Books

To be buried or cremated, that is the question for one skirt-chasing, peep show-visiting, Bukowski-reading baby boomer.

Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale fought the fiercest trilogy of title bouts of the 20th century, matching an ex-con from the slums against an upstanding Midwesterner.

Read in our often bewildering #MeToo world, Meg Wolitzer’s “The Female Persuasion” is an almost prophetic tale of gender and power, shaped by a sustained inquiry into relationships.

Chris Knopf’s latest mystery involves the clubbing death of a deep-undercover intelligence operative, black-jumpsuited ninja types, and the fine cabinetry and company of one Sam Acquillo.

Alafair Burke’s “The Wife” asks a worrying question: If you suffer through a traumatic event, do you recover? Or do you just think you have recovered?

A.J. Jacobs confirms the beguiling promise of ancestry-hunting: to construct a narrative for yourself that is more interesting than the one you’ve got.

How do you figure out what comes next after what gave your life meaning is gone?

BookEnds — a workshop established by Susan Scarf Merrell and Meg Wolitzer of Stony Brook Southampton’s M.F.A. program in creative writing.

“Don’t Save Anything” contains a number of James Salter pieces that are indispensable, many of them rescued from boxes stored in places reachable only with a ladder.

The origin story of Lou Reed, from Long Island wiseass to victim of electroshock therapy to tutelage under the poet Delmore Schwartz.

By Bruce Buschel

Some nonfiction gems in an off year for fiction, when current events overshadow everything.

Boy, do we miss Kurt Vonnegut, that shambling, head down, creased-face man in the beat-up raincoat who loved the world, and was broken by the foolish people who were trampling it underfoot.

T.E. McMorrow will sign copies of “The Nutcracker in Harlem,” his new picture book, at two Books of Wonder locations in Manhattan on Sunday.

A brilliant chemist, a president of Harvard, a leader of the Manhattan Project, and a top Cold War diplomat. Meet James B. Conant.

Temporal slippage, a birthmark, and visions of a David ("Cloud Atlas") Mitchell adventure for young readers.

Social observation, city atmosphere, and a highly sexual, white-collar hero: Colin Harrison is back with another New York noir.

One essential aspect of the women’s suffrage movement — the role men played in helping sway history — has been largely overlooked. Not anymore.

Virginia Walker's empathy-themed poetry contest? We have the winners . . .

Paul Moschetta's psychological thriller offers an insider’s knowledge of the abuse that exists in mental institutions.

Sarah Maslin Nir's "Horse Crazy," and a Civil War-era "Because of the Horses"

By Bernard Goldhirsch

Susan Verde and Billy Baldwin look on the brighter side in two new picture books.

Art-inspired writing at the Parrish, Grace Schulman on John Ashbery at Canio's

The visionary of the ages, captured by the man who made Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs relatable.

Justin Spring weaves the lives of his six literary and cultural subjects into a larger, lively narrative of how America was dragged from its culinary provincialism.

A picture of a kooky, crafty, ambitious, hilarious, insecure, sometimes spiteful, always entertaining Nora Ephron as she pursues her brilliant career as a novelist, essayist, script writer, and director.

“Truth reveals itself . . . it’s really that simple.” Such is at the core of Alice McDermott’s extraordinary new novel, “The Ninth Hour,” about several nuns serving an early-20th-century Brooklyn neighborhood.

By Bruce Buschel, a writer, producer, director, and restaurateur who lives in Bridgehampton.

With the syndication of his "Sportlight" column, Grantland Rice became the most famous and highest-paid sportswriter in the country.