Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles — fiction and nonfiction — to consider for your December reading list.
While December remains a sleepier month for new book releases than other times of the year, December 2024 offers quite a few terrific titles, so many that it was difficult to choose among them. On this list we’ve got novels about ancient Greece, near-future North America and Cold War-era Cádiz, plus nonfiction peeks inside a woodshop, the mind of a Beatle and the making of a classic film. Happy reading, and remember: Books make the best gifts!
Fiction
Private Rites: A Novel
By Julia Armfield
Flatiron: 304 pages, $28
(Dec. 3)
Isla, Irene and Agnes Carmichael are sisters, the progeny of architect-to-the-rich Stephen, whom they all despise. All three are also queer and living in a dystopian version of London where climate change has forced residents to travel by water taxi. When the women gather for their father’s funeral, they learn he has a nasty surprise for them in his will. Not since Jane Smiley’s “A Thousand Acres” has Shakespeare’s King Lear had such a strong treatment.
The Voyage Home: A Novel
By Pat Barker
Doubleday: 288 pages, $29
(Dec. 3)
The final volume of Barker’s “Women of Troy” trilogy is narrated not by enslaved princess Briseis but by her friend Ritsa. Ritsa becomes a kind of babysitter to King Priam’s daughter Cassandra, as Agamemnon takes them all back to Greece. The all-seeing and never-believed Cassandra knows that she and her captor will both perish there; her conversations with Ritsa reinforce the author’s attempts to show women’s fates during wartime.
Woo Woo: A Novel
By Ella Baxter
Catapult: 272 pages, $27
(Dec. 3)
Skewering the art world in fiction is almost a tradition — think of “Cat’s Eye” by Margaret Atwood, and now, Ella Baxter’s second novel. Conceptual artist Sabine believes she’s about to launch her career-making exhibition, when the ghost of artist Carolee Schneemann, an unkind online comment and other eerie moments shake her confidence. Suspense builds as Sabine and others wonder what’s real and what’s performative, because either might threaten her life.
The Way: A Novel
By Cary Groner
Spiegel & Grau: 304 pages, $29
(Dec. 3)
Groner’s novel has more depth than the video game and TV show “The Last of Us,” even if they sound similar. Will Collins, 50-something and a devout Buddhist in a Colorado community, receives a message about a possible cure for the virus that has decimated the United States, and sets out for California with his cat and his raven and a team of mules pulling his truck. He takes custody of 14-year-old Sophie, and the unlikely caravan attempts to outrun violent extremists.
Gabriel’s Moon: A Novel
By William Boyd
Atlantic Monthly Press: 272 pages, $28
(Dec. 3)
Boyd was shortlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize for “Any Human Heart,” a novel about a man whose long, adventurous life included World War II espionage. The author’s latest concerns another man entangled in espionage, but journalist Gabriel Dax stumbles into it after interviewing Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960. As Dax tries to get back to his normal life, a past trauma threatens to upend more for him than MI6’s machinations.
Nonfiction
Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic Film
By Julie Gilbert
Pantheon: 400 pages, $35
(Dec. 3)
When Edna Ferber published her version of oil-country mores in “Giant” in 1952, it set many a Texan’s teeth on edge; its big-screen adaptation starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson set many a moviegoer’s pants on fire. Gilbert, who is Ferber’s niece as well as an accomplished writer, details director George Stevens’ struggle to convince Ferber to write a screenplay, as well as how the lavish production changed tiny Marfa, Texas, forever.
Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures With a Clueless Craftsman
By Patrick Hutchison
St. Martin’s Press: 304 pages, $29
(Dec. 3)
Who could resist a house selling for less than $10,000 with the name “Wit’s End”? Author Hutchison couldn’t, and once he’d purchased the tiny cabin in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, he decided to learn how to make it habitable. Embarking on remote-home improvement took him and his buddies six years, and changed his life: Once a copywriter, he’s now a full-time carpenter. He never turns down a beer, or a chance to laugh at himself.
Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman
By Callum Robinson
Ecco: 320 pages, $30
(Dec. 3)
When Scotsman Callum Robinson was 19, one morning over breakfast his father asked if he would like to join his fine-woodworking business. Robinson estimates that he’s now logged at least 40,000 hours as a craftsman, including the time he spent getting serious about his chosen field, in New Zealand. On return, with a partner named Marisa, he succeeded and failed and succeeded again. It’s a lovely meditation on growth and resilience.
Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing and Touching Plants Is Good for Our Health
By Kathy Willis
Pegasus: 336 pages, $30
(Dec. 3)
The Japanese concept of forest bathing isn’t simply a spiritual practice, according to Willis, an Oxford University biodiversity professor who shows that different kinds of contact with plants can affect humans in measurable ways. Maintaining a front garden might increase your mental health; looking at green spaces can raise academic performance. The author hopes for more studies and more data. There’s already enough to inspire you to stop and smell the roses.
The McCartney Legacy, Vol. 2: 1974-1980: A Comprehensive Look at Paul McCartney’s Life and Work Post-Beatles
By Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair
Dey Street Books: 768 pages, $35
(Dec. 10)
Sir Paul McCartney put the Beatles in his rear-view mirror and formed a new band, Wings. That’s where this second book begins, and while there’s not much new between its covers, the authors’ ease with their material makes it seem as fresh and ageless as their now-octogenarian subject. Considering they’re covering just six years, there’s much more ahead (Vol. 3? Vol. 7???). Maybe you’ll be amazed. You’ll definitely be enthralled.