20 books for everyone on your holiday shopping list this year - The Boston Globe (2024)

By Richard Skrein, illustrated by Maria Nilsson

This charming small book will renew the delight you felt as a child when you awoke to a snow day. Features practical advice on building forts, making bird feeders in the snow, and fashioning your own snowshoes. Get the book

By Wally Koval and Amanda Koval

The alluring strangeness of Wes Anderson’s films, now captured in a gorgeously illustrated volume highlighting 200 eccentric places you’ve never previously thought about, including Queen Victoria’s favorite umbrella shop. Get the book

By Hettie Judah

Some of our most ancient art works depicted motherhood, and the subject of Madonna and child was a Renaissance favorite. In the 20th and 21st centuries, female artists pondered their own complex feelings — and it’s not always pretty, as this provocative volume attests. Get the book

By Amy Tan

The loveliest form of escapism is fleeing our modern digital and political realities to contemplate the natural world all around us. In delicate drawings and thoughtful words, Tan chronicles the birds she encounters over the course of a year. Get the book

By Janna Handy and Kiyanna Stewart

Black collectibles can empower and uplift — or they can remind us of the violent dehumanization of racism. In this richly illustrated and thoughtful volume, collectors Handy and Stewart reckon with the art and its impact. Get the book

By Ross Gay

More for your bedside table than your coffee table, this is a book to remind us of what really matters in life. Joy is an act of resistance, it’s often said, and poet/essayist Gay will get you there. Get the book

By Amos Paul Kennedy Jr.

A master printmaker and eloquent spokesman for the democratizing value of prints and posters, Kennedy presents here a dazzling visual — and verbal, with quotations from Parks and Douglass and Truth — manifesto of the liberating power of art. Get the book

By Iris Apfel

Apfel, who died this year at 102, was a vivid presence in the world of art and fashion for decades. This volume, filled with photographs, makes the case for Apfel’s legacy while inviting readers to pursue their own unique and daring visions. Get the book

By Paul Koudounaris

Well, some of us can’t get through the holidays without a good cry. This book blends history and photography to talk about how we’ve remembered our dear pets after they’ve left us. Remember: Grief is just the proof of love. Get the book

By George Steinmetz

Where does your food come from? As we struggle to balance climate concerns, global inequality, and rising grocery costs, the question becomes more urgent. This thoughtful book shows us where our meals started out, and how they came to our plates. Get the book

By Mark Ovenden

Maps can tell us more than the way to go — in these transit maps we learn about history, sociology, urban planning, and graphic design. This book’s too big to read on the T, but it might help you understand why the train’s so late. Get the book

Edited by Ann Hood

OK, maybe small-town Connecticut life isn’t awash in romantic triangles, wandering singer-songwriters, and too much coffee, but for a lot of us, the TV cult classic (2000-07) suggested a certain kind of paradise. Or hell. These writers make strong cases in both directions. Get the book

By Rodman Primack with Rudy Weissenberg

A gorgeous, colorful portfolio of 13 homes designed by Primack in places ranging from London to California to Cape Cod’s own Truro. Wherever they are, these houses exude style and warmth and joy. Get the book

By Maura McEvoy, Basha Burwell, and Kathleen Hackett

The authors, whose previous book “The Maine House” was a plea to love and preserve their state’s architecture, here turn to action, chronicling the historic preservation and renewal of 30 such houses, from farm to seashore. Get the book

By Joanna Ebenstein

To live a good life, this book’s author argues, it can help to ponder what we wish for at life’s end. Both pretty and practical, “Memento Mori” provides a roadmap for those seeking clarity, wisdom, and peace. Get the book

By Peter Ames Carlin

They were from Athens, Ga., but they came to exemplify a nationwide era of music played on college radio stations and in small clubs — a flourishing of music that was smart and fun and free from the strictures of the big-label suits. Get the book

By J.W. Rinzler

Drawing on a trove of interviews and images, this two-volume edition is for the serious film buff or Kubrick aficionado. Certain pages are almost as unsettling and creepy as the film itself. Not for coffee tables at remote mountainside hotels. Get the book

By Carol Verburg

A friend and collaborator, Verburg collects in this volume all manner of Gorey theatrical tidbits — including scripts, stories, and photos, many of which have never been seen before. An odd delight, much like Gorey himself. Get the book

By Hanif Abdurraqib

Abdurraqib is from Columbus, Ohio, but he roots for the Minnesota Timberwolves (“My relationship with the Timberwolves is one of the longest I’ve had in my whole life,” he wrote on Instagram), and his essays here capture the agony and ecstasy of loving a team. Get the book

By Chip Leighton

A pure delight, if only to realize you aren’t the only one who has raised a person capable of asking, “What’s the wet stuff in soup?” or “Can I leave a parking space before the meter runs out?” Parenting is tough but is funny. Get the book

Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at kate.tuttle@gmail.com.