A Nigerian plutocrat straight out of Harvard talks about the murderous school-age narrator of his first novel.

Paris Hilton and Salman Rushdie turn up in recent novels.

Frank McCourt talks about his years as a city public-school teacher—and crafting the perfect pickup line.

Publishing’s Oscars have traded last year’s obscurantism for a new affinity—historical novels about real people—and Norman Mailer is getting the lifetime-achievement award. The lineup, the backstory, and the likely outcome.

In 'Ex Machina,' a crime fighter is elected to City Hall. Sure, he can fly. But could he beat Bloomberg?

The first soldier memoirs and a sweeping history describe a war unlike any we’ve ever known.

A spate of real people turn up in recent novels.

The rebranding of Ruth Rendell.

What five New Yorkers read for a week, from personal ads to Georges Bataille’s The Unfinished System of Non-Knowledge.

Joan Didion on John, Quintana, her devastating memoir, and her persistent critics.