Add these 11 books to your November reading list — or gift list
From the The ultimate 2021 holiday gift guide: Here's something for everyone on your list series
Here's a roundup of books to look for this month — for your own reading list or your holiday gift list.
‘Our Country Friends’ by Gary Shteyngart
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(Penguin Random House: 336 pages, $28)
Praised by Kirkus as “the Great American Pandemic Novel only Shteyngart could write,” the accomplished satirist’s new work centers on a group of friends who wait out the pandemic in an upstate New York country house. Over six months of internal exile, new romances and friendships emerge while old grudges take on dangerous new life.
‘The Perishing’ by Natashia Deón
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(Counterpoint: 320 pages, $26)
In 1930s Los Angeles, amid Prohibition and the construction of Route 66, a young Black woman wakes up in an alley with no recollection of her former life. While recovering the memory of her past, she becomes the L.A. Times’ first Black reporter and discovers she may be immortal.
‘My Body’ by Emily Ratajkowski
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(Metropolitan Books: 256 pages, $26)
A debut essay collection by the model and actress offers an honest perspective on feminism, sexuality and internalized misogyny that is elevated by her own industry experience. Publishers Weekly called it “an astute and rewarding mix of the personal and the political.”
‘The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth’ by Sam Quinones
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(Bloomsbury: 432 pages, $28)
Quinones continues the story he began in 2015’s “Dreamland,” which exposed the opioid epidemic and its enablers and won a National Book Critics Circle prize. Here, he chronicles how meth-ravaged communities have broken the cycle of drug abuse, violence and despair.
‘A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature’ by Charles Hood
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(Heyday Books: 224 pages, $16)
You might remember Hood from his book “Wild LA,” a collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Here, the poet, photographer and wildlife guide finds wonder in the undervalued and often-ignored parts of nature — from Hollywood’s palm trees to Palmdale’s parking lots.
‘1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows’ by Ai Weiwei, translated by Allan H. Barr
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(Crown: 400 pages, $32)
Artist and activist Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in internal exile, his difficult decision to leave his family for America to study art, and the persecution of both his father, a leading poet, and himself — detained for months as a dissident — by the Chinese state.
‘Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies’ by Catherine McCormack
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(W.W. Norton & Co.: 240 pages, $23)
Ranging through Western art and images in advertising, social media and fashion photography, the British art historian challenges the idea of women as “mothers, monsters and maidens” and introduces the work of women artists countering those depictions. Available Nov. 16
‘The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story’ edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones and New York Times Magazine
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(One World: 624 pages, $38)
The ambitious project that got Americans rethinking our racial history — and sparked inevitable backlash — even before the reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder, is expanded into a book incorporating essays from pretty much everyone you want to hear from about the country’s great topic and great shame. Available Nov. 16
‘These Precious Days’ by Ann Patchett
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(Harper: 336 pages, $27)
The acclaimed novelist meditates on “what I needed, whom I loved, what I could let go,” in essays on shedding lifelong possessions, nursing a friend with cancer and the wisdom of Snoopy. Patchett has a gift for grasping what really matters. Available Nov. 23
‘Pilot Impostor’ by James Hannaham
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(Soft Skull: 208 pages, $28)
Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and the history of air disasters make up the raw material for this unclassifiable construction of prose, verse and photo collages — semi-fictional meditations on identity, slavery, consciousness and the horrors of flying from the acclaimed author of “Delicious Foods.” Available Nov. 30
‘White on White’ by Aysegül Savas
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(Riverhead Books: 192 pages, $26)
The Istanbul-born author explores the thin line between chaos and contentment, creativity and madness through Agnes, a painter who rents her apartment to a student researching Gothic nudes. Savas’ chilling novel has been praised by both Lauren Groff and performance artist Marina Abramovic. Available Nov. 30
In this Series
The ultimate 2021 holiday gift guide: Here's something for everyone on your list
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22 best stocking stuffers for couples
2
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22 best affordable gifts for couples
3
