By Kate Dwyer
Illustration by Wilfrid Depauw.
Though summer reading has become a genre all its own, holiday break is the perfect time to catch up on buzzworthy fiction, newsy nonfiction, and recently announced award winners. We asked Books & Books founder Mitchell Kaplan to share his recommendations.
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“Intermezzo”
In Rooney’s internationally bestselling fourth novel, brothers Peter and Ivan navigate complex romantic relationships in the wake of their father’s death. By Sally Rooney; Farrar, Straus and Giroux -
“Playground”
Powers’s latest novel centers on an island in French Polynesia, and approaches the ocean with the same precision and awe as his Pulitzer Prize–winning “The Overstory” did trees. “Playground” draws together the lives of a tech billionaire, an NGO worker, an author, and a sculptor in a deep exploration of humanity. By Richard Powers; W. W. Norton & Company -
“The City and Its Uncertain Walls”
From Murakami’s singular imagination comes the story of thwarted first love, a journey into a dream-world of shadow selves, a vast library, and a walled city of mysteries. By Haruki Murakami; Knopf -
“The Best Short Stories, 2024”
Short-story master and best-selling author Amor Towles was the guest editor of the 2024 O. Henry Prize, and the resulting anthology includes stories from big names like Kate DiCamillo, Jai Chakrabarti, Dave Eggers, and Jess Walter, plus writers to watch. Edited by Amor Towles; Vintage -
“Patti Smith: Before Easter After”
Published widely for the first time, this book of renowned photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s images of Patti Smith while on tour in the late 1970s offers an unfiltered look at an important moment in music history. By Patti Smith; Rizzoli -
“Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books that Saved Me”
Well-Read Black Girl founder Glory Edim’s memoir tells her life story through the work of the writers who shaped her—Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison among them. Tracing Edim’s journey from her childhood in an immigrant family in Virginia to starting a reading community with 500,000 members, it shows how representation in literature can make a lasting difference in young people’s lives. By Glory Edim; Ballantine Books -
“Didion and Babitz”
After discovering correspondence between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, journalist Lili Anolik follows up her Babitz biography, Hollywood’s Eve, with an examination of the two LA writers’ symbiotic relationship, which morphed from rivalry to collaboration to friendship—and back again. By Lili Anolik; Scribner -
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“Tracey Emin Paintings”
This book—the first publication dedicated to the storied multimedia artist’s paintings—contextualizes 300 of Emin’s expressive works, in an essay by Jennifer Higgie and an interview with her close friend David Dawson. By David Dawson; Phaidon Press
