New & Recommended

Villages
By John Updike

Updike's latest novel presents a protagonist who muses on his past and present, focusing on the small towns he has known, and the life within. (Knopf, $25).

Naked Airport
By Alastair Gordon

The epic history of air travel and the architecture that grew up around it (Metropolitan, $27.50).

Harbor
By Lorraine Adams

This remarkable tale about illegal Algerian immigrants in Boston examines many assumptions that have formed since 9/11 (Knopf, $23.95).

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
By Susanna Clarke

Faux footnotes, social observations, and wizard rivalry fuel this novel about a magical Regency England (Bloomsbury, $26.95).

The Plot Against America
By Philip Roth

Roth's ingenious retelling of 20th-century American history (Houghton Mifflin, $26).

Selected from books recently reviewed in the Globe.