With topics as varied as Disney’s tweens, Wisconsin state parks and the centuries of history that led to your Moleskine, our annual list of recommended new books for holiday gifts may have something for every man, woman, child and animal lover.
Here is a varied selection of 43 new books for gift-giving to choose from, including recommendations for children and teens. With some exceptions, I have picked books published since June, including some new books by Wisconsin authors. (Browse a selection of suggested books published in the first half of 2024 at jsonline.com.)
In each case, I’ve either read the book or browsed it, or been impressed by a previous work from the same author, or had the new book recommended by a trusted source of information.
Thanks to colleague Chris Foran for contributing pop-culture book selections.
These suggestions are listed alphabetically by title, with the children’s set arranged in ascending order of recommended reader age.
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“Any Person is the Only Self” (FSG Originals), by Elisa Gabbert. Brilliant literary and personal essays that also reflect the unsettling effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass” (Harper), by Ramin Setoodeh. The co-editor in chief of Variety spent hours interviewing Trump about his time on “The Apprentice.” That through-the-looking-glass experience — yielding revealing anecdotes from Trump, his minions and the people he worked with on the show — makes for a riveting story about celebrity, politics and the reality show that changed America forever.
“The Basketball 100: The Story of the Greatest Players in NBA History” (William Morrow), by David Aldridge and John Hollinger with The Athletic NBA Staff. Basketball writers profile and rank the top 100 players in NBA history. A dozen players here logged minutes with the Milwaukee Bucks, from cornerstones Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Giannis Antetokounmpo to the cup of coffee that was Gary Payton’s 28 games.
“The Bible: A Global History” (Basic Books), by Bruce Gordon. A Yale Divinity School professor traces how the Bible became a book, how it was received by cultures around the world, how it affected them, and how they affected it.
“The City in Glass” (Tordotcom), by Nghi Vo. A Milwaukee writer’s new fantasy offers an immortal demon, a troubled angel and a stunning, destroyed city they hope to rebuild.
“Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV” (Random House), by Emily Nussbaum. The Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic for the New Yorker tells the story of how reality TV became a dominant entertainment form by examining the creation and evolution of the shows that gave it birth, from “Candid Camera” and “The American Family” to “Survivor” and, yes, “The Apprentice.”
“The Daily Ukulele: Another Year, Yet Another 365 More Great Songs for Better Living” (Hal Leonard), compiled and arranged by Jim Beloff. Learn to strum a new song each day of the coming year, from the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac to traditional folk music.
“Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire” (St. Martin’s Press), by Ashley Spencer. Spencer explores how the Disney Channel, in a relatively brief period, redefined tween culture and, not incidentally, launched many of the careers of a generation of stars from Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus to Zendaya and the Jonas Brothers — though often not without personal cost and trauma along the way.
“Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir” (Soho Crime), edited by Tod Goldberg. Why should Christians have all the seasonal crime fiction fun? The authors of these 11 tales of naughty behavior include Lee Goldberg, Ivy Pochoda and Gabino Iglesias.
“Extra! Extra! Eat All About It! Recipes and Culinary Curiosities from Historic Wisconsin Newspapers” (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by Jane Conway and Randi Julia Ramsden. Alongside recipes culled from state newspapers from 1870 to 1930, the authors offer mini-essays about how those recipes reflect food trends and history in our state.
“The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982” (Macmillan), by Chris Nashawaty. In an eight-week period in 1982, eight transformative sci-fi/fantasy movies landed in theaters: “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Tron,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “Blade Runner,” “Poltergeist,” John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and “The Road Warrior.” Nashawaty makes a case that, together, they changed the way we watch movies — and the way Hollywood decides to make them.
“Hampton Heights” (Harper Perennial), by Dan Kois. Paperboys battle monsters in this comic horror novel set on Milwaukee’s west side circa 1987, written by a Whitefish Bay High School graduate (and a former Milwaukee Sentinel paper carrier).
“A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps” (University of Chicago Press), by Jeremy Black. A chronicle of railways from the 18th century to the present told through maps from around the world, many drawn from the British Library collection. It even includes an imaginative section where Thomas the Tank Engine fans can see a map of Sodor.
“The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture” (Timber Press), by Barrett Klein. Bug out for the holidays with this friendly look at the essential roles insects play in our lives. Klein is a professor of entomology at UW-La Crosse, where he leads The Pupating Lab. An incentive for some, a trigger warning for others: Klein’s book includes nearly 250 color images.
“James” (Doubleday), by Percival Everett. A retelling of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of Jim, the runaway Black slave who escaped with Huck. One of the year’s most buzzed-about literary novels.
“Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction” (Orbit), by Ann Leckie. Fantasy and speculative fiction from the award-winning author of “Ancillary Justice.”
“Latino Poetry” (Library of America), edited by Rigoberto González. This groundbreaking anthology gathers together work from more than 180 poets from the 17th century to the present. Poems written in Spanish are presented with an English translation. The Library of America has posted a table of contents online for readers who would like to see who’s in the anthology.
“The Man in Black and Other Stories” (Mariner Books), by Elly Griffiths. Suspense and crime fiction in many flavors from the author of the Ruth Galloway mysteries.
“The Mighty Red” (Harper), by Louise Erdrich. Centered around the Red River in North Dakota, Erdrich’s novel explores the bond between a smart trucker mother and her smart teen daughter and the alarming impact of the 2008 recession on people in a small community.
“Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius” (St. Martin’s Press), by Carrie Courogen. May’s brilliance as a performer and filmmaker (“A New Leaf,” “The Heartbreak Kid”) is sometimes upstaged by her reclusiveness. Courogen (who didn’t get to talk to her, either) manages to bring out May’s story in this affectionate, aggressively reported and personably written biography.
“Negative Girl” (Datura), by Libby Cudmore. The hero of Cudmore’s novel is a former punk rock star who now walks mean streets as a private investigator trying to stay sober. Danger and obsession lie ahead.
“The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper” (Biblioasis), by Roland Allen. A lively cultural history of nearly a millennium of notebook and diary writing, with a delightfully large number of related photos.
“The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy and the Making of a Culture War” (Penguin Press), by James Shapiro. The author of several award-winning books about Shakespeare takes a deep dive into the Federal Theatre Project, a short-lived New Deal program designed to give theater people work and bring the stage to the masses — and wound up an early casualty of America’s modern cultural conflict.
“The Puzzle Box” (Random House), by Danielle Trussoni. In the La Crosse native’s sequel to “The Puzzle Master,” the brilliant, danger-defying Mike Brink is in Japan to solve a seemingly unsolvable mystery, without literally losing his head.
“Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank” (Norton), by Justene Hill Edwards. A historian’s nonfiction account of how the bank stole millions from formerly enslaved people and funneled it to rich white crooks.
“The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T. S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime” (Rowman & Littlefield), by Sara Fitzgerald. Was the world-famous poet in love with Hale, who was a speech and drama teacher at Milwaukee-Downer College for most of the 1920s? And how badly did Eliot treat her? Fitzgerald’s biography of Hale draws on recently unsealed letters to address those questions.
“Sipsworth” (Godine), by Simon Van Booy. In this gentle novel, an elderly widow finds her solitary routine disrupted by a mouse, setting off a sequence of events that reconnects with the larger world.
“Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels” (Abrams), by Ellen Ruppel Shell. From their mating habits to their role in an international black market, so many things are mysterious and fascinating about eels.
“Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs” (Thunder Bay Press), by Annie Zaleski. A detailed dive into the discography of the mega-popular singer.
“Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks” (Flatiron), by Marcia Bjornerud. A professor of environmental sciences and geosciences at Lawrence University in Appleton, Bjornerud draws on her long career in field work to describe how rocks structure (and record) life on this planet.
“Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures” (Doubleday), by Katherine Rundell. Lively profiles of the pangolin, the golden mole, the coconut crab and other critters in danger of disappearing from this planet.
“We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter” (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by Amy T. Waldman with Peter Jest. A memoir/biography of Shank Hall owner Jest that ought to be entertaining reading for anyone who’s followed local music in Milwaukee since the late 1980s.
“What’s Next” (Dutton), by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. Who better to take readers behind the scenes at “The West Wing” than Fitzgerald, who played press aide Carol Fitzpatrick, and McCormack, better known as Deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper, on the show? Part reminiscence and part interviews with the principals, the book is a must-read for “West Wing” fans and/or anyone interested in how Golden Age TV shows came together.
“Wisconsin State Parks, Forests, and Recreation Areas − A Ranger’s Guide” (Henschel HAUS), by James Buchholz, publishing Dec. 1. A retired ranger’s detailed guidebook to 80 Wisconsin sites, with notes on geography and amenities, plus Buchholz’s picks for the best trails.
Books for children and teens
“Emergency Quarters” (Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins), by Carlos Matias, illustrated by Gracey Zhang. Young Ernesto is now deemed old enough to walk to school with a parent. His Mom gives him a quarter each morning for an emergency phone call. How will he handle the responsibility? A picture book for readers 4 to 8 years old.
“Giving Good” (Albert Whitman), written and illustrated by Aaron Boyd. In a Milwaukee writer’s gentle picture book, a Black father who has little himself gives his young son a precious gift. For readers 4 to 8 years old.
“The Rock in My Throat” (Carolrhoda), by Kao Kalia Yang, illustrated by Jiemei Lin. In this picture book, a Hmong girl stops speaking after she sees how her parents, still learning English, are mocked. For readers 7 to 10 years old.
“Dear Dad: Growing Up with a Parent in Prison − And How We Stayed Connected” (Graphix/Scholastic), by Jay Jay Patton and Antoine Patton with Kiara Valdez, illustrated by Markia Jenai. A graphic memoir about how a father and daughter stayed in touch while he was incarcerated, and the computer app he developed to help other families do the same. For readers 8 to 12 years old.
“Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building: Make 25 Machines That Really Work” (Abrams Books for Young Readers), by Jennifer George and Zach Umperovitch, illustrated by Ed Steckley. Build crazy machines that work out of junk, and learn the underlying principles behind them. For readers 8 to 12 years old.
“The Bletchley Riddle” (Viking), by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin. In this historical novel, teenage siblings play different roles in Britain’s concerted effort to break the Nazis’ Engima code while also trying to solve the mystery of their missing mother. For readers 10 to 14 years old.
“Weirdo” (First Second), by Tony Weaver Jr., illustrated by Jes Wibowo and Cin Wibowo. In this graphic memoir, a boy tormented by bullies finds other Black nerds to bond with through his love of video games, anime and comics. For readers 10 to 16 years old.
“Everything We Never Had” (Kokila), by Randy Ribay. In a saga that spans nearly a century, four generations of Filipino-American boys and men sort out their relationships with life in America and their fathers. For readers 12 to 18 years old.
“The Glass Girl” (Delacorte), by Kathleen Glasgow. In this realistic novel for young adults, Bella, 15, confronts her alcoholism and other problems in a rehab center. The COVID-19 pandemic is a factor in Bella’s life, too, author Glasgow said in a recent Kirkus Reviews interview. For readers 14 to 18 years old.
Jim Higgins is the author of “Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground” (Trouser Press Books, 2024).
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