Nonfiction

In The New One: Painfully True Stories From a Reluctant Dad (Grand Central), comedian Mike Birbiglia devotes his unflinching and brilliant storytelling acumen to parenthood — to fatherhood — as well as how he, a man deeply determined never to have children, found himself with one. Nuanced, honest, hilarious, but also poignant, it’s a story that reveals not only his own but also our collective human nature — reassuring us that we’re actually all in this thing together. The New One is sprinkled with poetry by Birbiglia’s wife, J. Hope Stein, written as she navigated the same rocky shores of new parenthood. With laugh-out-loud observations on the roller coaster of being a parent, The New One is perfect for anyone who has ever raised a…