NYT Books

This season’s bounty includes volumes on far-out artists, unusual cats and enviable gardens.

“Prince Faggot,” “Figaro/Faggots” and other productions use the word to shock, provoke, reclaim it for gay men or all of the above. Does that make it OK?

Lauren Rothery’s “Television” finds an action star and two writers dazed by the changing rules of the entertainment industry.

“I have to be still for a certain amount of time,” says the “Wicked” star and author of “Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much.”

The pair work together to envision Kristian Hadeland, the protagonist of the author’s latest novel, “The School of Night.”

What birders well know, fans of “composite organisms” and other creatures can now learn: how to identify obscure species in the wild.

The filmmaker Chloé Zhao and the novelist-turned-screenwriter Maggie O’Farrell explained the changes they made in the tale of Shakespeare, his wife and their son.

Her nine volumes included “Kyrie,” a suite of sonnets about the 1918 influenza epidemic. She was also Pulitzer Prize finalist and a poet laureate of Vermont.

Need the perfect holiday gift? Try one of these recent releases.

As told in Tarpley Hitt’s rollicking “Barbieland,” the rise of America’s doll alter ego is much messier and more interesting than any movie.