Now we’re more connected than ever online, spending time alone or being single can seem against the grain, despite being an experience shared by millions. A Times Book of the Year, Alonement: How To Be Alone & Absolutely Own It is an expansion of the podcast of the same name where Francesca Specter explores dedicating quality time to yourself with guests including Alain de Botton and Alexandra Shulman. Unattached: 30 Essays on Singlehood, edited by Angel...

Decades of writing bestselling books and award-winning essays has seen Adam Gopnik take on myriad topics. But recently a question obsessed him: how did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf? In The Real Work the long standing New Yorker writer apprentices as a boxer, a dancer and a driving instructor and other roles he’d assumed beyond him. He finds that learning a ski...