canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/nytimes.com/books

# Nytimes Books API

This NYT Books spec is a third-party Konfig-sourced bundle that mirrors the NYT Books service with one extra endpoint, `/lists/full-overview.json`, returning the complete entries across every active Best Sellers list rather than just the top five. The 7 GET endpoints provide programmatic access to NYT Best Sellers rankings (current and historical), the catalogue of available list names, individual book ranking history by ISBN or author, and NYT critic book reviews. Responses include ISBN-13, weeks-on-list, rank-last-week, publisher, and Amazon product URLs.

## For AI agents

Pull NYT Best Sellers rankings, full overview snapshots, list metadata, book ranking history, and critic reviews via 7 GET endpoints.

## Scope

Does not handle book purchases, e-book downloads, or general article search - use for NYT Best Sellers rankings, list overviews, and critic book reviews only.

## Capabilities

- Retrieve a Best Sellers list for a given date and list name
- Pull the full overview of every Best Sellers list in a single call
- Fetch the trimmed top-5 overview snapshot across all active lists
- Enumerate every available Best Sellers list with publication frequency
- Look up a book's complete ranking history by ISBN, author, or title
- Search NYT critic book reviews filtered by author, ISBN, or date

## Use cases

### Cross-List Best Sellers Dashboard

Build a dashboard that shows every active NYT Best Sellers list at full depth in a single load. The `/lists/full-overview.json` endpoint returns the complete ranked entries across every list rather than just the top five returned by the standard overview endpoint, letting consumers display all 50+ lists without making per-list requests.

Example prompt: Call `/lists/full-overview.json` and group the results by list name to render a tabbed dashboard with full rankings per list.

### Book Ranking History Lookup

Power a book detail page that shows a title's full NYT Best Sellers ranking history. The `/lists/best-sellers/history.json` endpoint accepts isbn, author, title, or publisher and returns every list appearance with weeks-on-list and rank progression, enabling rich book-detail visualisations.

Example prompt: Call `/lists/best-sellers/history.json`?isbn=9780525559474 and chart the rank-last-week values over weeks-on-list to produce a ranking trajectory.

### Editorial Review Aggregation

Aggregate NYT critic reviews for a book detail page or recommendation feed. The /reviews.json endpoint accepts isbn, title, or author and returns review metadata with byline and review URL, supporting editorial integrations alongside the bestseller data.

Example prompt: Call /reviews.json?author=Colson+Whitehead and return each review with the published date, byline, and URL.

### Agent-Driven Books Lookup via Jentic

An AI reading assistant uses Jentic to discover this NYT Books spec at runtime. The agent searches Jentic by intent, loads the relevant operation schema, and executes the call without manually wiring the api-key or learning the date-format conventions in the path templates.

Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'NYT full bestsellers overview', load the `/lists/full-overview.json` operation, and execute it.

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/lists.json` | Get a Best Sellers list by name |
| GET | `/lists/{date}/{list}.json` | Get a Best Sellers list for a specific date |
| GET | `/lists/full-overview.json` | Full overview of every active Best Sellers list |
| GET | `/lists/overview.json` | Top 5 entries across all active lists |
| GET | `/lists/names.json` | List every available Best Sellers list name |
| GET | `/lists/best-sellers/history.json` | Full ranking history for a book |
| GET | `/reviews.json` | Search NYT critic book reviews |

## Key resources

- **Best Sellers Lists** — Current and historical ranked lists across every active NYT list category.
- **Full Overview** — Complete entries across all active Best Sellers lists in a single response.
- **List Names** — Catalogue of every list name with publication frequency.
- **Bestseller History** — Full ranking history for a book by ISBN, author, title, or publisher.
- **Book Reviews** — NYT critic book reviews searchable by author, ISBN, or title.

## AI readiness

This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.

- **Score:** 27 / 100
- **Maturity:** Non-Ready
- **Dimensions:**
  - Foundational Compliance: 100 / 100
  - Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility: 40 / 100
  - AI-Readiness & Agent Experience: 12 / 100
  - Agent Usability: 94 / 100
  - Security: 15 / 100
  - AI Discoverability: 100 / 100
- **View full report:** https://jentic.com/apis/nytimes.com/books/scorecard
- **How the score is calculated:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/overview/
- **More about the dimensions:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/specification/#dimensional-model-overview

### Score it yourself

Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.

- **Score your own API:** https://jentic.com/scorecard.md
- **Scoring CLI agent skill:** https://github.com/jentic/jentic-api-scorecard/blob/main/skills/jentic-api-scorecard/SKILL.md

```sh
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>
```

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the NYT Books API by hand means appending your api-key to the query string against api.nytimes.com/svc/books/v3 and handling the list, overview, and review request plumbing yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import the NYT Books API from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** The Books API is read-only, so scope the agent to the operations it needs, such as list overviews, bestseller history, or book reviews, and leave the rest out. You choose the operations it may call, so it only reaches the endpoints you list.
- **Credential handling:** Your NYT api-key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected as the api-key query parameter at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'get the full NYT bestsellers overview' or 'look up book ranking history', and Jentic returns the matching Books API operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **NYT Books API** — Vendor-official NYT Books spec without the full-overview endpoint.
- **NYT Movie Reviews API** — Sister NYT API for film criticism alongside book reviews.
- **NYT Top Stories API** — Pulls NYT articles by section, including Books section coverage.

## FAQ

### What authentication does this NYT Books spec use?

Authentication is an API key sent as the api-key query parameter on every endpoint. Provision a key at developer.nytimes.com. Through Jentic the key is held in the vault and injected at request time, so the agent never holds the raw secret.

### How does this spec differ from the standard nytimes.com/books_api spec?

This spec is a third-party Konfig-sourced bundle that adds the `/lists/full-overview.json` endpoint, returning every entry across every active Best Sellers list rather than just the top 5 returned by `/lists/overview.json.` The other 6 endpoints mirror the standard NYT Books API.

### Can I retrieve every Best Sellers list at full depth in one call?

Yes. Call GET `/lists/full-overview.json.` The response includes every active list with its complete ranked entries, ISBN-13, author, publisher, weeks-on-list, and rank-last-week, removing the need for one request per list.

### What are the rate limits for this API?

NYT enforces 500 requests per day and 5 requests per minute per API key, shared across every NYT developer API. The full-overview endpoint returns a large payload, so cache the response for the publication week rather than polling.

### How do I look up a book's bestseller history through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'NYT bestseller history', load the `/lists/best-sellers/history.json` operation, and execute it with isbn, author, title, or publisher. Jentic returns the parameter schema so the agent picks the correct query parameter without reading docs.

### Is this API free to use?

Yes. NYT offers the Books service at no cost on the developer portal for non-commercial use within the published rate limits. Commercial or high-volume use requires direct contact with the NYT licensing team.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the NYT Books API?

Yes. Because Jentic One is self-hosted, you decide which of the seven read-only operations the agent may call, so you can allow just list overviews and full-overview snapshots while excluding bestseller history or critic reviews. The agent can only reach the endpoints you list, and it never sees the raw NYT api-key because your own instance injects it at request time. Since every operation is GET, the agent can read Best Sellers data but cannot change anything at NYT.