Betty Davis, a bold and pioneering funk singer, model and songwriter of the 1960s and '70s who was credited with inspiring then-husband Miles Davis’ landmark fusion of jazz and more contemporary sounds, has died.

Receiving a literary prize from the American Library Association is a kind of homecoming for the essayist-poet Hanif Abdurraqib.

Colson Whitehead’s “Harlem Shuffle,” Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ “The Love Songs of W.

Lauren Groff’s novel “Matrix” is among the finalists for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for fiction.

Lauren Groff is a National Book Award finalist for her third consecutive book.

Louis Menand’s Cold War cultural history “The Free World” and Hanif Abdurraqib’s meditation on Black artistry “A Little Devil in America” are among the works on the nonfiction longlist for the National Book Awards.