Did one of the book covers on our homepage catch your eye? They are all new titles being released in December 2021, and all are well-reviewed and anticipated. You can read the description of each below, then click the linked title to request a copy or get your name on the wait list. And don't forget to watch for more featured releases next month!
Featured Fiction for December
Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding
Sonya used to perform on stage. She attended glamorous parties, dated handsome men, rode in fast cars. But somewhere along the way, the stage lights Sonya lived for dimmed to black. In their absence came darkness—blackouts, empty cupboards, hazy nights she could not remember.
Haunted by her failed career and lingering trauma from her childhood, Sonya fell deep into an alcoholic abyss. What kept her from losing herself completely was Tommy, her son. But her love for Tommy rivaled her love for the bottle. Addiction amplified her fear of losing her child; every maternal misstep compelled her to drink. Tommy’s precious life was in her shaky hands.
Eventually Sonya was forced to make a choice. Give up drinking or lose Tommy—forever.
Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim
In 1917, in the snowy mountains of occupied Korea, an impoverished hunter on the brink of starvation saves a Japanese officer from an attacking tiger. In an instant, their fates are connected—and from this encounter unfolds a saga.
In the aftermath, a girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver’s courtesan school, an act of desperation that will cement her place in the lowest social status. When she befriends an orphan boy named JungHo, who scrapes together a living on the streets of Seoul, they form a friendship. As they come of age, JungHo is swept up in the revolutionary fight for independence, and Jade becomes a performer with a romantic prospect of noble birth. Soon Jade must decide whether she will risk everything for the one who would do the same for her.
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel
As the one-year anniversary of Renu's husband’s death approaches, she is watching soap operas and simmering with resentment. She keeps wondering if, 35 years ago, she chose the wrong life. In Los Angeles, her son, Akash, tries to kickstart his career and commit to his boyfriend. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois.
Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. Renu sends a message to the man she almost married, sparking an emotional affair that calls into question everything she thought she knew about herself. Akash slips back into bad habits as he confronts his darkest secrets―including what happened between him and the first boy who broke his heart.
Featured Nonfiction for December
A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind by Ann Wolbert BurgessIn this book Burgess reveals how her pioneering research on sexual assault and trauma caught the attention of the FBI, and steered her into a serial murder investigation in Nebraska. Over the course of two decades, she helped the new Behavioral Science Unit identify, interview, and track down violent offenders, including Ed Kemper ("The Co-Ed Killer"), Dennis Rader ("BTK"). As one of the first women within the FBI, Burgess knew many were expecting her to crack—but she was determined to protect future victims. This book pulls us into the investigations, interweaving never-before-seen transcripts and crime scene drawings alongside her recollections to provide insight into the minds of criminals and their victims.
Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, these poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning.
Agent Sniper: The Cold War Superagent and the Ruthless Head of the CIA by Tim Tate
Michal Goleniewski, cover name Sniper, was one of the most important spies of the Cold War. For almost 3 years, as a Lieutenant Colonel at the top of Poland’s espionage service, he smuggled thousands of top-secret Soviet bloc intelligence documents, as well as 160 rolls of microfilm, from behind the Iron Curtain. Then, in January 1961, he abandoned his wife and children to make a dramatic defection across divided Berlin with his East German mistress to the safety of American territory. There, he exposed more than 1,600 Soviet bloc agents operating undercover in the West―more than any single spy in history.
The CIA called Goleniewski “one of the West’s most valuable counterintelligence sources."
