New York Times Book Reviews

“Magnum China” collects decades-worth of images by Western photographers of a nation gripped by political conflict.

“Food on the Move,” edited by Sharon Hudgins, is a collection of essays exploring the glamorous past and occasionally delectable present of dining on trains around the world.

Vivien Schweitzer’s history of the genre, “A Mad Love,” and Heidi Waleson’s intricate account of the New York City Opera, “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias,” testify to an art that inspires deep passions.

In “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” Idle remembers the Pythons and other famous friends; in “Professor at Large,” Cleese revisits his years at Cornell.

In “No One at the Wheel,” Samuel Schwartz, the onetime traffic commissioner of New York City, examines the perils of driverless cars.

Dispatches from a former border patrol agent and more.

Sitting in front of Marina Abramovic at the Museum of Modern Art showed the author Heather Rose what it meant to be vulnerable.

From the Harlem Renaissance to today, the painting and photography and poetry of black Americans have both shaped and reflected a shifting cultural landscape.

“How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England,” by Ruth Goodman, and “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?,” by Cecelia Tichi, are witty guides to the manners and insults of previous eras.

Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s “Hungover” is filled with boozy factoids, eccentric remedies and tales of alcoholic adventures on several continents.

Sign of the times? The University of Iowa, home to the famous Writers’ Workshop, now has a television-writing course.

The British actor Richard Armitage delivers a masterly reading of Heather Morris’s World War II story, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

Max Hastings discusses his new history of the war, and Sue Prideaux talks about the life of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

One is set in the world of Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family. One features talking latkes. Both capture the holiday’s promise that light will triumph over darkness.

In three new collections, writers explore the lives of individuals testing the boundaries that separate themselves from other people.

In “Severance,” by Ling Ma, and “We Can Save Us All,” by Adam Nemett, young people are faced with preventing, or even just surviving, impending apocalypse.

The illustrator Katie Fricas celebrates what would have been the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s 90th birthday this month.

With “Nine Perfect Strangers,” the “Big Little Lies” author has delivered another ambitious, darkly comic thriller.

A grasping, conniving young writer schemes his way to the top in “A Ladder to the Sky,” John Boyne’s dark satire of literary ambition.