Kaveh Akbar! Anthony Veasna So! Irreverent travel! 24 books out in paperback this December.
December is finally here, the final month in a year in which time has sometimes felt more like a labyrinth than a line through calendar days, a year of sudden twists and turns. And the year to come will be dense with, if not outright defined by, uncertainty. And that is precisely why the things that bring us joy and contemplation, like our books, are more important than ever. To that end, I’ve compiled a list of exciting new fiction and nonfiction titles coming out in paperback this December.
And there’s indeed a lot to be excited about. It’s especially a strong showing for fiction, with a bevy of celebrated works by Kaveh Akbar, Tana French, Jill McCorkle, Jonathan Evinson, Louise Kennedy, Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, and many others. And, in nonfiction, you’ll find many excellent options, as well, including Anthony Veasna So’s wide-ranging essays, Shahnaz Habib’s irreverent history of travel, Einstein’s life in ninety-nine particles, a new look at the fascinating collage artist Peter Beard, and more.
If you missed them in hardcover, be sure to check out these paperback editions. It’s been a strange year, and there’s much more of that to come. But everything is better with books by your side. Read deeply, and add these to your to-be-read lists, or let them be gifts for someone whose to-be-read piles have room yet to grow.
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Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!
(Vintage)
“Incandescent….Akbar has created an indelible protagonist, haunted, searching, utterly magnetic. But it speaks to Akbar’s storytelling gifts that Martyr! is both a riveting character study and piercing family saga….Akbar is a dazzling writer, with bars like you wouldn’t believe….What Akbar pulls off in Martyr! is nothing short of miraculous.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Tana French, The Hunter
(Penguin)
“As French revisits the seemingly bucolic landscape where trouble roils just under the surface, her writing continues to shift from mystery to meditation….Morally shaded and complex, [The Hunter] will leave you thinking about who’s right—and what’s wrong—long after you turn the last page.”
–NPR
Jonathan Evison, Again and Again
(Penguin)
“Evison’s dazzling new novel does what the best literature does, pulls us out of our lives and plunges us into another–in this case many others…in a way that is truly, mindbendingly, genius. A stunning Scherazade-told tale about the only subject that matters—love—Again and Again is about the stories we tell ourselves to create ourselves, the stories we believe, and the way a human heart can shatter and still find a kind of wholeness.”
–Caroline Leavitt
Anthony Veasna So, Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes
(Ecco Press)
“Anthony Veasna So’s talent for evoking the anxieties, longings, and memories of diasporic Cambodian Americans—on voluptuous display in his posthumously published short story collection Afterparties—is put to vivid use in this new collection of delicately hinged essays that address everything from ‘deep reality TV’ to So’s stint as an art student.”
–The Boston Globe
Shahnaz Habib, Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel
(Catapult)
“Thoughtful and thought-provoking….It’s both a welcome addition to the existing library of literature on travel and a resonant critique of much of it—and it may well leave you thinking more about your own experiences making your way across the globe.”
–Tobias Carroll
Christian Wiman, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair
(Picador)
“Wiman weaves together poetry, essay, and memoir in this dazzling, multivocal examination of and refusal to accept existential despair….Wiman’s knowledge is vast, and his evocative imagery lingers in the mind….[Zero at the Bone is] a gorgeous ode to the power of poetry to grapple with life’s most anguished moments.”
–Poetry
Louise Kennedy, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac: Stories
(Riverhead)
“Incisive stories [of] women at precipitous turning points in their lives….Each story reverberates with a sense of the far-reaching effect of choices made or imposed. It adds up to a remarkable and cohesive collection.”
–Publishers Weekly
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, Alice Sadie Celine
(Simon & Schuster)
“Like Didion but with more warmth and a queer sensibility, Alice Sadie Celine is packed with so much of what I love in a book: tight prose, smart, fully realized characters grappling with inappropriate love affairs, and bright California land and light. It’s extraordinarily lovely and I savored every word and didn’t want it to end.”
–Bethany Ball
Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes: And Other Stories
(Algonquin)
“Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder.”
–Alexander Chee
Colette Brooks, Trapped in the Present Tense: Meditations on American Memory
(Counterpoint)
“Brooks ruminates upon the past while reframing events to challenge our present perceptions of what matters most when we look back and formulate life lessons….This is a sophisticated, thoughtful collection that should be read with the kind of care that Brooks instilled into each provocative essay.”
–Booklist
Virginia Sole-Smith, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture
(Holt)
“If you have ever held a piece of food or briefly glimpsed a part of your body and felt a complicated thing, you need to read this book. Fat Talk is about parenting—but also about living—within and outside of the nefarious stories we’ve been told about food and bodies and how and why they relate to health; about the dangers of restriction and the freedom and the power that can come from loving ourselves and one another on new and better terms.”
–Lynn Steger Strong
Jonathan Scott, Into the Groove: The Story of Sound from Tin Foil to Vinyl
(Bloomsbury)
“Into the Groove is a thorough exploration of the sound revolution that brought music to the masses… Jonathan Scott contributes a wealth of valuable information that will engage audiophiles everywhere. A winning book of history mixed with pop culture.”
–Manhattan Book Review
John Sayles, Jamie MacGillivray
(Melville House)
“[R]emarkable in that it manages to be both sweeping and intimate, to deliver to the reader the tides of political history but also a moving and internalized portrait of two young people swept along on these tides…Jamie MacGillivray is Sayles’s sixth novel—his first was published in 1975—and by some distance his best….Sayles writes superbly about the confusion of warfare and deals equally well with the horrors of the plantations…a first-rate historical novel.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Diana Clarke, The Hop
(Harper)
“[An] ambitious and addictive feminist tale….With a complicated mother-daughter relationship, unconditional friendships, disappointments, and a bold stance on the sex industry, Clarke’s novel consistently stirs the head and the heart. This is a great achievement.”
–Publishers Weekly
Mike McCormack, This Plague of Souls
(Soho Press)
“McCormack’s language is evocative, perfectly suited to the noirish atmosphere he builds throughout the book . . . As in Solar Bones, McCormack displays his gift for describing landscapes and situations that might seem unlovely, but for the fact that they are loved by the author’s observing eye….This is a strange novel, sinister yet hopeful, a descent into darkness that somehow manages to rise into a ringing light.”
–The Guardian
Samuel Graydon, Einstein in Time and Space: A Life in 99 Particles
(Scribner)
“Graydon reveals Einstein, warts and all, in a marvelous way that few if any previous biographies have ever managed. Each scene impels you to read the next, making it hard to put the book down. A highly original, irresistibly engaging portrayal of history’s most iconic scientist. Bravo!”
–Michael Guillen
Christopher Wallace, Twentieth-Century Man: The Wild Life of Peter Beard
(Ecco Press)
“Spirited….Wallace blends biography, art criticism, reportage and essayistic digressions to create a portrait of a man so disillusioned with civilization that he sought to ‘rewild himself’…the man is sharper as a result.”
–The Washington Post
Mary Beard, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World
(Liveright)
“Throughout, it is clear that Beard—a decorated retired Cambridge professor (and blogger and TV presenter), who excels at making the ancient world accessible to nonspecialist audiences—is herself deeply intrigued by the Roman emperor…in these rigorously researched pages is an account that gives life to an often shadowy yet captivating figure….Above all, she makes her readers rethink any simplistic notions they may have about what it meant to be the emperor of Rome.”
–The Washington Post
Melissa Rivero, Flores and Miss Paula
(Ecco Press)
“Deeply compassionate and tender, Melissa Rivero’s new novel paints a striking portrait of the mother-daughter bond with wisdom and empathy. In alternating chapters, we see an immigrant mother and millennial daughter unfold and evolve—with stunning depth. Melissa is a phenomenal talent who combines authenticity and a bold, fresh voice to deliver raw, unforgettable women/characters. Not to be missed!”
–Etaf Rum
Claire Oshetsky, Poor Deer
(Ecco Press)
“Beautiful, terrifying….Grief is a well-trod territory in fiction, but in Oshetsky’s hands, this familiar topic becomes fresh and strange….With Poor Deer, Oshetsky proves themself the bard of unruly psyches.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Carsten Henn, The Door-to-Door Bookstore
(Hanover Square Press)
“Carsten Henn has written a sensitive, poetic novel about the magical power of books to connect people. This novel is a pleasure to read for all book lovers.”
–Aachener Zeitung
Richard Snow, Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy’s Only Mutiny, and the Trial that Gripped the Nation
(Scribner)
“As engrossing as Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea. In Richard Snow’s masterful hands, the collision between a brash, young, wannabe pirate and his rash, too-proud, unyielding commanding officer is a sea story for the ages. What happened on Somers during a routine U.S. Navy voyage in 1842 is as shocking and unsettling today as it was in its day.”
–James Sullivan
James Lee Burke, Harbor Lights: Stories
(Grove Press)
“Burke’s eight-piece story collection shines, from the atmosphere found while cherry picking in a northwestern Montana orchard to the smell of summer watermelons in the South….These stories, while filled with dark themes, are bright with descriptive natural features, spanning from before the Civil War to more modern times, offering a look into the battlefield history of the South and how it remains alive….For Burke’s many fans and those who enjoy Southern tales.”
–Library Journal
Karl Malantes, Cold Victory
(Grove Press)
“Marlantes’ well-plotted, briskly moving novel explores the psychological afterlife of war. The men may court death on the tundra, but their needs are uncomplicated. It’s the women who, in building cross-cultural bridges and making impossible sacrifices, truly demonstrate sisu (Finnish for ‘toughness in the face of hopelessness’).”
–Booklist
