Every year, bookstore shelves swell with new non-fiction works by authors who are all writing in response to their inner and outer lives, their surroundings, and their yearning for a better world.

Narrowing down the best books of 2025 to a list of 15 inevitably means leaving out fine works, including Shadow Ticket, the first novel by Thomas Pynchon in 12 years, and We Do Not Part by Nobel Prize ...

The literary landscape of the 21st century seems more and more divided when it comes to one particular aspect: plot. Some books have it; others don’t. The have-nots have gotten a lot of critical ...