For generations, Japanese gangsters have styled themselves as heirs to the samurai—a mystique that helped them prosper in league with politicians, police, and big business.

“The Occidental Book of the Dead,” “Luna, Phoenix, Queen,” “The Minimalist,” and “The Decadent Movement.”

Test engineers stage reality, sometimes by extreme means, to make sure airplanes don’t fall apart, children can’t open pill bottles, and bears won’t break into coolers.

“The Vanishing Family,” “The Jews of Italy,” “I Made You Up Inside My Head,” and “Days & Chances.”

“The Radiance,” “Cloudthief,” “Dear Dealer,” and “Citizen Beast.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt was slow to confront the threat of Fascism. A new history explores how he—and the country—finally came around.

People say they want more children than they’re having. Is modern life stopping them—or have our ideas about a good life changed?

In the novel “Ply,” the Pulitzer Prize winner imagines a ruined New York, a fractured society, and the ultimate structure of existence.