What to Read Now

The novelist played with reality and chance in tales of solitary narrators and mutable identities. Here’s an overview of his work.

His spare, icily precise books explore humanity’s most serious themes, including South Africa’s legacy of apartheid. And not all of them are downers.

Barbara Kingsolver, whose Pulitzer-winning “Demon Copperhead” offered a variegated portrait of the region, guides readers through a literary landscape “as bracing and complex as a tumbling mountain creek.”

Hanoi, long a city of storytellers, has been devastated and reborn time and time again. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai guides readers through the literature that has played a part in that renewal.

Novels from Ann Patchett and James McBride, a biography of the Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong and a handful of edgy thrillers — including one about a scuba driver swallowed by a whale.

Reading and writing are deeply valued in Maine. The novelist Lily King recommends fiction, nature writing, memoirs, children’s books and inspiration for writers.

The writer Itamar Vieira Junior says that to “feel the intensity of life on the streets of Salvador” in Bahia, Brazil, a reader must start with Jorge Amado.

His clever, melancholic mind produced some of the most enduring heroes in spy fiction. Here are his best books.

The poet and novelist Luis Alberto Urrea thinks the borderlands are the most interesting book in the world, being rewritten every day. These are his recommendations.

Elliot Page discusses his gender transition in a new memoir, and S.A. Cosby returns with a police thriller. Also: New Lorrie Moore!

The acclaimed British novelist was also an essayist, memoirist and critic of the first rank.

The man behind the landmark reboot of “The Sandman” comic (and Netflix series) is going strong after decades of writing in just about every format. Here’s where to get started with his books for adults.

A landmark biography of Martin Luther King Jr., Tom Hanks’s debut novel, a dystopian work of fiction about the prison industrial complex and more.

A thrilling shipwreck tale by David Grann, newly translated fiction by Han Kang and plenty more.

New memoirs, a landmark biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., a look at the woman who helped halt the rise of a K.K.K. leader — and more.

Watch for reality-bending explorations of time and space, a Western horror novel from Victor LaValle and new fiction from Han Kang. Plus: Tom Hanks (yes, that Tom Hanks) releases his debut novel.

Known for her psychopathic antiheroes and novels such as “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “The Price of Salt,” Highsmith was a tangle of contradictions.

A haunting horror novel set a century ago in the American West, Eleanor Catton’s first novel in a decade, a Ukrainian war diary and much more.

The author, considered by some to be the greatest French writer of her time, played with words and convention. Here’s where to start with her work.

A salty historical romp, two deep dives into the entertainment industry, a handful of memoirs and Salman Rushdie’s much-anticipated new novel, “Victory City.”