Under Review
Deep dives into new books.
The Best Books We’ve Read in 2024 So Far
Our editors and critics review notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
By The New Yorker
The Paradoxical Paradise of the Garden
Olivia Laing’s memoir of restoring a garden unearths the politics and history of cultivating a plot.
By Katie Kadue
Should We Expect More from Dads?
Two new books assess our contemporary scripts for fatherhood.
By Hua Hsu
A New Book About Plant Intelligence Highlights the Messiness of Scientific Change
In “The Light Eaters,” by Zoë Schlanger, the field of botany itself functions as a character—one in the process of undergoing a potentially radical transformation.
By Rachel Riederer
A Portrait of Japanese America, in the Shadow of the Camps
An essential new volume collects accounts of Japanese incarceration by patriotic idealists, righteous firebrands, and downtrodden cynics alike.
By Hua Hsu
The Texas School District That Provided the Blueprint for an Attack on Public Education
When conservative activists began waging battle against diversity plans, some had a much bigger target in mind.
By Jessica Winter
The Journalist Biography in an Age of Crisis
A memoir by Nicholas Kristof and a biography of Barbara Walters invoke halcyon days in the news business. What can we learn from their lives?
By Krithika Varagur
Nellie Bowles’s Failed Provocations
In “Morning After the Revolution,” the former New York Times reporter sets out to uncover a not-so-forbidden truth—that the left can be somewhat goofy.
By Molly Fischer
Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?
New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
By Erik Baker
Mastering the Art of Making a Cookbook
Working with Julia Child and a host of author-chefs, the editor Judith Jones transformed American kitchens.
By Adam Gopnik