Holiday Reading Starts Here: Sixteen Last Minute Book Suggestions From Bronx River Books

“In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.” – From Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch.

A good book is an ideal holiday gift. Not too expensive. Easy to wrap. Provides portable enjoyment on demand. The bibliolaters at Bronx River Books (37 Spencer Place in Scarsdale Village) have identified an eclectic assortment of fiction and nonfiction books that will charm and inform even the pickiest readers -- or brighten your own winter nights.

The surprise bestseller of the year is surely The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, an epistolary novel in which the smart and feisty 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp writes to neighbors, relatives, and even famous strangers, revealing a life still expanding with curiosity and courage. Both sharp and uplifting, the novel explores the risks and rewards of telling other people’s stories as Sybil’s correspondence blurs into personal entanglements, offering a book-club-ready blend of wit, emotional insight, and late-in-life revelation.

In 1929, Andrew Ross Sorkin (a Scarsdale High School alum and New York Times financial columnist) turns the catastrophe of the Great Stock Market Crash into gripping narrative nonfiction. 1929 illuminates the forces and policies that sent the U.S. economy over the cliff. An excellent gift for general readers, financial professionals, and anyone fascinated by how quickly the ground can shift under our feet.

Ian McEwan’s elegant new novel, What We Can Know, is a literary detective story that segues back and forth between 2014 and 2119. Families fracture, England floods, science blurs into philosophy, and the limits of certainty haunt every relationship.

For the romance reader in your life, pick up Say You’ll Remember Me, the latest from Abby Jimenez. Samantha and Xavier share one spectacular date before life pulls them apart, and what follows is a tender, funny, deeply emotional portrait of two people fighting to keep love alive under difficult circumstances. Equal parts moving, hilarious, and sexy, it’s the perfect reminder of how love endures even when timing doesn’t cooperate.

Good Things, by Samin Nosrat (who earlier wrote Salt Fat Acid Heat), is the cookbook/memoir that everyone is asking for this season. It brings together more than 125 of her favorite recipes — the dishes she most loves to cook for herself and for friends.

Fantasy fans should pick up the latest from author Alix E. Harrow. In The Everlasting, an obsessive history professor travels back in time and is confronted with the object of his research, the legendary Una Everlasting. A complex and deeply moving tale of the weight of history, the influence of storytelling, and the power of love.

If watching the game together is a key part of your family’s holiday celebration, pick up Every Day Is Sunday. Author Ken Belson charts the NFL’s massive rise in prominence (and profit) by examining the roles of three central figures: Roger Goodell, Robert Kraft, and Jerry Jones. With discussions of everything from rule changes to the legalization of sports betting, this book is perfect for football fans and observers of American culture.

Who would have thought that a book about a woman who retreats to a small mouse-plagued convent in Australia would make the New York Times list of ten best books of 2025. Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood, is a quietly luminous meditation on solitude, regret, faith, and the possibility of renewal—perfect for readers drawn to introspective, character-driven fiction.

Could your marriage survive 118 days adrift in the Pacific on an inflatable life raft? In A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst tells the true story of a British couple who attempt to save their faltering marriage by embarking on a long ocean voyage in a tiny sailboat. Suffice it to say, it’s not all smooth sailing.

Travel the dangerous streets of London in the pages of Dark Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt’s new biography of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s hotheaded contemporary – the playwright of Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus, a reveler, street fighter, heretic, and rumored spy, who was murdered in 1593 at age 29.

Malevolent “antimemes” feed on your memories – they are living black holes that consume the very thoughts that make you . . . you. How do you combat an enemy you can’t recall. It’s a task for the Antimemetics Division, of course. You’ll never forget reading There Is No Antimemetics Division, the science fiction/horror novel by the mysteriously pseudonymized author “qntm.” (Or just maybe you already have.)

In Breakneck, Dan Wang traces the high stakes race between China and the West to master the technologies that will shape the 21st century. A sample observation: China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, while the United States has become a lawyerly society, cautiously scrutinizing all technological change -- good and bad. Shortlisted for the Financial Times book of the year.

You might want to revisit a classic, Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte, and, at last, internalize the meaning of the word “wuthering.” It’s the source of a ballyhooed film, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, scheduled to be released on February 13.

For younger readers, fans of Where’s Waldo will take delight in Find Vincent Van Gogh. It’s filled with fascinating art facts and lots of things to spot.

The Rose Field is the conclusion of Philip Pullman’s story of Lyra SilverTongue, which began in the Dark Materials series, one of the all-time great works of fantasy that has been charming young readers since 1995. Lyra answers the question “how to remain in a world filled with splendor, horror, greed, and my story.”

And then there’s Katherine Applegate, the author of The One and Only Ivan, who again delights her readers with Pocket Bear, the unofficial leader of Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured, where stuffed animals are refurbished and given a fresh chance to be loved.

Bronx River Books wishes you a splendid new year filled with good reading – and fresh chances.