Books

“User Friendly” is an insider’s history of design, highlighting triumphs and catastrophes, foibles and advancements, a new benchmark in the study of user experience.

In “The Indispensable Composers,” Anthony Tommasini of The Times brings to bear wide personal experience, extensive knowledge, an approachable teaching style, and deep fondness for the material in taking us on a delightful journey.

A little beat up, a little worn down, getting long in the tooth, Sam Acquillo’s back for another seat-of-the-pants investigation into depravity.

The new Pushcart Prize table of contents lets us know that authors are thinking about drug overdoses, racism, cultural appropriation, caring for elderly family members, and the complicated political divide.

“Mag Men” by Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser, the formidable graphic designers whose work with New York magazine left a huge imprint on American journalism, adds to the bleak realization that an era has ended, but what a wonderful retrospective of a 50-year legacy of art direction this is.

From Mary Gaitskill’s novelistic reconsideration of the #MeToo movement to Elton John’s hilarious self-mockery, our man in letters picks ’em . . .

The incredible journey of a refugee Iraqi cat is out in a $7.99 paperback edition, and a Star “Guestwords” and book review contributor makes good with a collection of his own.

This heroic story, an uplifting portrait and an engaging account of a glamorous age, also shows what happens when a unique individual who finds acceptance overseas runs headlong into American racism.

The big story Paul Tough tells in “The Years That Matter Most” is about the failure of higher education in the 21st century to provide equal opportunity to all segments of American society. But it will lead you to reflect on your own academic experience, too.

Michael Bloomberg, the larger-than-life former mayor of New York, ubiquitous and initiative-heavy, has no greater fan than Eleanor Randolph, journalist and now biographer.

From Guild Hall’s new poet-in-residence, who will read a selection of her work Friday night at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor.

What’s different about Alan Furst’s latest World War II tale of espionage is its hero — a rank amateur, a naive neophyte, and, like his creator, a writer of spy novels.