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Vladimir Putin, by all reports, has an enemies list a mile long. The chances are good that Moscow-born journalist Masha Gessen, author of the new book The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, figures prominently on it as both a campaigner for LGBTQ rights in Russia and as a writer who has long chronicled the excesses of the Putin regime.

 The chances are just as good that Gessen, who has lived in the United States off and on for ...

Right after his mother died, Sherman Alexie wrote 100 poems in a frenzy. “Grief makes you obsessive in a way I’ve never been obsessive before, and I have actual OCD,” he explains about the genesis of his new memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. He felt that after his mother’s death he could finally be honest about the complications of their relationship. But as he probed deeper into the nature of his grief, he found that ...

This week we launch our list of the Best Nonfiction books of 2017. These 100 books were chosen through an admittedly unscientific method that combines the assessments of our reviewers and my discretion as the nonfiction editor. While all 100 books are undoubtedly worthy of attention, these five books made a particularly lasting impression on me this year. They appear in alphabetical order.

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood: “A noted young poet unexpectedly boomerangs back into her parents’ home and transforms ...

According to poet and critic Kevin Young’s latest treatise, there’s something more American than apple pie. Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News is a philosophical history of the hoax, from mid-19th-century circus sideshows to the baseless stories that circulate our social media feeds.

“People had for a long time thought of the hoax in a kind of pleasant way,” says Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem ...

Beverly Gray was as smitten as anyone.

Not so much with the character of Benjamin Braddock, though he had an urchin’s appeal, but with the totality of one of the most influential movies of the 20th century, Mike Nichols’ The Graduate.  

On the occasion of the film’s 50th anniversary, Gray offers a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the genesis and making of the movie, as well as a celebration of its enduring cinematic and cultural significance. 

In Seduced by ...

As an avid reader and aspiring author, Juli Berwald noted what sold when it came to nonfiction science books: authoritative, impersonal, exactly 10 chapters, and typically written by men.

“I would read those books and say to myself, ‘I can’t write a book like this,’ ” says Berwald, who holds a Ph.D. in ocean science from the University of Southern California and writes and edits textbooks, “and it would really bum me out, because I’m a science writer ...

One of the great joys of this season are the fall colors, and November is packed with books that feature much more than just interesting narratives. Here are three of my favorite beautifully designed, graphics-heavy books publishing this month, all of which received a starred review.

Cartoon County, by Cullen Murphy: In his memoir, Vanity Fair editor at large Murphy, who also served as the managing editor of Atlantic Monthly, chronicles his life among the many cartoonists and newspaper artists ...

When it comes to chronicling turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York City, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Mike Wallace takes a novel approach.

“History is written in the grooves,” says Wallace, author of Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898-1919. “There are economic historians, political historians, cultural historians, social historians, gender historians, African-American historians...and people who are specializing in a field may develop particular terminologies of examination that are appropriate for that group. 

“The thing is, that’s not ...