Series
Holiday Book Guide 2018
Hello Book Friends!
Can you believe it's already holiday time? I know I say this every year, but seriously-where does the time go? Without a doubt, most of my extra time goes towards reading (I know, you're shocked) and I'm excited to share with you some amazing book recommendations. I have carefully selected some of my favorite reads from 2018, along with picks from well-read friends and plenty of award winners, too. You can either click on the tree to take you to a section or just leisurely scroll through the categories and peruse all the titles. I hope this helps you find the perfect read, either for a loved OR yourself!
May your stockings be filled with books and love this holiday season!
LOVE,
Jenny
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Sci-Fi
FICTION
Award-winning literary picks that aren't stuffy or boring--perfect for the discerning readers in your midst
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The Great Believers: Two intertwining tales (one in 1985, the other 2015) about the devasting, long-term effects of the AIDS epidemic.
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An American Marriage: An exploration of love, loyalty, race, and justice, this stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control.
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The Mars Room: Described as both brilliant and heartbreaking, a story of a woman reconciling her new life behind bars and the world she left behind.
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Lake Success: A poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great.
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The Female Persuasion: Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition.
HISTORICAL FICTION
Learn about history while being enthralled in a fine literary tale--the perfect combination!
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Transcription: A dramatic story of WWII espionage, betrayal, and loyalty by one of my favorite authors.
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Unsheltered: A compulsively readable story of two families, in two centuries, who live at the corner of Sixth and Plum in Vineland, New Jersey, navigating what seems to be the end of the world as they know it.
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Where the Crawdads Sing: An exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder (Bonus: The Audible version was amazing!)
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Washington Black: From the cane fields of the 1830s Caribbean to the frozen Far North, this book tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again--and asks the question, what is true freedom?
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Whiskey When We're Dry: Orphaned and abandoned 17-year-old Jessilyn sets out into the 1880s wild west, dressed as a man, to find her outlaw brother.
MYSTERY
The perfect way to spend your rainy days (just add a roaring fire and some hot tea!)
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The Perfect Couple: A novel about the many ways family can fill our lives with love...if they don't kill us first. Although it features characters from her other stories this is a standalone novel.
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The English Wife: A scandalous novel set in the Gilded Age, full of family secrets, affairs, and even murder.
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The Ruin: This unsettling small-town noir draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland, where corruption, desperation, and crime run rife. (Bonus: The Audible version does a great job with the Irish accents and impossible to pronounce names!)
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Forces of Nature: Five women go on a hike, only four return and each survivor tells a slightly different story about what happened. The question is: how well do you really know the people you work with?
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The Witch Elm: When a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in his family's garden, a young man is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed. This is another standalone book so don't worry if you've never read any French before.
SCIENCE
FICTION
The better title for this category might be "Speculative Fiction" or "Dystopian Adventures" but I guess I'll just stick with "Sci-Fi" for now.
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Vox: A world where women are only allowed one hundred words per day. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, one woman will reclaim her voice.
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Foe: Set in the near future, this is a philosophical puzzle of a novel that examines the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be (or not to be) a person.
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Severance: A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, this is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan apocalyptic satire.
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The Oracle Year: A twentysomething New Yorker wakes up one morning with the power to predict the future--what could possibly go wrong?
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The Gone World: Inception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind.
NON-FICTION
Whether you're just too cool for fiction, or you're looking for a true story that reads like fiction, here are some picks for you!
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Bad Blood: A riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.
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Barracoon: This work brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.
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The Library Book: A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries.
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The Feather Thief: The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice. This tale is a fascinating exploration of obsession and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
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I'll Be Gone in the Dark: The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California during the 70s and 80s, and of the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
MEMOIR
All of these women have remarkedly different stories to share, yet they each have a common theme: resilience. Persist on, Sisters!
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Educated: An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, in spite of being kept out of school by her parents, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge University.
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I Am, I Am, I Am: An astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined O'Farrell's life. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, she captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.
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Small Fry: A poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents' fascinating and disparate worlds.
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Becoming: A work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address.
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The Recovering: With its deeply personal and seamless blend of memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage, Jamison's turns our understanding of the traditional addiction narrative on its head, demonstrating that the story of recovery can be every bit as electrifying as the train wreck itself. With enormous empathy and wisdom, Jamison has given us nothing less than the story of addiction and recovery in America writ large, a definitive and revelatory account that will resonate for years to come.
FANTASY
Dramatic Greek gods, dark fairy tales and just the plain fantastical--a splendid way to escape the real world.
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The Hazel Wood: When Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set.
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Spinning Silver: an imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale
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Circe: A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story. Rejected by the gods, she turns to the world of mortals for companionship and discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
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Unholy Land: Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father. A tale full of transdimensional rifts, multiple possible futures, and barriers between the worlds that are beginning to break.
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The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: This book defies all classification! Part Agatha Christie mystery, part Quantum Leap confusion, all parts entertainment.
SERIES
Some of my favorite literary series have new books out this holiday season and I can't wait!
Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3): More tales about a magical boarding school for children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the "real" world.
The Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Gamache # 14): If you have not met Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and the perfect town of Three Pines, start this series right away!
Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4): JK Rowling's latest in this PI/detective series is gripping mystery writing at its best.
The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3): Vasya and Morozko return in this stunning conclusion to the series, battling enemies mortal and magical to save both Russias, the seen and the unseen.
Wrecked (IQ# 3): I love Isaiah Quintabe (or IQ for short). Set in East Long Beach, this character is like Sherlock Holmes in the rough LA of Bosch. This newest tale is a case of a young artist's missing mother, which sets IQ on a collision course with his own Moriarty.
HUMOR
Because we all need a little more laughter in our lives, am I right?
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Calypso: Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book. If you've ever laughed your way through his cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso, but be prepared for surprises.
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My Squirrel Days: Meet Ellie, the best-intentioned redhead next door. Comedian and star of The Office and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Kemper delivers a hilarious, refreshing, and inspiring collection of essays.
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Nobody Cares: A frank, funny personal essay collection about work, failure, friendship, and the messy business of being alive in your twenties and thirties.
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The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: How can you not love Ron Swanson and Karen Walker? Presented as an oral history in a series of conversations between the couple, the book features anecdotes, hijinks, photos, and a veritable grab bag of tomfoolery.
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Maeve in America: Higgins was a bestselling memoirist and comedian in her native Ireland when, at the grand old age of thirty-one, she left the only home she’d ever known in search of something more. This is timely essay collection about life, love, and becoming an American by the daughter David Sedaris and Tina Fey never knew they had.
AROUND THE WORLD
A sneaky way for me to add some more books? Maybe. But these stories help see the world from a more global perspective.
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What We Were Promised: Set in modern Shanghai, a debut by a Chinese-American writer about a prodigal son whose unexpected return forces his newly wealthy family to confront painful secrets and unfulfilled promises.
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Convenience Store Woman: A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, this is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
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The Map of Salt and Stars: The story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker—places today’s headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again.
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A Place for Us: An astonishingly tender-hearted novel of identity and belonging, and a resonant portrait of what it means to be an American family today.
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The Boat People: A group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage only to face the threat of deportation amid accusations of terrorism.
And last but not least...
Odds & Ends that don't seem to quite fit just one category but are definitely worth mentioning.
MISC.
Infidel: Told in graphic novel form, this is a haunted house story for the 21st century. The story follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia.
Creative Quest: A unique new guide to creativity from Questlove, full of inspirations, stories, and lessons on how to live your best creative life.
Sabrina: Conspiracy theories, breakdown, murder: Everything’s gonna be all right―until it isn’t. This is the first graphic novel ever nominated for the Man Booker Prize!
The Prince and the Dressmaker: Jen Wang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family. Frances and Sebastian's paths aren't easy, but Wang handles their desires and motivations — and gender fluidity — with ease and joy.
Hope Never Dies (Obama/Biden Mystery #1): Part noir thriller and part bromance, this is essentially the first published work of Obama/Biden fiction—and a cathartic read for anyone distressed by the current state of affairs.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and if you have any favorite books of 2018 I might have missed--please feel free to add comments and ideas on my blog.
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MAY YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SEASON AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!