Essays & Memoir
Fresh insights on race and gender, sex and power, and love and loss will give readers plenty to chew on.
Both/And
Edited by Denne Michele Norris (HarperOne) $27.99
In this stunning anthology, Norris, editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, brings together 17 essays on trans life in America, by writers such as Akwaeke Emezi and Raquel Willis. Across the collection, the complex and multifaceted experiences of trans people of color are rendered vividly, and the pieces urge political action in the present while offering a beacon of hope for a more just future.
Want to Burn This Place Down
Maris Kreizman (Ecco) $26.99
“In a country plagued by problems in which individual grit is not nearly enough to prevail over rotten systems,” Lit Hub columnist Kreizman writes, “working hard begins to feel more like a Sisyphean task than a practical solution.” Tempering her anger with wryness and lots of Xennial nostalgia, Kreizman bucks the stereotypical trend of growing more conservative with age with this fierce and witty collection.
Notes to John
Joan Didion (Knopf) $32
This intimate posthumous volume brings together notes from the early 2000s that Didion addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne, on sessions with her psychiatrist. Didion’s fly-on-the-wall reports recap the therapy sessions word for word, offering an unvarnished look into the personal life and psychology of the oft-enigmatic writer. As poignant as it is candid, this is essential reading for Didion devotees.
Paper Girl
Beth Macy (Penguin Press) $32
Journalist and Dopesick author Macy was raised in blue-collar Urbana, Ohio, which teemed with factory jobs and good schools in the 1970s and ’80s. As she recalls episodes from her complicated childhood, Macy attempts to diagnose the causes of Urbana’s current dysfunction, characterized by opioid addiction, declining educational opportunities, and rampant loneliness. Timely, clear-eyed, and empathetic, her insights provide a welcome salve for a social wound.
Racebook
Tochi Onyebuchi (Grove/Gay) $27
In his poetic and insightful collection, science fiction and fantasy novelist Onyebuchi reflects on identity, race, and the internet. He begins by tracing the evolution of the internet from a resource for learning to a tool for social justice activism to a mechanism for commercializing attention, while in later essays he evokes nostalgia for earlier iterations of the internet and offers glimmers of hope.
Tart
Slutty Cheff (S&S/Rucci) $28.99
Anonymous food blogger and British Vogue columnist Cheff debuts with a charming behind-the-scenes glimpse of the culinary world. After burning out at her nine-to-five, Cheff went to culinary school and got hooked on restaurant work after a single shift. She turns a wry eye toward the hazards of life in the kitchen and serves up spicy musings on her love life in this refreshing forkful of food and sex.
Food & Drink
On the menu: rehabilitation for a contentious flavor profile, a cocktail book for swifties, and other tasty treats.
The Art of Jacques Pépin
Jacques Pépin (Harvest) $35
This joyful volume brings together legendary chef Pépin’s loves of cooking and painting, pairing favorite recipes with his cheery, vibrant artwork. Dishes like chicken breast sautéed with tomato and chives come together quickly, while pork roast with ratatouille is more elaborate. Accompanying the recipes are paintings that feature produce, farm animals, and chefs at work, as well as abstract landscapes and expressive nudes. It’s a treat for newcomers and longtime fans alike.
Bitter
Alexina Anatole (Interlink) $35
U.K. MasterChef contestant Anatole debuts with an elegant and enthusiastic ode to a flavor profile that is often “picked last for the team.” She organizes the collection around 10 key ingredients, including coffee, grapefruit, and tahini. The section on bitter greens includes a spiral phyllo borek, and a chapter on beer features a porridge made by soaking stale rye bread in ale. The result is an enticing, clever assemblage.
The Eras Pour
Alison Grey (Clarkson Potter) $26.99
A lovingly crafted cocktail collection pairs Taylor Swift–inspired libations with copious fan lore. The 60 drinks are sorted by album/era, and each is tied to a specific song: the sparkling “Crestfallen Cure” complements Evermore’s “Champagne Problems,” while “You Beer-long with Me,” a nod to the Fearless single, is a boilermaker for “when high heels and short skirts just don’t feel right.” Snap this up for Swifties who may be toasting or drowning their sorrows over her engagement to Travis Kelce.
Galette!
Rebecca Firkser (Artisan) $30
Food writer Firkser dials in on the galette—a convenient open-faced pie that is eminently suited to “riffability”—in this innovative collection. Her master recipe for dough comes complete with step-by-step photographs and meticulous instructions for making it by hand or using a food processor. Sweet options lean classic but with a twist, like plums sprinkled with black pepper and tarragon; savory choices include a slab pie with an eggplant parm filling.
Salsa Daddy
Rick Martínez (Clarkson Potter) $32.99
“Salsa is a quintessential part of the Mexican table,” according to James Beard Award winner Martinez. In this vibrant and creative guide, he organizes his recipes by cooking methods: the smashed salsas chapter features la piña (charred pineapple, habanero, olive oil) and blended salsas include los puerquitos (beans, bacon, chile de arbol). This is a gift for home cooks looking to add a pop of flavor to their weeknight repertoire.
The Talisman of Happiness
Ada Boni (Voracious) $60
Since 1929, Italian home cooks have turned to this treasury of comforting dishes. This translation brings the full collection of more than 1,600 recipes to Americans for the first time. With forewords from Lidia Bastianich and Katie Parla, the cookbook follows the courses of a traditional Italian meal, featuring recipes for familiar dishes like bucatini all’amatriciana as well as more obscure classics like arrosto alla casalinga, a braised veal roast. Italophiles, take note.
History & BIography
Fascinating personalities populate these chronicles, providing windows into events both epic and intimate.
The First and Last King of Haiti
Marlene L. Daut (Knopf) $40
Historian Daut offers a powerful biography of Henry Christophe (1767–1820). She first sketches out Christophe’s sensational life story—he went from a radical in search of a revolution to a commander of Haiti’s revolutionary forces who crowned himself king—then pokes holes in the myth. Often presented as a cautionary example of revolutionaries’ penchant for turning into dictators, Christophe instead emerges in Daut’s telling as a complex figure in a world gripped by radical transformation.
Gettysburg
Bruce Chadwick (Pegasus) $32
The Battle of Gettysburg was a dramatic combination of pathos and absurdity, according to this remarkable take from historian Chadwick. In between snippets from soldiers’ letters and journalists’ on-the-ground reporting, Chadwick provides cheeky commentary (“Pickett was angry at everybody for Pickett’s Charge”). By turns amusing and bleak, it’s a stellar look at the folly, valor, and happenstance of war.
The Golden Road
William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury) $32.99
Historian Dalrymple brings a lifetime of scholarship to bear on this account of India’s often forgotten position at the heart of the ancient and early medieval worlds. In this zone of influence, which stretched from western China to Persia and on to the Mediterranean coasts, Indic ideas, art, science, languages, and religions were ever present. Dalyrimple offers fascinating glimpses of the period’s Indo-centric interconnectedness, and writes movingly about these ancient meetings of the minds, lending a contagious enthusiasm and a profound humanism to this first-rate work.
A Marriage at Sea
Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead) $28
In spring 1973, British couple Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s dream of trading suburban mundanity for a life at sea turned into a nightmare: after a flailing, dying whale punched a hole in the hull of their 31-foot sloop, they spent 118 days adrift on an inflatable raft in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued. Journalist Elmhirst narrates the grisly details of their survival with vivid immediacy, making this utterly un-put-downable.
The Mesopotamian Riddle
Joshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster) $29.99
By the 1850s, several scholars claimed to have decoded cuneiform, an ancient script discovered decades earlier. William Henry Fox Talbot, a wealthy inventor who’d produced his own decipherment, proposed an experiment to convince a skeptical public: he and three other scholars would turn in their translations of the same text to the Royal Asiatic Society; if the translations matched, it would prove decipherment was possible. Hammer’s account makes for a dazzling archival adventure.
So Many Stars
Caro De Robertis (Algonquin) $32
In this scintillating oral history, novelist De Robertis weaves together the voices of 20 trans and gender nonconforming people of color in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. The book is structured by life stage, beginning with childhood explorations of identity and family responses; followed by building communities in adulthood, when many of the subjects leaned into activism; and finally, aging as a queer person and mentoring the next generation. It’s an utterly riveting view of LGBTQ+ life in America.
Religion & Spirituality
If the spirit moves you, ’tis the season for titles that offer various perspectives on different aspects of faith.
As a Jew
Sarah Hurwitz (HarperOne) $32.99
Former White House speechwriter Hurwitz makes a case for Judaism’s relevance in an increasingly secular and often openly antisemitic world. The author, who had a tenuous connection to her faith until she signed up for an introduction to Judaism class in her 30s, describes how she came to understand the Torah as less a prescriptive rule book than an account of “who the Jews are.” It’s an important and thorough analysis of what it means to be Jewish in America today.
How to Be a Saint
Kate Sidley (Sourcebooks) $19.99
In this irreverent guide to canonization, Late Show writer Sidley lays out the basics of Catholic doctrine and the steps required for sainthood. Interspersed are discussions of specific saints, including “nepo baby” saints (St. Basil the Great’s entire family–“enough for a bobsled team, including alternates”—is canonized). Sidley’s ribald tone is rooted in a genuine affection for her subject that shines through in the details she shares about Catholic tradition.
Motherhood Is Not Your Highest Calling
Vicki Courtney (NavPress) $18.99
This empowering guide for Christian women explains how scriptural verses are twisted to support a notion of biblical womanhood that sees motherhood as a woman’s sole destiny and pressures moms to meet an unrealistic standard of perfection while ignoring their
personal and spiritual needs. In a culture where social media is dominated by tradwives and other idealized portraits of motherhood, this strikes a chord.
Queer & Christian
Brandan Robertson (St. Martin’s Essentials) $30
Pastor Robertson aims to “wrest the Bible away from the people who use it as a weapon against queer people” in this accessible call for change. Debunking scriptural interpretations that condemn homosexuality, he notes that the concept of sexual orientation didn’t exist in biblical times and argues that the Bible deplores sexual domination or exploitation. Robertson’s enthusiastic, empowering vision for a more inclusive church inspires.
Witness to Belief
Russell J. Levenson Jr. (Morehouse) $29.95
Actors, politicians, scientists, and other public figures reveal how their Christian faith has shaped them in these intimate interviews by Levenson, an Episcopal priest and former spiritual adviser to George H.W. Bush. The sincerity with which each subject details their faith is refreshing, and their differing perspectives on complex issues like evil and altruism are enlightening. The result is an openhearted testament to the power of religious belief in a chaotic world.
Science & Nature
These examinations of the living world and how humans find their place in it enlighten and entertain.
Bird School
Adam Nicolson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) $32
In this revelatory narrative, Ondaatje Prize winner Nicolson shares his experience observing birds near his home in Sussex. After realizing he “had never paid much attention to birds,” Nicolson set out to educate himself on the creatures and built a shed in the countryside from which he could study them. In sparkling and poetic prose, he describes the wonders he encountered, making this something of a love letter to the avian world.
The Call of the Honeyguide
Rob Dunn (Basic) $30
Biologist Dunn explores mutually beneficial relationships between different species in this stunning survey. Offering a corrective to the view that competition dominates nature, Dunn’s vivid descriptions of interspecies interactions make clear that mutualism is everywhere—down to the single-celled Mixotricha paradoxa, which can only be found inside the guts of an Australian termite—including human cooperation with the communicative bird of the title.
Eyes in the Soles of My Feet
Caroline Sutton (Schaffner) $27.95
In these insightful essays, nature writer Sutton highlights often overlooked aspects of the natural world. Organized by the ancient Greeks’ four elements—water, earth, air, and fire—the narratives segue from snowy egrets to the thumb-size, glow-in-the-dark bobtail squid. Sutton considers such thought-provoking questions as what humans would see if they viewed their surroundings through 10 eyes distributed over their bodies like horseshoe crabs. The result is a revelatory perspective on life on Earth.
The Genius Bat
Yossi Yovel (St. Martin’s) $32
Ecologist and neurobiologist Yovel shares the fruits of his decades of field and lab research on bats in this standout work. Yovel has come to believe bats are conscious creatures, as “the vampire bat that returns home after a sleepless night and feeds a hungry member of its colony must have some consciousness.” His passion and curiosity will leave readers with a greater appreciation for the wonders and mysteries of the bat world.
Humanish
Justin Gregg (Little, Brown) $30
Anthropomorphism is an “utterly charming linchpin of the human mind,” contends animal cognition researcher Gregg. His study of the tendency to assign humanlike attributes to the nonhuman covers household pets, cars, hurricanes, and teddy bears, for starters. It’s not all silly; he also digs into how “the twisting of the Anthropo-Dial” can lead people to view groups other than their own as less than human.
Sisters of the Jungle
Keriann McGoogan (Douglas & McIntyre) $29.95
Mixing science, adventure, and personal experience, primatologist McGoogan delivers a captivating account of how such women as Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas have shaped the field of primatology. Alongside their stories, McGoogan integrates her own experience as a field scientist studying primates in Belize and Madagascar. These tales of grit, determination, and passion inspire.
[br cleaar]Sports &Entertainment
Changeover
Giri Nathan (Gallery) $28.99
Journalist Nathan delivers a scintillating account of the rivalry between tennis players Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who rose to prominence as the previous era of tennis’s “Big Three” (Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal) receded. The changeover Nathan describes began as Alcaraz and Sinner started to defeat this “geriatric elite.” Throughout, Nathan provides exceptional commentary on how the pair contrast with each other in both style of play and temperament.
Every Day Is Sunday
Ken Belson (Grand Central) $30
This candid history from New York Times reporter Belson details how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft turned the NFL into an immensely profitable institution. Today, NFL games attract huge television audiences, the Super Bowl is a “de facto national holiday,” and the teams play in billion-dollar stadiums—but none of this was inevitable, Belson argues.
A Hollywood Ending
Yaron Weitzman (Doubleday) $30
NBA reporter Weitzman takes readers behind the scenes of the Los Angeles Lakers in this in-depth account of a crucial moment in the team’s history: its signing of LeBron James in 2018, which ultimately yielded a championship in the Covid-impacted 2019–2020 season. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Weitzman cinematically portrays the high-stakes drama behind the pairing
of a living legend and a storied sports team. It’s a must-read for pro hoops fans.
On Her Game
Christine Brennan (Scribner) $29.99
In this top-notch biography of WNBA player Caitlin Clark, sports journalist Brennan offers a triumphant account of a game-changer, from Clark’s high school days to her 2024 rookie year in the WNBA. Brennan more than justifies her assessment of Clark as a “groundbreaking, historic, immensely popular, but also at times controversial cultural figure” who is “dramatically altering one of the last great bastions of male superiority.”
The Podcast Pantheon
Sean Malin (Chronicle) $24.95
Vulture podcast columnist Malin helps
readers navigate the vast podcast landscape in this insightful guide. The 101 shows Malin highlights span three dozen categories, including history, pop culture, sports, true crime, comedy, science fiction, and self-help. In each entry, Malin describes the show’s background and merits, and recommends a favorite episode. This is a must-have for lovers of the wildly popular medium.
Water Mirror Echo
Jeff Chang (Mariner) $35
The life of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee is the subject of this panoramic biography by journalist Chang. The 1973 release of Enter the Dragon launched Lee to international stardom, but he died the same year, at 32. Peppering the narrative with rich historical details and poignant analyses, Chang persuasively argues that Lee’s presence onscreen helped shape the idea of what it means to be Asian in America.
