Entertainment
7 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Our recommended books this week include histories of corporate mismanagement and misbehavior in the 19th century (“Savings and Trust”) and in the 21st (“Valley So Low”), along with a family memoir of mental illness, a true crime account of forgery in the world of absinthe enthusiasts, and a history of the botanists who preserved an important seed bank in the midst of war and starvation. In fiction, we recommend a new novel by Susan Minot and a story collection by Mark Haddon. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles
DON’T BE A STRANGER
Susan Minot
As she dependably has for some 35 years now, Minot once again uses her sharp fiction as a vehicle to explore female desire, staging a romantic collision between a divorced mother and a much younger musician.
Credit…“Rather than a book you ‘can’t put down,’ it’s one you might pause from precisely to prolong its mild suspense and poetic pleasures. … Female libido is hot, hot, hot in serious fiction, and Minot continues to maintain one of the bluest flames.”
From Alexandra Jacobs’s review
Knopf | $28
DOGS AND MONSTERS:
Stories
Mark Haddon
Haddon is best known for his 2003 novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” but he is equally accomplished at creating gripping narratives and sympathetic characters in his shorter fiction. The stories in this splendid new collection are inspired by an eclectic variety of sources, including Greek mythology and canonical British writers.
Credit…“The work of a consummate storyteller, the brilliantly conceived ‘Dogs and Monsters’ illuminates a variety of species, both real and mythical, including our own.”
From Hilma Wolitzer’s review
Doubleday | $28
