Books Make Great Gifts
13 professional recommendations, several more personal ones, plus a preorder sale for my own book!
Today NPR released this year’s edition of the Books We Love recommendations package, with 351(!) picks from critics and NPR staffers. I have been contributing to Books We Love since 2020, and have always really enjoyed the opportunity to hype some of my favorite books of the year and uplift authors. The NPR package is especially useful for gift-giving searches—and to find books to add to your personal TBR list—because of its filters, both for genre and content/themes/vibes. This year, I have 13 picks to share:
Ella Baxter’s Woo Woo: a bonkers art world send-up meets thriller
Chelsea Bieker’s Madwoman: a feverish look at the long-reaching effects of domestic violence
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Message: a confrontation with the stories we tell ourselves about our world
Sarah Gerard’s Carrie Carolyn Coco: a deeply moving tribute to a friend and investigation of her killing
Alina Grabowski’s Women and Children First: a spellbinding novel about a teenager’s death, told in ten voices
Lawrence Ingrassia’s A Fatal Inheritance: a poignant book about cancer genetics
Sarah LaBrie’s No One Gets to Fall Apart, a memoir about madness, creativity, and the mother-daughter relationship
Crystal Hana Kim’s The Stone Home, a finely wrought work of historical fiction about internment camps in South Korea during military rule
Manjula Martin’s The Last Fire Season, a deeply reported memoir of climate change
Diego Gerard Morrison’s Pages of Mourning, an inventive novel grappling with disappearances in Mexico
Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall, an arresting glimpse at life on an isolated Welsh island
Alexandra Tanner’s Worry, an actually hilarious novel about sisterhood
Begoña Gómez Urzaiz’s The Abandoners, a sharp essay collection about “monstrous” mothers
I was happy to see some other books I loved and reviewed elsewhere featured on Books We Love, like Deborah Jackson Taffa’s memoir Whiskey Tender (here’s my WaPo review), and Rita Bullwinkel’s novel Headshot (and here’s my Baffler review). A couple of other faves from the package are Gretchen Sisson’s critical adoption book Relinquished and Morgan Talty’s novel Fire Exit.
Even a package like NPR’s leaves some excellent books out. These are all by pals, so I couldn’t write about them, but I also heartily recommend Daniel Leffert’s Ways and Means, Lily Meyer’s Short War, Charlee Dyroff’s Loneliness & Company, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates, Leslie Jamison’s Splinters, and Victor Lodato’s Honey.
IMHO the best place to shop for books is your local independent bookstore—mine is A Novel Idea, and I’ve already picked up some gifts there. The next best place is Bookshop, which partners with independent bookstores and gives them a percentage of sales; you can even choose which bookstore you want to support. In the NPR package, you can shop through Bookshop via the “Independent Bookstores” link at the bottom of each write-up.
The third best way? Directly through publishers. Here’s where I tell you that my book, The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow, is available for 30% off through December 3 from Bold Type/Hachette. Use code CYBER2024 to get the deal. Here are some blurbs to woo you:
“Provocative and captivating, this book challenges our assumptions and illuminates the harsh realities of orphanhood in America.”—Gabrielle Glaser, author of American Baby
“A deeply compassionate, rigorously researched, and passionately argued exploration of the gap between the myths and realities of American orphanhood. This searing history left me outraged, enlightened, and full of deepened conviction that we need to keep peeling away our collective American mythologies in order to reckon with our hardest truths.”—Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters
“With immense courage and capability, Martin exposes this hidden American history, and in doing so, she compels us to see what is true, not the comforting, nonsensical stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be an orphan.”—Christine Kenneally, author of Ghosts of the Orphanage
“Martin has produced an indictment long overdue—and indispensable.”—Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping the Faith
“Martin’s searing and essential dive into the truth and fiction of American orphanhood makes clear the racism and classism that undergird our treatment of vulnerable children and their families. Martin shows the reality is far from our comfortable myths, and that we can’t solve this long-standing crisis if we don’t first accurately name it.”—Roxanna Asgarian, author of We Were Once a Family
Ok, I need to go make pie dough—happy reading!