Reader's Place: December 1, 2024

December is a festive and busy month, so here is a collection of novellas and bite-sized nonfiction to sneak in while you check items off your to-do list, or to meet your reading challenge goals for the year. These books may be tiny, but they pack a powerful punch!

FICTION


Big Fan

Big Fan, by Alexandra Romanoff (Library Catalog)

This is the debut book from 831 Stories, a modern romantic fiction press that prioritizes pleasure reading and the genre's enthusiastic fans. A political strategist, tainted by a scandalous ex, finds an unexpected career detour when her teenage boy band crush offers a second chance at the spotlight...and maybe something more. Maya was a rising star in the political world until her ex-husband's high-profile sex scandal nearly derailed her career. Landing a gubernatorial candidate is the fresh start she desperately needs – a chance to focus on meaningful work and leave the drama behind. But then an email from her past sends her world spinning: Charlie, former lead singer of Mischief, the boy band that fueled her teenage obsession, is staging a solo comeback and wants Maya's help to make it happen. Turns out, she likes the grown-up Charlie and his genuine engagement with the world. Maya's not about to ditch her political ambitions for a teenage crush, but if she can leverage Charlie to draw attention to the policies she cares about, shouldn't she give it a try?


Haunt Sweet Home

Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker (Library Catalog)

On the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality in this cozy ghost story. When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin's ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself. Eerie and empathetic, Haunt Sweet Home is a multifaceted, supernatural exploration of finding your own way into adulthood, and into yourself.


The Most, by Jessica Anthony (Library Catalog)

A tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who goes for a swim in her apartment complex’s swimming pool one morning...and won’t come out. It’s November 3, 1957. As Sputnik 2 launches into space, carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, a couple begin their day. Virgil Beckett, an insurance salesman, isn’t particularly happy in his job but he fulfills the role. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion with a key shot up her sleeve, is now a mother and homemaker. On this unseasonably warm Sunday, Kathleen decides not to join her family at church. Instead, she unearths her old, red bathing suit and descends into the deserted swimming pool of their apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. And then she won’t come out.

A riveting, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most masterly breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath.


A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, by Becky Chambers (Library Catalog)

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a story of kindness and love from one of the foremost practitioners of hopeful science fiction. After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?


Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan (Library Catalog)

Any of Claire Keegan’s novellas would fit this brief, but Small Things Like These is both seasonal and worth revisiting, especially if you’re planning to see the new film adaptation of this international bestseller. It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. It is a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family, a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of Ireland’s most critically lauded and iconic writers.


The Wood at Midwinter, by Susanna Clarke; illustrations by Victoria Sawdon (Library Catalog)

An enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees-and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst-and the path of her life is changed forever. Featuring gorgeous illustrations worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing choice for any fantasy and fable lover.


NONFICTION 


84, Charing Cross Road

84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff (Library Catalog)

This charming and timeless classic, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that will grab your heart and not let go.


The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, by Margaret Renkl; illustrations by Billy Renkl (Library Catalog)

A luminous book that traces the passing of seasons, both personal and natural. Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life: grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more; birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past; the city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author—and from us. For, as Renkl writes, "radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world."


The Message

The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Library Catalog)

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities. In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.


The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer; illustrations by John Burgoyne (Library Catalog)

A bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry's relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, "Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency." The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that "hoarding won't save us, all flourishing is mutual."


Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, Katherine Rundell (Library Catalog)

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel. But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures. Beautifully illustrated, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.


What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World's Most Familiar Bird, by Sy Montgomery (Library Catalog)

A charming and eye-opening exploration of the special relationship between humans and chickens from Sy Montgomery. For more than two decades, Sy Montgomery has kept a flock of chickens in her backyard. Each chicken has an individual personality (outgoing or shy, loud or quiet, reckless or cautious) and connects with Sy in her own way. In this short, delightful book, Sy takes us inside the flock and reveals all the things that make chickens such remarkable creatures: only hours after leaving the egg, they are able to walk, run, and peck; relationships are important to them and the average chicken can recognize more than one hundred other chickens; they remember the past and anticipate the future; and they communicate specific information through at least twenty-four distinct calls. Visitors to her home are astonished by all this, but for Sy what's more astonishing is how little most people know about chickens, especially considering there are about twenty percent more chickens on earth than people. With a winning combination of personal narrative and science, What the Chicken Knows is exactly the kind of book that has made Sy Montgomery such a beloved and popular author.


Compiled by Jenny Zbrizher