Holiday books for 2024 come from a variety of sources – The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, the New York Public Library, and the Five Books Website among others. Many of them are on various lists detailing the ‘best books of 2024’. Some are in other book posts that Cold War Studies has published this year. As usual, the list is heavy on non-fiction. That said, my first read will be fiction – I can’t wait to read Karla’s Choice – and I’ll probably dig into that before I hit other titles on the list. But to each their own. Whether you’re looking for something for yourself or choosing a gift for someone else, I think you’ll find something of interest. Happy Browsing!
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FICTION
Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway
Karla’s Choice, a novel written by Le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway, takes place in the missing decade between two installments in John le Carré’s George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. George Smiley has left the Circus, opting for a more peaceful life, but Control has other plans. Smiley soon finds himself on a collision course with the greatest enemy he will ever make. (As I said, I can’t wait to read this one.)
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
One of the 10 best books of the year according to The New York Times; a Time must-read book of the year.
Cyrus Shams, an Iranian American aspiring poet and recovering drug addict, is struggling to find meaning after the death of his parents. A road trip to New York and an encounter in the Brooklyn Museum lead to “an indelible affirmation of life, rife with inventive beauty, vivid characters, and surprising twists of plot.” Read The New York Times review here.
The Women by Kristin Hannah
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
In her latest historical novel, Hannah sees the Vietnam War through the eyes of a combat nurse, Frances “Frankie” McGrath. War is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam. Read a review of The Women here. I’ve read this one and enjoyed it immensely.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Winner of the Booker Prize 2024; Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize; Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction; Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
Orbital provides a snapshot of one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind, cosmonauts from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan communicate with family, prepare dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines. The book is a meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of the six astronauts who circle the Earth in 24 hours.
NON-FICTION
Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle T. King
One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024; One of NPR’s Books We Loved in 2024; A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
In 1971, The New York Times called Fu Pei-mei “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” Actually, Fu preceded Child on TV by two months. King “reveals how and why, for audiences in Taiwan and around the world, Fu became the ultimate culinary touchstone: the figure against whom all other cooking authorities were measured.” If you liked our Vintage Cookbook post, you should enjoy this book. Read a review of it here.
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer
A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2024; One of Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List Picks; Named a Notable Book by New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune; Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
According to the New York Public Library, “Blitzer examines the political contexts in Central American countries including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that have contributed to the humanitarian crises at America’s southern border—as told through the stories of migrants.” He never loses sight of the human element behind the global crisis. Read The New York Times review here.
Reagan by Max Boot
A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2024; The Washington Post-50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024; Best Books of 2024: The Economist, Chicago Public Library, The Auburn Citizen
Boot is a Russian-born, naturalized American author, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian who worked as a writer and editor for The Christian Science Monitor and then for The Wall Street Journal in the 1990s. He grew up idolizing Ronald Reagan but now finds himself wondering if his one-time hero paved the way for Donald Trump. “It is no exaggeration,” Boot writes, “to say that you cannot fully comprehend what happened to America in the 20th century without first understanding what happened to Ronald Reagan.” Read The New York Times review here.
The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East by Steven A. Cook
Cook provides a bird’s-eye view of the origins of American involvement in the Middle East during the Cold War, presenting a clear-headed vision for the United States’ role in the Middle East that highlights the changing nature of US national interests and the challenges of grand strategizing at a time of profound change in the international order.
The Rebel’s Clinic by Adam Shatz
One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024; Named a best book of 2024 so far by The New Yorker and Vulture; One of the Washington Post’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon’s shadow looms large. “He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world.” Schatz highlights a side of Fanon that’s often overlooked — that of the caring doctor, who ran a secret clinic for Algerian rebels. Read a review of The Rebel’s Clinic here.
When the Clock Broke by John Ganz
One of The Washington Post’s 10 Best Books of 2024; One of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2024
Ganz tells a disturbing tale of populists, nativists, and demagogues who helped shatter the post-Cold War consensus and usher in the antidemocratic forces that are plaguing the country today. Although the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America,” they instead introduced a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, resulting in polarization and extremism. You can find The New York Times review here.
The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll
A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Coll covers Saddam Hussein from his earliest days in power to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, “tracking the dictator’s state of mind with the help of 2,000 hours of rarely accessed audio.” This work is “a definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy, and vanity—on both sides—led to avoidable errors of statecraft . . .” Look for The New York Times review here.
Challenger by Adam Higginbotham
Winner of the 2024 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize; Shortlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; A New York Times Notable Book of 2024
This history of the 1986 space shuttle disaster argues that the tragedy was a preventable lesson in hubris and human error. NASA engineers and contractors had raised concerns for years about a potentially fatal flaw in the solid rocket boosters, to the point of having a high-level conference call the night before this launch to talk about whether to cancel the effort. “Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program and the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster . . .” You can find The New York Times review here.
John Lewis by David Greenberg
Born into poverty in rural Alabama, Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Greenberg’s biography tells the full story of the man who became a long-serving member of the US House of Representatives and a moral force in America. Thoroughly researched through archival documents, hundreds of interviews, and footage of Lewis himself speaking to reporters from his hospital bed on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, the book is a fascinating portrait of the man known as the “conscience of the Congress.” Click here for The New York Times review.
THE NEW INDIA: The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy by Rahul Bhatia
A New York Times Notable Book of 2024
An Indian investigative journalist chronicles India’s turn toward authoritarianism and violence through the stories of ordinary people and public figures. Look for The New York Times review here.
Vietnam’s American War: A New History by Pierre Asselin
This book is truly a tome, meant for serious readers only. Now in its second edition, it’s a story of how and why Hanoi won. Per Google Books: “Communist forces in the Vietnam War lost most battles and suffered disproportionally higher casualties than the United States and its allies throughout the conflict. The ground war in South Vietnam and the air war in the North were certainly important in shaping the fates of the victors and losers, but they alone fail to explain why Hanoi bested Washington in the end. To make sense of the Vietnam War, we must look beyond the war itself. . . . Pierre Asselin explains the formative experiences and worldview of the men who devised communist strategies and tactics during the conflict, and analyzes their rationale and impact. Drawing on two decades of research in Vietnam’s own archives, including classified policy statements and reports, Asselin expertly and straightforwardly relates the Vietnamese communist experience – and the reasons the war turned out the way it did.
Sons of Salt by Yaccaira Salvatierra
To end, I chose a book out of my usual box. Sons of Salt is a book of poems exploring the duality of personal and political landscapes as well as the legacies of violence within Mexican-American communities.
Read, Then Write
I know that I’m not going to have time to read and review all of these choices, so I’d love to publish a book review that you author. Let’s start with books on the holiday book list, and if things go well, we can add reviews of other recently published books that you think readers would enjoy. Word count should be over 700 and I’m happy to give you full credit with a link to your site when appropriate. Contact me with your choice before you start writing.
I hope you can carve out lots of time for reading and writing during this busy holiday season. Post your comments and recommendations below!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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