10 Of The Best Books For Giving and Receiving In December - The Gloss Magazine

10 Of The Best Books For Giving and Receiving In December

Some of my favourite books from 2024 and new titles that will make good gifts or Christmas reading …

Christmas is the perfect occasion to stop time with a good book. There’s nothing I love more than the rare sensation of the world slowing down, even if just for one day!

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a new Ross O’Carroll Kelly book and this year’s instalment, DON’T LOOK BACK IN ONGAR (Sandycove, €14.99), is a bittersweet one because it is the final book in the long-running million-selling Irish series by comic genius Paul Howard. As Ross turns 40, he is in a reflective mood. He is out of work and facing divorce, his mother is in a nursing home and his sister-in-law is about to have a baby (which might be Ross’s), and worst of all Castlerock College might be turning co-ed. Fans will love this perfect ending to such an iconic series.

Jodi Picoult’s latest novel, BY ANY OTHER NAME (Michael Joseph, €16.99) tells the story of two women, one modern-day and one in Elizabethan England. Melina is an aspiring playwright living in Manhattan in 2023. Desperate to get her big break, she submits her play for a festival competition under a male pseudonym. The play is about Melina’s ancestor, Emilia Bassano, who happened to be the first female published poet in Britain, but Melina also suspects her ancestor of being the real writer behind Shakespeare’s plays. Picoult has sold over 40 million copies and has had five of her books made into movies. I wolfed this one down. I loved how she used Shakespeare’s work to fit her narrative, and the delicious enemies-to-lovers storyline. Think Maggie O’Farrell given the Hollywood treatment.

Everyone has their winter favourites and for me this time of year is all about mysteries, thrillers and detective fiction. Icelandic mystery writer Ragnar Jónasson has become a global superstar with his Ari Thor detective series. His latest novel, DEATH AT THE SANATORIUM (Penguin, €15.99), is a classic closed-room mystery (Jónasson happens to be the Icelandic translator of Agatha Christie’s works). The book is set in a decommissioned sanatorium where a handful of doctors and nurses carry out research. When one of the nurses is found murdered, the only suspects are the remaining five staff members. Despite this, the case is never solved, but years later, a young criminologist takes an interest in the case.

Jo Nesbo’s BLOOD TIES (Harvill Secker, €21.60) is another wintry thriller about two brothers who have risen to the top of their small town through criminal means. One of them runs a hotel spa, while the other wants to open an amusement park. But the local sheriff has other plans for the family.

If you haven’t read Freida McFadden’s thrillers yet, you’re in for a treat. She is described as a cross between Gillian Flynn and Lisa Jewell and her breakout book, The Housemaid, spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller chart and was the mostsold eBook on Amazon.com in 2023. Her third title in the series, THE HOUSEMAID IS WATCHING (Bookouture, €9.49), was released earlier this year and can be read as a standalone if you don’t want to go back to the start of the series. Millie was a housemaid to the rich and glamorous but now she is married with children and looking for a quiet life in suburbia. But her peaceful neighbourhood is not as quiet as she had hoped.

Hisham Matar’s novel MY FRIENDS (Penguin Viking, €18.75), was one of my favourite books of 2024. Matar was born in New York City to Libyan parents, spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his adult life in London. His 2016 memoir The Reurn, about his return to Libya in search of his father, won the Pulitzer Prize. My Friends is set between Edinburgh, London and Libya and deals with many of the themes explored in Matar’s memoir. It tells the story of three friends, Hosam, Khaled and Mustafa, whose lives are changed when they attend a protest at the Libyan embassy in London where the government officials open fire on the protestors. This is a moving study of friendship and the effects of living in exile on a person.

Another one of my favourites this year and a beautiful book to read over Christmas is Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín’s long-awaited sequel to his bestselling novel Brooklyn. LONG ISLAND (Picador, €13.99) is set decades after Eilis emigrates to America. She has been married to Tony for 20 years, they have two children together and she lives a comfortable life on Long Island. But, in the opening pages, a knock on her door delivers unwelcome and explosive news and she begins to reassess her whole life, including her marriage and the decision she made to leave her family and her home all those years ago. This is a masterly meditation on love, home, longing, regret and the “sliding doors” moments of life, as well as the things people will do to get what they want.

In non-fiction, A THOUSAND FEASTS by Nigel Slater (4th Estate, €19.99) is a beautiful memoir of sorts, made up of entries from Nigel’s food and travel notebooks. Each entry describes a memory connected to food but also inspires a deep philosophical reflection in the reader. These evocative little entries are only a page long but are deeply affecting. He calls the book a “ragbag collection of some of the happiest of times, the small moments of joy that have been the seasoning in this cook’s stew”. It’s a lovely book to dip in and out of, and a very enjoyable reminder to savour good times and share good food with others, particularly at this time of year.

Diarmaid Ferriter is one of Ireland’s best-known historians and with his latest book, THE REVELATION OF IRELAND 1995-2020 (Pro? le Books, €24.99), he moves into the era of living memory to examine one of the most fascinating, turbulent and revolutionary periods of Irish history. Ferriter tells the story of modern Ireland from the Celtic Tiger boom to the seismic social changes wrought by the divorce, gay marriage and abortion referenda. He also takes in the changing make-up of our population, the increased dominance of our culture both at home and abroad, and the end of war in Northern Ireland along with the waning of the in? uence of the Catholic Church. It is fascinating to read, particularly if, like me, you are old enough to remember pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Finally, Yuval Noah Harari, author of the global bestseller Sapiens, turns his attention from humankind to information systems with NEXUS (Vintage, €28). Harari examines the history of information systems, and how we moved from stories to books to the internet to where we are now, at AI. Harari uses meticulously researched historical systems to illustrate what might happen next, but he also makes the case that AI differs from everything we have known before. It’s a dense tome but a rewarding one. Perfect for anyone interested in history, politics, power and how the world is shaped.

SEE MORE: Gorgeous Interiors Books To Gift This Christmas

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