“Androgyny,” “apathy” and other words and ideas that defined America’s last monoculture.

In “What’s With Baum?,” an anxious, jealous and thrice-married writer finds himself stranded in a culture that wants more “schmaltz,” less “wisdom.”

A CNN documentary and an upcoming series by Ryan Murphy delve into the nation’s most famous son, who remains fixed in the 1990s.

In “Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words,” Michael Owen offers a sympathetic portrait of the lyricist, overshadowed in a life that had him tending the…

In “Giant Love,” the novelist’s great-niece chronicles the Texas saga’s divisive reception and the epic film adaptation that’s now better known than the book.

In an eye-opening collection, Emily Mester considers why she, and we, seek satisfaction by obsessively choosing, buying and rating the objects we desire.

The first volume of her frank autobiography is a testament to resilience, chronicling a grim childhood and the brazen path to stardom, with and without…

Three new books make the case for music as medicine. In “The Schubert Treatment,” the most lyrical of the trio, a cellist takes us bedside…

Dorothy Parker worked on the script for “A Star Is Born,” but the tragic ending was all hers, while Bruce Eric Kaplan manages to find…

In “Seeing Through,” the prolific composer Ricky Ian Gordon shares the heroes, monsters, obsessions and fetishes that drive his art and fuel a dizzying life.