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In 1963 Betty Friedan published a groundbreaking work that empowered a generation of women. With World War II over, women who had been working were told to find fulfillment at home. "The moment was so pregnant and ready for an explosion," says New York Times columnist Gail Collins.

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman is known for his straightforward approach to recipes. In How To Cook Everything: Vegetarian, he explains how to make more than 2,000 meatless meals.

Using excerpts from letters and diaries, historian and critic Bill Goldstein follows writers Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot through the tumultuous literary year of 1922.

The singer-songwriter's new book is an unconventional rock memoir that doesn't hew to the genre's norms. And like her entire musical catalog, it's honest and original.

It's been 100 years since the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and the anniversary brings with it a barrage of literature. Former NPR editor Rachel Syme has been keeping track of the new releases and lists her favorites here. Do you have a favorite Titanic book? Let us know in the comments.

J. Michael Lennon's mammoth new Norman Mailer: A Double Life draws on 25 years of access to its subject. Reviewer Alan Cheuse — himself a Mailer fan — says the biography is a "satisfying experience" that reads almost as if it came directly from the writer himself.

Robert Harris' new An Officer and a Spy is a fictionalized account of the Dreyfus Affair — which, as critic Alan Cheuse notes, is tailor made for Harris' talents: there's an innocent victim at the center, a melodramatic villain, buffoonish military brass, crusading newspaper editors and a star turn from the novelist Emile Zola.

Rachel Joyce's new novel offers two parallel narratives: the 1972 story of Byron, an anxious schoolboy, and the present-day account of Jim, a supermarket worker who has spent most of his life in institutional care. But critic Ellah Allfrey says that the novel is made up of two distinct and unequal parts.

Bridget Jones, as you may have heard, is back: 51, widowed and juggling two small children and a much younger boy toy. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that while she doesn't mind the subtraction of hunky Mark Darcy, she misses the messy but honest charm of the younger Bridget.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly is writing a book about the botched raid, during which he shot into Taylor's apartment after being wounded. Post Hill Press says it will move forward with its plans to publish.