Essays & Memoir
Personal experience meets cultural criticism in these insightful volumes.
1967
Robyn Hitchcock (Akashic) $26.95
British singer-songwriter Hitchcock offers a wistful, captivating reflection on a foundational year. As a 14-year-old boarding student at Winchester College, Hitchcock first heard the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and David Bowie; he designed posters for shows he wasn’t old enough to attend and weaseled his way into late-night parties featuring jazz, incense, and the occasional Brian Eno gig. Hitchcock writes with infectious enthusiasm about sights and sounds that continue to inspire.
And Then? And Then? What Else?
Daniel Handler (Liveright) $26.99
In a punchy, stream-of-consciousness style, the author better known as Lemony Snicket excavates his childhood memories and his fraught relationship with novel-writing, pulling readers into his funny, fractured world. Other topics include misogyny in movies like Vertigo and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Handler’s experiences having his work adapted for the screen, and the “mysteries” underpinning his happy 26-year marriage. Handler’s many fans will be entertained and enlightened by this offbeat outing.
Chipped
José Vadi (Soft Skull) $26
Vadi’s rhapsodic prose dazzles in this memoir-in-essays with skateboarding at its heart. He finds community with other boarders in San Francisco’s Embarcadero as they try “to synchronize ourselves to a city’s rhythm,” and recounts taking up poetry “to describe the feeling skating gave me.” Vadi comes to see skateboarding as similar to jazz: both elicit disciplined obsession from practitioners and come alive through performance. His passion will hold the attention even of readers who know little about the sport.
Dancing on My Own
Simon Wu (Harper) $27.99
Art curator Wu blends personal reflection with probing cultural analysis in a collection that explores connection, sexuality, and the immigrant experience. A variety of touchstones—plushies, UGG fashion collabs, Robyn songs—offer occasions for insight. Describing the liberatory potential of dance parties, he acknowledges that raving “can let you perform an identity, and it can let you forget you have one at all.”
The Friday Afternoon Club
Griffin Dunne (Penguin Press) $30
The After Hours actor recalls how movies, madness, and murder have touched his celebrated family, which includes his uncle and his aunt by marriage, authors John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. Darker currents—the closeted homosexuality of his father, Dominick; his sister Dominique’s death at the hands of her ex-boyfriend—flow under the swirl of parties, crude jokes, and sharply etched celebrity cameos. Dunne’s writing is vivid, openhearted, and full of a rich irony that inflects even the most emotional scenes.
I Finally Bought Some Jordans
Michael Arceneaux (HarperOne) $19.99
Balancing humor with heartfelt observation, Arceneaux’s agile latest collection describes the unexpected consequences of rising fame, like awkward interactions with celebrities he once criticized. Elsewhere, he considers how talking about mundane topics allows him to maintain his relationship with his parents, whom he sometimes struggles to hold more personal conversations with because they remain reluctant to acknowledge that he’s gay. Throughout, the essays sizzle with his distinctive, acerbic wit.
I Just Keep Talking
Nell Irvin Painter (Doubleday) $35
This timely collection by Princeton University historian Painter brings together prescient, previously published writings on American history, politics, and race. Several pieces explore the legacy of slavery, and decades-old selections remain insightful and relevant; for instance, a 1982 essay on white scholars’ opposition to studies celebrating Black resistance illuminates contemporary debates over school curricula. Razor-sharp analysis lights up every page, and the bountiful images of multimedia artwork by Painter add a personal touch.
Knife
Salman Rushdie (Random House) $28
Booker winner and perennial Nobel favorite Rushdie delivers a forceful and surprisingly good-humored account of the 2022 knife attack that nearly killed him. Stabbed multiple times during a reading, in connection with the fatwa issued against him in 1988, Rushdie lost his right eye and sustained significant internal damage. Through arresting descriptions of his long recovery and his attempt to understand his attacker’s religious convictions, Rushdie grants readers access to perhaps the most
vulnerable period of his life.
Magical/Realism
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal (Tiny Reparations) $29
The fresh perspective and distinctive voice of poet Villarreal drive this smart collection, which ranges over mythology, video games, and beyond. Some pieces are acutely personal, as when Villarreal recounts how, in high school, her white boyfriend’s mother attempted to sabotage their relationship by hiring her as a maid. Elsewhere, she proposes that the fantasy genre acts as a conduit for conceiving of more equitable ways to organize society. Throughout, Villarreal reveals the way fictional worlds mirror and intersect with real life.
Woman of Interest
Tracy O’Neill (HarperOne) $28.99
Fresh off a breakup in 2020, novelist O’Neill, who was raised by adoptive parents in New England, became curious about her origins and hired a private investigator, only to have him ghost her. Determined to see things through, O’Neill used a DNA database to trace her mother in South Korea, traveling there at the height of the pandemic, but their meeting left her with more questions than answers. O’Neill presents her inquiry as a metaphysical detective story, and her wit and compassion shine through.
Food & Drink
These inviting recipe books are a treat for the eyes as well as the palate.
Big Dip Energy
Alyse Whitney (Morrow) $29.99
In this exuberant collection of dips for entertaining and solo snacking, food editor and TV host Whitney shares 88 “parties in a bowl.” Recipes include updated classics like a seven-layer dip homage to Taco Bell and “dip for dinner” options like “spanikopidip.” Each recipe features a “dipper matrix,” with recommendations for crudités, Fritos, homemade potato skinny dippers, and more. Bonus points for a title that’s guaranteed to spark joy.
Dolci!
Renato Poliafito, with Casey Elsass (Knopf) $38
Poliafito, known to Brooklynites as a cofounder of Baked, draws from “that part of me that lives in the in-between,” where Italian, Italian American, and American food cultures intersect, in this heartfelt collection. This gorgeously photographed work highlights treats including an orange zest–spiked chocolate-filled brioche, a decadent pistachio lemon cake, and enticing savory bakes such as caponata bombas. It’s a trove for home bakers who are up for a challenge.
Health Nut
Jess Damuck (Abrams) $35
This fresh spin on the health-food cookbook includes more than 100 recipes that emphasize pleasure: food that “feels good to eat” needn’t be bland. Damuck elevates weeknight recipes like sheet-pan salmon with green beans, potatoes, and olives with a quick spicy tahini sauce, and uses cooking techniques like charring to deepen the flavor of vegetables. Bright photography emphasizes how these colorful dishes are feasts for the eyes, too.
The Hostess Handbook
Maria Zizka (Artisan) $30
Zizka serves up an exciting array of recipes and party-planning tips in this go-to guide to hosting. Quick crowd-pleasing fare includes fish kebabs, salt-and-vinegar potato peel chips with chive dip, and a Lebanese-influenced frittata with labne sauce. The author also shares a dozen party menus to help readers plan for various occasions, ranging from holiday dinners and after-parties to Galentine’s Day brunch and springtime luncheons.
Koreaworld
Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard (Clarkson Potter) $35
The second collaboration between chef Hong and food journalist Rodbard celebrates Korean cuisine and those who cook it in its home country and across the U.S., beginning in Seoul with rose tteokbokki, a modern, mellowed-by-cream version of rice cakes with gochuchang, and the samgyetang tongdak (rice-and-ginseng-stuffed roast chicken) that attracts a perpetual line out its restaurant’s door. Alex Lau’s evocative location shots and choice food photography season the narrative.
Le Sud
Rebekah Peppler (Chronicle) $35
Food writer Peppler, an American living in Paris, conjures the vibrancy of southern French cuisine through 80 recipes framed by luscious photographs of the Mediterranean sea, market stalls, and the bounty of the region’s ingredients. Classic dishes include the beef stew Daube Provençal, and veggies shine in recipes like tomates à la Provençale (for “when it’s not summer but you need summer”). This sparkling collection will delight foodies and armchair travelers alike.
The Levantine Vegetarian
Salma Hage (Phaidon) $39.95
The Levant is known for its vegetable sharing plates, but Hage goes well beyond mezze in this collection that extols the vegetarian bounty of the region. The chapter on grain dishes proffers Egyptian chickpeas and rice topped with fried vermicelli and caramelized onions, while herbs and spices star in dishes such as mushroom kebabs rubbed with cumin and cardamom. It’s an appealing and approachable assortment.
Matty Matheson: Soups, Salads, Sandwiches
Matty Matheson (Ten Speed) $35
Fans of The Bear might think of Matheson as mechanic-turned-server Neil Fak, but he’s also an acclaimed chef and restaurateur. Here, he zeroes in on well-loved fare for home cooks, with more than 100 recipes for soups, salads, and sandwiches, including roasted tomato soup and a muffaletta that “looks as if you cut the world in half.” Inviting photography of Matheson and his family adds to the homey vibe.
Mexico in Your Kitchen
Mely Martínez (Rock Point) $28
This celebration of Mexican gastronomy features recipes from all over the country, including family favorites like beef shank stew studded with olives and raisins, and antojitos, street food found in cities. Martínez draws on her extensive travels throughout Mexico, seamlessly contextualizing each dish in informative headnotes, explaining, for instance, how queso fundido is associated with the grilling culture of the northern states. It’s as informative as it is mouthwatering.
Roots, Heart, Soul
Todd Richards, with Amy Paige Condon (Harvest) $35
Chef Richards guides readers through the culinary traditions of the West African diaspora in the Americas in this deeply researched work. The book traces the food culture’s “family tree” from the Middle Passage to the present, from the Caribbean to Mexico to the United States. Recipes like peanut and mustard greens soup are interwoven with documentary photography and profiles of chefs, illuminating the continuing impact of the rich cuisine’s history.
History & Biography
Readers who enjoy deep dives into the past will find much to savor in these narratives.
A Chance to Harmonize
Sheryl Kaskowitz (Pegasus) $29.95
Musicologist Kaskowitz offers a spellbinding account of the New Deal’s Music Agency, a 1930s government project that used music to foster solidarity among out-of-work Americans and created a catalog of more than 800 folk songs, now stored at the Library of Congress. Led by Charles Seeger (father of Pete) and staffed by traveling musician-agents, many of them women, the Music Agency bolstered spirits and laid the groundwork for a folk music revival.
A Hell of a Storm
David S. Brown (Scribner) $32
Brown, a historian, recaps the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the Western
territories to slavery and which, he proposes, caused Americans to abandon previous tendencies toward compromise. Northerners began shipping “Bibles and guns” to Kansas to aid John Brown’s anti-slavery rebellion, and “genteel” abolitionists like Ralph Waldo Emerson called for violence. Vibrant vignettes support Brown’s contention that the act “profoundly affected the way that both northerners and southerners saw themselves—and each other.”
The Infernal Machine
Steven Johnson (Crown) $32
In a captivating saga of political passion, Johnson surveys the American anarchist movement of the 1880s through the 1920s, centering the dramatic love story of radicals Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman (who tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick). He also explores innovations wrought by dynamite, which allowed New York to build subways and skyscrapers but also let anarchists and mobsters make cheap bombs. The true crime picaresque coalesces around the irony of anarchists who dreamed of a stateless society getting crushed by an ever more powerful surveillance state.
Love & Whiskey
Fawn Weaver (Melcher Media) $28
Weaver’s striking account begins with her discovery of the story of Nearest Green, an enslaved Black man who taught Jack Daniel how to distill whiskey in the 1850s. Through interviews with Nearest’s family and archival research, Weaver uncovers the close friendship between Nearest and Jack, who strove to preserve Nearest’s legacy (the present-day Jack Daniel’s museum ignores it). Weaver eventually purchased the site of Nearest’s original still, working with his descendants to produce Uncle Nearest label whiskey.
A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth
James Tejani (Norton) $35
Historian Tejani documents the mid-19th-century political maneuvering that led to the construction of a port in Los Angeles’s San Pedro Bay, terrain considered unsuitable at the time for a commercial port. His narrative revolves around the ambitious decades-long efforts to get the port built, which unfurled in parallel with America’s westward expansion and displacement of Native peoples and the acquisition of Mexican territory by force. The result is a beguiling history of Southern California, early industrial development, and U.S. empire.
The Movement
Clara Bingham (One Signal) $32.50
The recollections of more than a hundred women who played a part in the radical change brought about between 1963 and 1973 comprise this electrifying oral history of the women’s rights movement. First-person accounts from across the political and cultural spectrum, including socially conservative women who founded the National Organization for Women, and Black, Native American, Chicana, and Asian activists fighting for women’s rights within their own social justice movements, emphasize the complexity of the movement and the huge upheaval in the social order it ignited.
A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit
Noliwe Rooks (Penguin Press) $28
This probing study of Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) meditates on the significance of the civil rights trailblazer in the chronicle of African American political struggle. Rooks, Africana Studies chair at Brown, suggests that Bethune’s radical thinking formed a foundational layer of civil rights history, steering the movement away from uplift via mutual aid and toward lobbying the U.S. government for structural change. What emerges from the ruminative narrative is a layered portrait of nuanced political thinking.
Smoke and Ashes
Amitav Ghosh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) $32
Ghosh’s scintillating, kaleidoscopic vision of opium’s role in several centuries of global history centers mainly on events leading up to the Opium Wars. Ghosh reveals the enmeshment of 19th-century American elites (names like Astor, Cabot, Forbes) in the opium trade and demonstrates how the widespread influence of Chinese exports on global culture has been erased from historical memory alongside the drug-dealing that fueled it.
Tripping on Utopia
Benjamin Breen (Grand Central) $30
Breen tracks 20th-century explorations of psychedelic experiences, including 1930s research into trance states conducted by married anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and the work of the scientific Macy Foundation, which later become a clearinghouse for the CIA. Along the way, the author chronicles WWII-era work on hypnosis-assisted interrogations of Japanese and German POWs, the 1943 discovery of LSD in Zurich, and the cultural impact of the CIA’s LSD trials in the 1950s and ’60s.
When the Sea Came Alive
Garrett M. Graff (Avid Reader) $32.50
This gripping history of the D-Day invasion draws on the accounts of more than 700 eyewitnesses, from teenage privates to heads of state and military commanders, from frogmen and signalmen to parachuting generals. Their interlaced first-person narratives—sometimes just a sentence or two—are connected by helpful narrative tissue and often reach back into the months and years before the invasion to provide context for the day’s events. It adds up to a panoramic view of an astonishingly intricate plan coming to fruition.
Religion & Spirituality
Explorations of faith speak to believers and skeptics alike.
The Bible: A Global History
Bruce Gordon (Basic) $35
This ambitious study examines how a collection of prophecies, poems, and letters became a sacred text that has shaped cultures. Gordon, a Yale Divinity School professor, describes the formation of the canon; its spread to the Americas, Africa, and Asia; and the ways in which communities newly introduced to the Bible adapted the book: theologians in 20th-century China drew comparisons to Confucianism, while Native Americans centered themselves in biblical stories. The result is a fascinating look at how the “most influential book in the world” came to be.
Hey Jesus, It’s Me
Ellen Skrmetti (Worthy) $26.99
Skrmetti’s chatty and colorful essays consider faith, Southern culture, and middle age. As a preteen, Skrmetti found sisterhood among beauty pageant contestants; later, she practiced self-acceptance on a quest to lose weight and battled her anxieties about aging by chasing a comedy career at 45. Her ability to find humor and meaning in the everyday (she compares Weight Watchers to church—in both, “you are welcomed back no matter what you ate”) makes for delightful company.
The Life of the Qur’an
Mohamad Jebara
(St. Martin’s Essentials) $30
Beginning with the Quran’s 610 CE origins in a series of holy revelations received by the prophet Muhammad, philologist Jebara chronicles the text’s “incredibly dynamic life” through to the present day. Muhammad’s death in 632 CE was pivotal: it catalyzed struggles between those wishing to use the text for political aims but also sparked the outpouring of creativity of the Islamic Golden Age. The author’s scrupulous scholarship and evident passion for the subject enriches this ambitious take on a complicated history.
Mostly What God Does
Savannah Guthrie (Thomas Nelson) $29.99
Today coanchor Guthrie offers a poignant account of the role that religion has played in her life. Raised in a sin-obsessed Baptist church, she grew up burdened with guilt and was stuck in an unhappy marriage in her 30s when a realization renewed her faith in Jesus’s love: “Mostly what God does is love us,” she writes; therefore, he “truly intends us to love ourselves.” Candid about the challenges she’s tackled, she persuasively renders the evolution of a hard-won religious belief that makes room for imperfection.
Religion Is Not Done with You
Megan Goodwin and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (Beacon) $24.95
Podcasters Goodwin and Fuerst contend that religion shapes virtually all systems and structures underpinning society, from the courts to foodways to medical rights. They trace how constellations of ideologies, rituals, customs, and more solidified into discrete religions, and how white Christianity helps to enshrine America’s “imperial agenda.” Astutely drawing out religion’s intimate links to power without painting it as inherently harmful—it’s also been used by adherents to “resist and survive”—the authors perceptively reveal the way morals and norms gain credence when codified as faith.
Sage Warrior
Valarie Kaur (One World) $32
Interfaith activist and lawyer Kaur draws on centuries of Sikh tradition and the story of her own family to compile 11 lessons on living life as a “sage warrior”: one who loves deeply, fights for humanity, grieves with others, and is courageous in the face of crisis. Keenly aware of contemporary environmental destruction and political unrest, Kaur encourages readers to deal with upheaval by embracing rebirth—a capacity for renewal after destruction.
To Be a Jew Today
Noah Feldman
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux) $32
This sweeping overview of Jewish ideas “as they exist today, and as they are being transformed” from Harvard law professor Feldman eschews the traditional classifications of Judaism in favor of what he deems Traditionalists, Progressives, Evolutionists, and Godless Jews. He examines each group’s views and advances an inclusive notion of all Jews as members of a family that finds “love and embrace along with contention” in God and one another. This will be a welcome resource for readers curious about Judaism’s past, future, and purpose.
White Boy/Black Girl
Adaeze and Chad Brinkman (Tyndale Momentum) $18.99
The Brinkmans share what they’ve learned as a couple from the difficult conversations they’ve had about race. Detailing an incident early in their relationship when Chad made an inadvertently offensive comment about Adaeze’s headwrap, the authors stress that hurdles can “draw you closer together” if both parties are willing to listen and grow. Highlighting the importance of supporting each other’s interests and cultures and providing practical suggestions, this is a valuable resource for readers looking to become better allies.
Why I Believe
Henry Cloud (Worthy) $27
In this intimate account, Cloud reflects on the “unexpected miracles” that have shaped his life, including how God “healed” his depression through the aid of his friends, family, and doctor. Sections that draw on his psychologist’s training make for fascinating reading; of a divine vision he had in college, Cloud acknowledges, “If I heard this from someone, I might think they were having a manic episode, but I wasn’t... my thinking, impulse control, reality orientation... were all fine.” It’s a wise and well-informed inquiry into faith’s many mysteries.
Science & Nature
New looks at Earth’s flora, fauna, and changing climate enlighten and entertain.
Becoming Earth
Ferris Jabr (Random House) $30
Science journalist Jabr outlines how living organisms have influenced their environments, from ocean-dwelling microbes that played a role in creating the continents to mammoths that helped permafrost stay frozen to humanity’s outsize ecological footprint. The science highlights the complex ways in which the planet has been shaped by its inhabitants, providing an edifying and holistic view of life on Earth.
Category Five
Porter Fox (Little, Brown) $30
For decades, sailors have been raising the alarm that centuries-old rules of thumb for navigating the sea are losing their predictive value as climate change transforms the ocean, leading to dangerous consequences. Fox combines gripping accounts of sailing voyages through raging storms with fascinating background on how climate scientists are studying extreme weather, delivering a report that’s as entertaining as it is informative.
The Garden Against Time
Olivia Laing (Norton) $27.99
Critic Laing examines how historical British gardens reflect the periods in which they were designed and contemporaneous understandings of paradise on Earth. She emphasizes the ways in which gardens connect individuals across history, musing that her attraction to cultivating plants stems from wanting “to move into a different understanding of time: the kind of time that moves in spirals or cycles.” This will appeal to gardeners and history buffs alike.
A Little Queer
Natural History
Josh L. Davis (Univ. of Chicago) $16
Davis, a science writer for London’s Natural History Museum, surveys the dazzling variety of sexual behavior and expression in the animal, fungus, and plant kingdoms, making a resounding case that the natural world features more diverse expressions of sexual activity and biological sex than commonly believed. The result is a much needed corrective to blinkered notions of what’s considered “natural.”
Why Animals Talk
Arik Kershenbaum
(Penguin Press) $30
Cambridge University zoologist Kershenbaum investigates the meaning behind howls, screeches, and other calls of the wild. Recounting his own work with African gray parrots at a Canary Islands zoo, for instance, Kershenbaum describes how male rivals attempt to establish social dominance by copying and embellishing one another’s calls in a “kind of avian dueling banjos.” Animal lovers will be captivated.
Self-Help & Inspiration
Because everyone could use a little extra support, especially during the holidays.
But What Will People Say?
Sahaj Kaur Kohli (Penguin Life) $30
Venturing beyond traditional Western therapeutic approaches, psychotherapist Kohli serves up an innovative guide to mental health. Born to Indian immigrant parents, Kohli grew up feeling trapped between two cultures; her story forms the backbone of the book, providing a foundation for thoughtful reflection questions, exercises, and tips on such topics as “cultural imposter syndrome,” for those seeking self-help beyond “eurocentric and colonial” models of care.
Come Together
Emily Nagoski (Ballantine) $30
This one’s a gift for the giver, too: an empowering, pragmatic manual for long-term sexual satisfaction. Sex educator Nagoski recommends practical tools, walks readers through constructive conversations, and offers tips for prioritizing sensory pleasure. Marshaling research and anecdotes, many featuring nonbinary couples, this is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to spruce up a subpar sex life or make a good one better.
Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes
James Parker (Norton) $23.99
Atlantic staff writer Parker gathers gemlike tributes to the everyday, mining childhood memories, day-to-day irritations, internet videos, and fictional heroes. Entries celebrate everything from a squirrel’s “pouncing runs” to Jason Bourne to the “bitter clarion” of his infant son’s voice. Prizing linguistic particularity over sentimentality, Parker pays vivid homage to the beauty of the mundane.
Lazy Witchcraft for Crazy, Sh*tty Days
Andrea Samayoa (Fair Winds) $19.99
Writing that witchcraft is more about intention than complex spellwork or expensive ingredients, TikTokker and practicing witch Samayoa delivers an irreverent compendium of rituals and spells for readers short on time and energy, with spoons to indicate difficulty level. A “self-love herbal mixture” combines rose, lavender, and chamomile; a spell to “not give a fuck” involves lighting a candle and whispering, “My last fuck has flown.” Samayoa’s down-to-earth tone makes her an irresistible guide to a “magical” practice combining esoteric ritual, self-care suggestions, and plenty of upbeat affirmations.
Supercommunicators
Charles Duhigg
(Random House) $30
In this smart, revelatory look at the complex ways in which humans conflict and connect, Pulitzer winner Duhigg contends that so-called supercommunicators more easily build trust, persuade others, and form friendships because of particular skills they’ve honed. He provides wise advice for bonding with friends, fighting with partners, and bridging divides over lightning-rod issues in what’s both
an actionable guide and a revealing
peek into the psychological needs and motivations that underpin human interaction.
What to Wear and Why
Tiffanie Darke (Broadleaf) $27.99
Anyone who feels a bit queasy watching TikTok clothing hauls will appreciate Darke’s incisive study of fast fashion’s ills—convoluted supply chains, unsafe working conditions, toxic chemicals. At the same time, the former fashion editor celebrates clothes as a source of “confidence and self-identity, imagination and fantasy.” Instead of giving up shopping altogether, readers are advised to adopt such sustainable practices as thrifting vintage pieces, developing a truly individual style in the process.
