Berry Picker

Héctor Abad creates a sociopolitical portrait of Colombia through the telling of his family’s story.

In Paul Theroux’s novel, an American seeks a fresh start in Africa after a 40-year absence.

Eric Alterman’s history of liberalism from the New Deal to the present concentrates on the men and women who have defined it.

Fleeing the pressures of academia, Thad Ziolkowski’s Midwestern hero is sucked into his family’s schemes and strife.

The paleontologist Richard Fortey searches out species that have endured hundreds of millions of years of planetary turmoil.

Whether in Paris or the Great Plains, failures to communicate fray the relationships in these tales.

A firefight with Iraqi insurgents is caught on tape and turns a band of soldiers into media heroes in Ben Fountain’s satire.

Jonathan Franzen’s essays express his love of birds and of writers, especially his friend David Foster Wallace.

Jonah Goldberg accuses liberals of lazy thinking and worse.

With a Venusian transit imminent, 18th-century astronomers risked their lives for a chance to measure the solar system.

Lucia Perillo’s two collections, poems and stories, draw upon her experiences in a world that often hurts her.

In Toni Morrison’s novel, a traumatized soldier returns from the Korean War to his segregated hometown in Georgia.

A new biography of David Hockney traces his early life and work in England and Los Angeles up to 1975, including fascinating accounts of how some well-known paintings evolved.

Janet Maslin asks, Who is the real amateur in this pairing: the subject, President Obama, or the author, Edward Klein?

In Elisa Carbone’s “Heroes of the Surf,” two young boys travel from South America to New York City on a steamship that encounters rough waters.

Two Hasidic girls, united as a result of Nazi persecution, pursue opposite paths in this novel by Anouk Markovits.

The author of “Friday Night Lights” goes on the road with his young-adult son, a savant with serious intellectual deficits, and writes an unflinchingly honest memoir.

“A Disposition to Be Rich,” by the prizewinning historian Geoffrey C. Ward, is a scandal-filled but eminently fair book that airs his great-grandfather’s dirty laundry.

A new book by a California psychologist examines obsessions with smartphones and other devices — and suggests ways to overcome the neediness.

Two young women fight for Britain during World War II.