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Our columnist on some stellar recent releases.

He wrote more than 130 books, mostly collections of poetry and translations of classics, as well as lowbrow novels under a pen name.

In “The CIA Book Club,” Charlie English tells the story of America’s war of ideas in the Eastern Bloc.

In “The Beast in the Clouds,” Nathalia Holt tells the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s eldest sons, and their doomed attempt to escape his shadow.

Childhood trauma led Chris Whitaker to write the novel. Meeting readers over the last year spurred him to realize he should have dealt with it sooner.

A childhood friendship in upper-class Beijing is tested by envy, ambition and relentless materialism.

Megan C. Reynolds takes on the biggest linguistic battle of our age.

A daughter of privilege, she mixed social satire with murder in a series of addictive mysteries.

“Mansfield Park” continues to complicate the writer’s legacy 250 years after her birth. Lauren Groff explains how the novel’s dark themes and complex ironies help keep Austen weird.

Despite a gorgeous score and some fine performances, the musical adaptation of the Madeleine L’Engle classic gets trapped in a time loop.