott
What happens when two very different American women attempt to help the people of Vietnam? The answer is complicated in McDermott’s tense, spare new novel, which begins in Saigon in 1963 and delves into the experiences of wives seeking their bearings in an unfamiliar world.
“McDermott’s subject is not intervention per se but the altruistic impulse — particularly as practiced by those whose privilege lets them anoint themselves to heal.”
From Jennifer Egan’s review
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $28
WILD GIRLS:
How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation
Tiya Miles
This brisk, intimate history, by a National Book Award-winning Harvard historian, is stocked with revelatory detail about the role of nature in the lives of a diverse array of American women, among them Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott and Octavia Butler.
“Reframes hard-fought battles for women’s equality through the lens of empowerment provided by the natural world. It begs us to acknowledge the primacy of the earth not only in historical lives but in our own as well.”
From Jill Watts’s review
Norton | $22
THE HUNGRY SEASON:
A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
Lisa M. Hamilton
Through the lyrical and dramatic story of a Laotian rice farmer in Fresno, Calif., Hamilton, a journalist, explores the realities of Hmong displacement, the State Department’s relocation program and the immigrant’s tenuous grip on solvency.
“Hamilton is a master observer, as attentive to Ia’s world as Ia is to her seedlings. … A nonfiction deep dive into rice farming may not sound like a page turner. But Ia’s story has real suspense to it.”
From Ellen Barry’s review
Little, Brown | $30
THE FUND:
Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
Rob Copeland
Bridgewater is the world’s biggest hedge fund — and an awful place to work, according to this propulsive book by a Times reporter who details its miserable office climate.
“How a man of surpassing mediocrity used money to control and humiliate, and how much people abased themselves for it. … One of the better books ever written about Wall Street.”
From Mark Gimein’s review
St. Martin’s | $32
THE PLINKO BOUNCE
Martin Clark
Clark, a retired judge, brings an insider’s knowledge of the courtroom and an evenhanded, unflashy authority to his legal thrillers. Here, a public defender representing an obviously guilty client struggles with squaring his notion of justice with his professional responsibility.
“Terrific. … His characters seem airlifted from another era, when lawyers were honest and courteous and believed in one another’s good intentions.”
From Sarah Lyall’s thrillers column
Rare Bird Books | $28
RAZZLE DAZZLE:
New and Selected Poems, 2002-2022
Major Jackson
Epistolary poetry, lists, rhymes so deft you scarcely notice them, prose poems, free verse: Jackson stocks this career-spanning jukebox with every kind of poem one could ask for. What they share is meatiness.
“The reader is carried effortlessly through this rich panorama as though perched on the poet’s handlebars. … The whole world is in these poems.”
From David Kirby’s review
Norton | $26.95