Bonjour à tous les bibliophiles! Only a few days left before the tree falls smack on your head. (Wrong gift. Ouch. Forgotten gift. Ouch.) A book is always appreciated because it shows that you think the recipient intelligent and refined. He/she might also actually read it. Support writers and booksellers, dammit! To make the choice a bit easier, here are a few titles that drew me in wonderfully deep in the year now almost history.

A Few Very Good Books to give in 2024 or Any Other Time. Dates are for English translations where relevant.

The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli (2024). Engrossing fiction illuminated by the author’s experience in the titular fortress. If you want to know who Putin is and how he got there, this is your guide.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by H. Murakami (2008). Filled with startling, moving, amusing personal insights about both running and the writer’s craft and vocation, and how they intertwine to create the irrepressible force that is Haruki. Highly recommended as an audiobook while jogging.

The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey (2024). Wonderfully tender and evocative of the comforts and cruelties of an earlier time and hard-scrabble place in rural Scotland. With her usual tact Livesey lets her heroine seek her way independently, while readers cross their fingers and hold their breath. (NB: Margot and I are colleagues.)

Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq (2024). Critics can and do flay him; many did for this novel—but Houellebecq remains a huge pop favorite in France, despite the ire and  convolution of many of his novels. Annihilation is convoluted, but also socially/politically insightful as de Tocqueville and much funnier. Satire is MH’s middle name. Here he also bares his heart, and though I don’t agree with his cause, he makes a strong case.   

Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü, (2023) winner of the 2024 Barrios Prize for Translation. Published six years before her death at 43, Cold Nights of Childhood established Özlü as the ”melancholy princess” of Turkish literature. From the orchards of a rural childhood to the cafes of European capitals, Cold Nights offers a sexually frank portrayal of a woman justifying desire in the face a punitive patriarchy. 

Aliss at the Fire by John Fosse (2022). One suspects that even inveterate readers have quailed at the prospect of reading 2023 Nobelist Fosse, whose books pretty much run without punctuation. Aliss is shorter than most and while strange at first will pull you in like the irresistible ebb tide of a fjord.

The Miro Worm and the Mysteries of Writing by Sven Birkerts (2024). Essays on language, writing, and the meaning of self. (Chat GPT eat your nonexistent heart out.) A tall glass of distilled wisdom by the long-time editor of AGNI magazine, served with a sometimes wry twist. To writers and readers alike, Sköl!