Books

The letters in Bill Henderson’s “Dear Boys” are addressed to twin grandsons in anticipation of their future adolescence, offering advice on how to live a good life.

A handsome new coffee-table book shows off the skills and the life’s work of an N.B.A. photographer. Some of the greatest dunks in hoops history, too.

A beautifully put together volume about an artist and his work doubles as a history of Long Island’s development.

A Writer’s Desk residency at the college, Kathy Engel at Barnes & Noble, and David Browne’s history of Greenwich Village’s glory days at Sag Harbor Books.

You want New York in the ’70s? Guy Trebay’s “Do Something” is a small masterpiece celebrating its art, lit, and grit, its easy rents and hard times.

The story behind the foresight and planning that left us so much public land for our collective enjoyment. Stories, plural, actually, and 27 distinct histories.

Meet Samson Occom (1723-1792), Mohegan, scholar, orator, Montauker, minister, synthesizer of native spirituality and Christianity, prolific author of religious tracts.

In Kathy Engel’s timely new collection, “Dear Inheritors,” the poems do not sit still, they rise to the occasion of deep conversation, particularly when the subjects are tough.

Sex and drugs, sure, but especially opera: Ricky Ian Gordon lays it bare in telling the tale of his roller-coaster life as a composer.

Call it a cult following? Thomas McGonigle is out with a new paperback edition of his metafictional “Going to Patchogue.”

Murder most fun? It may have come out while the days were still cold, but A.J. Finn’s “End of Story” is the beach read to end all beach reads.

Betsy McCully’s richly descriptive writing and photos create a compelling invitation to readers to get out and explore, and amount to a powerful call to action to preserve the endangered places of Long Island.