Books

A look back at a public firestorm and its lingering aftereffects in the wake of a radioactive spill at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

For the Paul McCartney superfan, here’s a mammoth tome documenting seemingly every waking moment of his life from 1969 to 1973. 

Behold codependency, substance abuse, lovelessness, lack of sexual compatibility, grievous inequity, and unsettling disrespect as Carmela Ciuraru chronicles five eventful literary marriages.

Spring surges and the April moon hovers.

Pfizer’s chief corporate affairs officer writes a memoir that’s also a story of the Covid vaccine rollout and a how-to for public communications.

Commemorating those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire on March 25, 1911.

In a new biography, Bill Janovitz shows that Leon Russell was way more than just a capable keyboardist and bandleader. 

Considering George Balanchine, the autocratic, contradictory Russian émigré who gave new life to American ballet.

In lyrical prose, a Pulitzer winner explores the wages of modernity by way of a small island off Maine.

When the Algonquin whispers to you.

“Fit Nation” is a detailed Baedeker of the democratization of athletics, with spot-on observations regarding the sociology of fitness. 

Jeffrey Sussman’s “Sin City Gangsters” takes us on an impressive journey from the tawdry beginnings of Las Vegas through to its current almost Disney World iteration.

Eric Alterman is back with a typically contentious, hefty, diligently detailed exploration, this time focused on the long-running American debate over Israel.

For connoisseurs of brevity, the 14 pieces in John McCaffrey’s “Automatically Hip,” some only two pages in length, will deliver a sweet take on the short form.

Paul Goldberger’s architecture criticism gets a revision, and Peter Eliott is out with a fantasy novel.

The killing of two Black brothers by a white police officer in Freeport in 1946 was a little-known but pivotal moment in a long and tragic history.

Frederic Tuten’s short prose vignettes accompany his prints in pastels and ink, and the result is delightfully whimsical.

Here is Peter Beard, wildlife photographer, artist, naturalist, author, blue blood, and ladies’ man, considered by someone who knew him well across some 30 years.

One man’s life seen from a belted car seat.

Capt. William Kidd’s wife, Sarah, a shrewd money and property player in her own right, is hereby rescued from history’s dustbin.

A couple of professional historians cut through the agenda-driven amateurism that’s crippling civic discourse.

The Star’s incredibly well-read man in letters bids an insightful farewell to the year that was.

In the second volume of Neal Gabler’s monumental biography, Ted Kennedy’s progressive priorities run up against a resurgent American right.

In this slim and lyrical novel, Max Little, an author with a fatal disease, ponders what’s ahead while dreading having to tell his wife.

This nonfiction play-turned-book amusingly showcases two artistic giants as if they were at a gossipy lunch.

A poet and author of picture books contemplates dealing with anger.

In A.M. Homes’s latest, “The Unfolding,” it’s the revenge of the rich, white Republicans against a backdrop of family discord.

Jann Wenner was in the right place (San Francisco) at the right time (1967). Not to diminish the man's achievements as a magazine magnate. Here’s his story.

From a series of poems on full moons and the Algonquins.

“Death of a Salesman” made Arthur Miller, rich, famous, and admired. So how was he “defeated” by Marilyn Monroe?