The best gifts for readers

nonfiction

“As Far as the Light Reaches” by Sabrina Imbler

In lengthy essays, a conservation journalist explores his own identity through the lens of marine life. (Small, Brown)

“A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré”, edited by Tim Cornwell

Correspondence from the beloved novelist and former member of MI5 and MI6. (Vikings)

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney

The comedian’s memoir explores the most devastating of parenting experiences, the grief of losing a child. (Mirror & Gray)

Piet Mondrian: A Life by Hans Janssen

A rich study of the work and legacy of the Dutch founder of De Stijl. (riding house)

fiction

“MS. Behavior” by Elinor Lipman

After being left out on her rooftop, lawyer Jane Morgan is placed under house arrest – but so is one of her neighbors. (Harpers)

“They’ll Love You” by Meg Howrey

For the daughter of ballet dancers, the saga of family strife and inheritance from a Greenwich home elegantly combine Assembly. (double day)

“Scatterlings” by Rešoketšwe Martha Manenzhe

In South Africa, tragedy rocks a young family – mother Black, father White – in this family story told on an epic scale. (HarperVia)

“No One’s Around To Look For You Anymore” by Sam Lipsyte

In 1993, Manhattan, an aspiring rock god, pursues his AWOL bandmate (and his beloved bass guitar); A thrill ensues in the East Village. (Simon & Schuster)

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

Edgar Allan Poe meets California’s gold country as a sex worker turned amateur detective tries to solve the mystery surrounding a string of dead women. (Button)

poems and more

“Pathetic Literature”, edited by Eileen Myles

Little things to feel, excerpts from poems, plays and prose from Franz Kafka to Porochista Khakpour. (Grove Press)

“Weaving Sunset in Scarlet Light” by Joy Harjo

From the former poet prince of the USA, a collection full of pictures from Oklahoma, horses, hope. (WW Norton)

All lit

For the reader for whom books are life, literary paraphernalia are a boon.

GOOD MAIL

Send the gift of brilliantly curated books, as well as a book gift, thanks to Boxwalla’s partnership with author Alexander Chee; This round’s picks include Jonathan Escoffery’s if i survive you Jean Chen Hos fiona and jane, and a tarot deck. “Escoffery’s and Ho’s books both make masterful use of the cohesive collection of short stories to explore the lives of friends (Ho) and family (Escoffery) in a way that a more linear novel cannot,” says Chee vf. The collection of stories, he says, is a form “increasingly inspiring a new generation of American writers who see in it an opportunity for protracted meditations on a subject or community, freed from the idea of ​​climaxing everything in a single story.” . I think of the way a lifelong friendship probably doesn’t have a plot to tell the story of it, but a web of interludes could describe it. Or how the life of a family with many stories cannot be described in one.” The addition of the Star Spinner Tarot will come as no surprise to readers of Chee, who has written about the nuance and allure of the cards. He specifically chose this deck, he says, “because the artist, Trung Le Nguyen, is a favorite and to me his deck has a delightful mix of references drawn from Sailor Moon to Victorian fairy tales to erotic comics, and taken together the effect of these references is an eerie pastiche of something I’ve never seen before and something I know. Which to me is like a tarot reading. If you use the cards to learn archetypes, and you can, what archetypes do you learn from? I like how he twirls that around.” The American Fiction Series by Boxwalla, curated by Alexander Chee, $39.95/bimonthly. (theboxwalla.com)

FROM HEAD TO TOE

Made-to-order velvet and leather slippers to walk through the stacks in. Bookshop x Stubbs & Wootton Library Slippers, $575. (shopbookshop.com)

Muse as maker

Zelda Fitzgerald’s watercolor characters are highly whimsical: an angelic F. Scott ready to don a winged pink button-down alongside fairytale heroines and a topless Louis XIV. Zelda Fitzgerald’s paper dolls by Eleanor Lanahan, $26. (simonandschuster.com)

WELL WRITTEN

Jot down to-do lists, novel notes, movie reviews, and everyday hopes and dreams. Aspinal 2023 Leather Slim Pocket Journal, $65. (aspinaloflondon.com)

LIGHTING ART

What better way to adorn the walls of a literature-loving home than with framed caricatures of a favorite author (head appropriately oversized to better indicate a powerful brain)? Since 1963 David Levine has illustrated more than 3,500 portraits for articles published in That New York Book Reviewincluding Salman Rushdie, Herman Melville, Joan Didion, WEB Du Bois, Vladimir Nabokov (last three pictured here) and more. The New York Review of Books Caricature Prints, $195. (shop.nybooks.com)