75 books for holiday gift giving in 2017
Jim Higgins
From the pretty to the gritty, our suggested list of new books for holiday gift-giving represents a variety of genres, topics and tones. It doesn't shy away from serious or intense books, but I've kept pleasure reading foremost in mind.
Related:101 books for summer reading
In general, this list recommends books published since the Journal Sentinel's summer reading list came out in May, though I have reached back to the beginning of the year for some choices.
Also, this season we're publishing our recommended children's book picks separately for easier sharing.
Related:21 new book picks for children and teens
Thanks to my colleague Chris Foran for the pop culture and baseball sections and some other picks. Some of my recommendations were inspired by and adapted from reviews by contributors Elfrieda Abbe, Carole E. Barrowman and Mike Fischer.
EDITOR’S PICKS
“The Big Book of the Continental Op” (Vintage Crime / Black Lizard), by Dashiell Hammett. All 28 stories and the original serialized versions of the two novels starring Hammett's unnamed detective, one of the emblematic characters in American mystery fiction.
“Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York” (Bloomsbury), by Roz Chast. The great New Yorker cartoonist salutes Manhattan and mocks her own anxiety. She claims this isn’t a guidebook, but it reads mighty helpful to me.
“Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body” (Harper), by Roxane Gay. The author discloses how she began eating compulsively and gaining weight after being gang-raped at age 12. This brave book fits no preconceived template about weight, weight loss and eating disorders.
“Keeping On Keeping On” (FSG), by Alan Bennett. More than half of playwright Bennett’s third prose collection is drawn from his compulsively readable diaries. Where else can you get encounters with both T.S. Eliot and Morrissey?
“Meddling Kids: A Novel” (Doubleday), by Edgar Cantero. In this humor-horror confection, former teen detectives and their dog return as troubled young adults to the spooky place where they once put a small-time crook away to confront the real supernatural evil embedded there.
“Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy” (Harper), by Michael Perry. Wisconsin humorist and memoirist Perry (“Population: 485”) finds common ground (and shared afflictions) with the great French essayist.
“An Uncommon Reader: A Life of Edward Garnett, Mentor and Editor of Literary Genius” (FSG), by Helen Smith. A compelling biography of Garnett, a coach and confidante of Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, T.E. Lawrence and other important writers. (Out Dec. 12.)
“You Don't Have to Say You Love Me” (Little, Brown), by Sherman Alexie. Mixing short prose chapters with related poems in this memoir, Alexie sorts out his complex relationship with his mother, a difficult woman whom he nonetheless credits with saving his life twice.
WISCONSIN CONNECTIONS
“Beer Lover's Wisconsin: Best Breweries, Brewpubs and Beer Bars” (Globe Pequot), by Kathy Flanigan. Flanigan, who covers craft brewing for the Journal Sentinel, barnstormed the state to create this guidebook to beer culture and destinations.
“The Driftless Reader” (University of Wisconsin Press), edited by Curt Meine and Keefe Keeley. Meine and Keeley have selected dozens of excerpts of scientific, literary and journalistic writing to create a composite portrait of the region. More than 50 illustrations enhance the book.
“Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace” (Dutton), by Jennifer Chiaverini. Madison historical novelist Chiaverini fictionalizes the life of Lovelace (1815-'52), widely recognized today as a forerunner of computer science for her collaboration with Charles Babbage. Oh, she was Lord Byron’s daughter, too. (Chiaverini will speak about the book in a ticketed event at 7 p.m. Dec. 18 at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 W. Brown Deer Road. Call (414) 446-8794 or visit lyndensculpturegarden.org.)
"The Great War Comes to Wisconsin: Sacrifice, Patriotism and Free Speech in a Time of Crisis" (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by Richard L. Pifer. This book explores Wisconsin's tangled home-front experience during World War I, where wartime sacrifice and hysteria shared the stage in equal measure.
"In Grace’s Time” (Black Rose), by Kathie Giorgio. In this Waukesha writer’s new novel, a gay man and a grieving mother connect on a drive across the country.
“Irksome Particulars” (Publishing Genius), by Matt Cook. One hundred crisp prose poems about the flip-flops of consciousness, from a former Milwaukee poet laureate.
“Junk: A Play” (Back Bay Books), by Ayad Akhtar. Brookfield Central graduate Akhtar’s new play, now onstage in New York, takes a Shakespearean approach to big capitalism, using a cast of some 20 characters to dramatize a junk-bond raider’s attempt to take over a steel company. Akhtar’s close relationship with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater makes it likely we’ll see this play in Milwaukee.
"Justice for All: Selected Writings of Lloyd A. Barbee" (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), edited by Daphne E. Barbee-Wooten. A valuable collection of writings and reminisces from Milwaukee civil rights leader Lloyd Barbee, who was in front on everything from the fight for school desegregation to prison reform.
"Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel” (Schocken), by Francine Klagsbrun. The woman who became prime minister of Israel spent her formative years in Milwaukee, attending the school that now bears her name, where her early activism included raising money for textbooks for poor children. (Klagsbrun will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at the Jewish Community Center, 6255 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Whitefish Bay.)
“Lolas’ House: Filipino Women Living With War” (Curbstone Books), by M. Evelina Galang. Galang shares the true stories of Filipino women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during World War II. She is a former Brookfield East High School student and a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate. (Galang will speak at 7 p.m. Dec. 13 at Boswell Books.)
“The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes That Inspired the Little House Books” (Timber Press), by Marta McDowell. A gardening and landscape historian describes and explores the plants and crops in each of the places where Wilder lived, including Wisconsin.
FINE FICTION
“The Chalk Artist” (The Dial Press), by Allegra Goodman. A young teacher tries to win over a student being drawn into an immersive gaming world.
“Forest Dark” (Harper), by Nicole Krauss. A wealthy philanthropist and a young novelist both come to Tel Aviv to reset themselves in Krauss’ brainy novel.
“Future Home of the Living God” (Harper), by Louise Erdrich. Fans of “A Handmaid’s Tale” may enjoy Erdrich’s dystopian fable about a future where pregnant women are rounded up by a shadowy theocracy.
“The Hainish Novels & Stories” (Library of America), by Ursula K. Le Guin. A two-volume collection of Le Guin’s speculative fiction about the Hain worlds, including “The Left Hand of Darkness,” a provocative masterpiece about gender.
“Her Body and Other Parties” (Graywolf), by Carmen Maria Machado. Vivid stories about life inside the bodies of women that frequently tap horror ideas and techniques.
“Manhattan Beach” (Scribner), by Jennifer Egan. A young woman whose father disappears mysteriously later becomes a deep-sea diver in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. From the author of “A Visit From the Goon Squad.”
“The Seventh Function of Language” (FSG), by Laurent Binet. A witty and playful novel, evocative of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose,” in which an odd couple of detective and French academic hunt for an explosive document by Roland Barthes.
“Sing, Unburied, Sing” (Scribner), by Jesmyn Ward. A murdered brother haunts a beleaguered Southern family in a novel filled with ghosts. From the author of “Men We Reaped.”
“The Story of Arthur Truluv” (Random House), by Elizabeth Berg. A teenager and an elderly widower who meet in a cemetery form an unusual friendship. (Berg will speak at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave.)
COMPELLING NONFICTION
“Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree That Gripped Belle Époque Paris” (Nation Books), by John Merriman. True crime with a French accent: Popular Yale professor Merriman chronicles the anarchist Bonnot Gang of the early 20th century.
“Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated” (Abrams Image), by Shea Serrano, illustrated by Arturo Torres. Blending obsessive detail and humor, Serrano takes on both barstool arguments (Michael Jordan’s best year, the best NBA dunk ever) and whimsical conceptual inquiries.
“Birdmania: A Remarkable Passion for Birds” (Greystone), by Bernd Brunner. Culture writer Brunner warbles about bird-loving and bird-obsessed humans famous (Charles Darwin, Helen Macdonald) and otherwise, with many bird illustrations, some rare reprints.
“Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News” (Graywolf), by Kevin Young. In this exploration of humbug from P.T. Barnum to today’s fakery, Young often finds racial stereotype and anxiety at work. He is both a leading American poet and director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
“Grant” (Penguin Press), by Ron Chernow. An underrated president gets his due in a massive biography from Chernow, author of the “Hamilton” biography that inspired the Broadway musical.
“How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain” (HMH), by Alan Pell Crawford. From silver mines to coca leaves to board games, the author of “Huckleberry Finn” kept trying to get rich. And kept failing.
“The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tale of Life on the Road” (W.W. Norton), by Finn Murphy. A trucker who specializes in cross-country moves demystifies his occupation while also telling thrilling stories.
“This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Farm Family” (W.W. Norton), by Ted Genoway. A chronicle of contemporary Nebraska farmers coping with the many stresses and threats to family agriculture today.
“The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II” (Random House), by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Nobel Prize winner’s alternately harrowing and inspiring oral history of the 1 million women who fought in the Soviet army during WWII.
MYSTERIES & THRILLERS
“An Extraordinary Union” (Kensington), by Alyssa Cole. In this historical romance, a black freedwoman and a white Scot become intimate while spying undercover against the Confederacy.
"Bluebird Bluebird" (Mulholland), by Attica Locke. A Texas Ranger probes the murders of two people found dead near a small-town café: a black man and a white woman. Mystery columnist Carole E. Barrowman calls Locke’s novel “a layered portrait of a black man confronting his own racial ambivalence and ambition told with a pointed and poignant bluesy lyricism.”
“Fierce Kingdom” (Viking), by Gin Phillips. A mother and her preschooler dodge multiple shooters at a zoo while looking for a safe way out.
“The Nine-Tailed Fox” (Soho Crime), by Martin Limón. U.S. Army CID agents look for three missing American soldiers in 1970s South Korea, while dealing with bureaucracy and other mayhem.
“Old Scores” (Minotaur), by Will Thomas. Thomas balances rich historical context with a contemporary feel in this mystery about the murder of a visiting Japanese diplomat.
MUSICAL SUBJECTS
“Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History” (Black Dog & Leventhal). From a party DJ Kool Herc hosted in 1973 to the release of the “Hamilton” mixtape last Dec. 2, the voice of Public Enemy offers daily milestones of the music and its related culture.
"The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums" (Pantheon), by Will Friedwald. Nobody knows the Great American Songbook or its interpreters better than Friedwald. In his latest, he offers context and analysis for 51 classic albums in a masterful listening guide that's also fun reading.
"Lou Reed: A Life” (Little, Brown), by Anthony DeCurtis. A biography of the rock star noted both for his uncompromising, ambitious approach to songwriting and his defiant stance toward almost everybody and everything.
“Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell” (Sarah Crichton Books), by David Yaffe. A life of the brilliant, restless musician, tracing her path from Canadian folkie to collaborations with jazz giants Charles Mingus and Wayne Shorter.
"Soul Survivor: A Biography of Al Green" (Da Capo), by Jimmy McDonough. Warts-and-all biography of the incomparable soul singer turned minister turned soul singer turned minister.
BIG BOOKS
Block out some time for these.
“Ali: A Life” (HMH), by Jonathan Eig. A biography of heavyweight boxing champion and activist Muhammad Ali that draws on, among other sources, newly available FBI and Justice Department files.
"Complete Stories" (Seven Stories), by Kurt Vonnegut. More than 900 pages of short fiction by the late Vonnegut ("Slaughterhouse-Five"), organized thematically.
“Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver” (Penguin Press). A large serving of work from one of America’s foremost poets and nature observers.
“Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919” (Oxford University Press), by Mike Wallace. The second massive volume in Wallace’s series; the first volume won the Pulitzer Prize for history.
“The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956” (Harper). More than 1,300 pages of letters that take poet and icon Plath from her school days to her marriage to Ted Hughes and that show the growth of an emerging writer.
“S Is for Southern: A Guide to the South, From Absinthe to Zydeco” (Harper Wave). The editors of Garden & Gun deliver a selective, sprightly encyclopedia of things southern, with guest contributions from such fancy names as Jason Isbell, Roy Blount Jr. and Marshall Chapman.
“Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice From the Best in the World” (HMH), by Timothy Ferriss. The business self-help guru has collected advice, largely in Q&A format, from dozens of famous and successful folks as varied as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Greg Norman, Temple Grandin, Aisha Tyler and Whitney Cummings. This would make a great bedside book.
VISUALLY INTERESTING
Coffee table optional.
“The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits” (Ten Speed Press), by Mihaela Noroc. Noroc photographed women around the globe. A book for people who like “Humans of New York.”
“Bridges: A History of the World’s Most Spectacular Spans” (Black Dog & Leventhal), by Judith Dupre. Love and attention for the Mackinac Bridge, the Golden Gate, the Tacoma Narrows and other spans classic and contemporary, in an oversize volume (9 inches by 18 inches).
“Journey: An Illustrated History of Travel” (DK). People in motion and the places they go, from ancient to the present. Lavishly illustrated with maps, artworks and photos.
“Prince: A Private View” (St. Martin’s Press), by Afshin Shahidi. More than 250 portraits of the late musical artist, who quite possibly wore more different colors with more flair than any other man of his lifetime.
“Remarkable Books: The World’s Most Beautiful and Historic Works” (DK). A visual and textual celebration of legendary, classic and famous books, from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Book of Kells to “Le Petit Prince.”
PAGING THROUGH POP CULTURE
"Anne Bancroft: A Life" (University of Kentucky Press), by Douglass K. Daniel. The first detailed biography of the Oscar- and Tony-winning actress yields a portrait of a woman determined to always improve her craft while remaining human and engaged.
"Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart" (Simon & Schuster), by Scott Eyman. Eyman, the hardest-working man in show-business biography, crafts a smartly told story of two legends whose lives could not have been more different yet were connected nearly from the start.
"Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Sam Wasson. With an insider's enthusiasm, Wasson, a former improv-er himself, traces the history of improvisational theater and comedy from its roots in the 1940s and '50s to today, and shows how it reshaped the way America laughs.
"Jewish Comedy: A Serious History" (Norton), by Jeremy Dauber. The subtitle isn't wrong; this study of Jewish humor, especially in literature, is serious stuff. But it's also well-researched, authoritative and diverse, encompassing everything from Sholem Aleichem to Mad magazine.
"Movie Geek: The Den of Geek! Guide to the Movieverse" (Cassell), by Simon Brew. Some movie junkies love to analyze, some like to share obscure trivia, and some are fascinated by how Hollywood works. Brew, the creator of the website Den of Geeks, is all three, and this collection of his discoveries, ideas and obsessions is infectious fun for any movie lover.
"Off the Cliff: How the Making of 'Thelma & Louise' Drove Hollywood to the Edge" (Penguin Press), by Becky Aikman. An unfortunately very timely recounting of the 1991 action movie that jolted the movies' male-centric paradigm and that shows, through incisive interviews and synthesis, that the challenges women in Hollywood faced then have barely budged in the quarter-century since.
"The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic" (Hachette), by Richard Sandomir. An affectionate look at the making of the 1942 baseball biopic "Pride of the Yankees," the rarest of movies – an American icon played by an American icon.
"Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became the Touchstone of a Generation" (Alongquin), by Beverly Gray. A chatty history, powered by original interviews, of the making and impact of the 1967 classic "The Graduate."
"Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC" (Da Capo), by Reed Tucker. The two giants of the comics industry have been fighting each other – and defining themselves in opposition to each other – for half a century. This book shows how Marvel and DC, while sometimes bizarro mirror images of each other, are more alike than either would admit.
"Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine" (Knopf), by Joe Hagan. What started as an authorized biography of the publisher of the great pop-culture bible of the 20th century turned into a dishy story of Rolling Stone and Wenner's evolution from counterculture voice to company man.
"Waiting for the Punch" (Flatiron), by Marc Maron and Brendan McDonald. Comedian Maron excerpts interviews from his engaging and often-revelatory podcast "WTF," organizing them by topic ("Identity," "Failure," "Mortality") rather than speaker (everyone from Robin Williams to Margaret Cho to Barack Obama), in a breezy, sometimes inspirational read.
"Warner Bros.: The Making of an American Movie Studio" (Yale University Press), by David Thomson. Thomson, the dean of American film critics and historians, mixes analysis with history in this study of the studio that made "Casablanca" and "The Jazz Singer" while making stars of Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and James Cagney.
BASEBALL PICKS
"The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball" (Oxford), by Charles Fountain. Former sportscaster Fountain takes a fascinating, deep dive into the Black Sox era to show the "fixed" World Series was a reflection of baseball's hypocritical approach to gambling's role in the sport, and how the crisis it created changed the game forever.
"The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse" (FSG), by Rich Cohen. Don't let the title mislead you; this isn't another Cubs-fan-lament book. Cohen weaves personal stories into a quick-read history of the Cubs, showing the team's dark days, just like last year's World Series win, had their roots in something other than a curse.
"The Cooperstown Casebook: Who's in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Who Should Be In, and Who Should Pack Their Plaques" (St. Martin's Press), by Jay Jaffe. Using his own formula, Jaffe reassesses the 220 players who have been voted into the Hall of Fame and those eligible to join them. (Former Brewers Hank Aaron, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor rate high at their positions; Rollie Fingers and Don Sutton, not so much.)
"The Year of the Pitcher: Bob Gibson, Denny McLain and the End of Baseball's Golden Age" (HMH), by Sridhar Pappu. In a blend of new interviews and archival stories, Pappu, a New York Times columnist, shows how the 1968 season, when pitching truly dominated, was really the final chapter in the story of baseball as your grandfather knew it.
Jim Higgins is the author of "Wisconsin Literary Luminaries: From Laura Ingalls Wilder to Ayad Akhtar" (The History Press).