The 25 best books to buy this Christmas
Messages from Ukraine, money advice for kids, home-cooking recipes, and advice from a sweet, swearing cook. You can't miss with this list.
Messages from Ukraine, money advice for kids, home-cooking recipes, and advice from a sweet, swearing cook. You can't miss with this list.
All of the books on this list are independently selected by Literary Editor Caroline Overington. If you purchase from the links we may make a small commission.
A Message From Ukraine
By Volodymyr Zelensky
Heinemann
$19.99
Zelensky’s most important speech was also his shortest: 32 seconds, delivered 38 hours after Russia launched a war. Dressed in khaki, he filmed himself outside a government building saying: “We are all here.”
And they have since dug in, they have stayed put, they have refused to flee, and they are still fighting the good fight for freedom and democracy, a mighty little country against a powerful aggressor. Do everything you can to help them, including buying this book, proceeds from which go to Ukraine.
Barefoot Kids
By Scott Pape
HarperCollins
224pp $19.99
It is never too early and it’s often too late, so the new book from The Barefoot Investor, aiming to teach financial literacy to youngsters, can’t come soon enough. Buy one before they hear about crypto on some dodgy YouTube channel.
The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre
By Natasha Lester
Hachette
$29.99
Did you know that Natasha Lester worked as a marketing executive for L‘Oréal, managing the Maybelline brand, before returning to university to study creative writing? Well, she did.
Her new book is about a PR executive, Alix St Pierre who in the mid-1940s is responsible for some high-profile advertising campaigns in New York. Then she finds herself recruited by the US government, tasked with getting close to a Nazi collaborator.
It’s all very glamorous, and fun.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
By Shehan Karunatilaka
Profile
$32
Winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. His previous book was about a missing cricketer and everyone loved that. This one has been a decade in the making.
The Bullet That Missed
By Richard Osman
Viking
$29
The third in a cracking series about residents of an aged care centre who are extremely sharp and funny. They stumble upon murders and help solve them. It’s brilliant.
What Nat to Do
By Nat’s What I Reckon
Random House
$19.99
Yes, that is the name by which he goes, and yes, he’s one of the sweetest, most sweary people you’re ever likely to meet. Nat’s last book was a cookbook for young people, in which he declared “death to jar sauce.”
Because the fact is, you can make your own, easy-peasy bolognese (yes, that rhymes) at home, and it will make you feel better than you’ll feel eating junk from a tin. Anyway, Nat’s new book is the “advice you never asked for” delivered by a guy who does not pretend to have all the answers.
But he does believe that that preparing simple meals and sharing them with friends, can assist young people with their mental problems, in particular depression. It’s amazing what half an hour of rhythmic chopping in the kitchen can do, and it’s life-affirming to sit and chat and eat with the people you love. I had the chance to meet him this year; I was deeply impressed. He is not preachy. He is not self-conscious. He swears a lot! And that’s okay.
Nat’s got a YouTube channel, and he’s often on tour. Catch him if you can, and you should certainly buy his book. This one, and the last one.
The Netanyahus
By Joshua Cohen
Fitzcarraldo
$22
This year’s winner of the Pulitzer prize for fiction. It’s an inventive campus comedy set in 1950s upstate New York.
Babel
By R.F. Kuang
Harper Collins
560pp, $29.99
Oxford, 1836: The centre of all knowledge, the home of translation. A novel about academia, language, opportunity, and exploitation. Perfect for a college kiduniversity student, in particular.
Wolf Girl: Five Book Box Set
By Anh Do, Jeremy Ley (Illustrator)
Allen & Unwin
$37.75
A fine box set of the Wolf Girl books, from one of Australia’s favourite writers for children, Anh Do (older readers will remember his lovely autobiography, The Happiest Refugee).
Colditz
By Ben MacIntyre
Viking
$32
There were more escape attempts from Colditz – a Gothic castle on a hilltop – than from any other prisoner of war camp, and some of them were rather ingenious, and some just bizarre. Quite wonderful.
Diddly Squat: ‘til The Cows Come Home
By Jeremy Clarkson
Penguin UK
$24.99
Probably the funniest, warmest, loveliest show I watched all year was Clarkson’s Farm. His ridiculous tractor, and oh, the black-faced sheep! Oh, how I grew to love his sheep. I couldn’t believe he ate them in the end. Anyway, this is the book tie-in with the show.
The Philosophy Of Modern Song
By Bob Dylan
Simon & Schuster
$59.99
This is Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One, which is easily the best book ever written; I keep my copy by the bed. It’s also his first since winning the Nobel prize for literature in 2016.
The book has been described as a collection of essays, but actually, Dylan is breaking down the art and craft of songwriting. He reads some of the chapters himself, for the audiobook. To be clear, these essays aren’t about his songs – probably not even Dylan could unpack the many, many masterpieces he has written – they are about songs by other artists, including Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, and Nina Simone.
Dylan is warm, wise, dry, and funny.
The book is also beautiful. I could quibble about the cover but why? Just get one for the Dylan tragic in your life.
The Last Chairlift
By John Irving
Simon & Schuster
600pp, $32.99
I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for John Irving because he wrote A Prayer For Owen Meany. This is his first novel in seven years. It’s enormous – you will not get it in your cute little handbag, no – and it’s described as both a ghost and a love story.
Sultan: Wasim Akram
By Wasim Akram (with Gideon Haigh)
Hardie Grant
$32.99
The official biography of Wasim Akram, the “sultan of swing”, one of the greatest fast bowlers in the history of cricket.
Like the Paine book, it’s a gorgeous hardback, and therefore a perfect gift.
We Don't Know Ourselves
By Fintan O’Toole
Head of Zeus
$24.99
A personal history of Ireland since 1958 by a writer perhaps as good as Colm Toibin. Anyone with an Irish background, and anyone who appreciates the Irish, will probably love this.
Wonders Under The Sun
By Tai Smith
Thames and Hudson
$29
A children’s book of stunning pictures by Melbourne artist Tai Smith of 278 animals active during the day. They are drawn to scale, and the Latin name is included, along with habitat. Delightful.
White Noise
By Mercedes Mercier
HarperCollins
$24.99
Mercedes Mercier is a writer who also works in the criminal justice system, which gives her insight into the world of prisons, crime, and offenders. She lives in Adelaide, and this is her classy debut.
Act of Oblivion
By Robert Harris
Hutchinson/Heinemann
$29.99
He sells by the tens of millions, yet he’s a proper, literary novelist, with books that benefit from deep research, and lovely prose. This one is set in England and America in the 1660s, and it’s about a lawyer trying to track down fugitive Cromwellians who signed the death warrant for Charles I.
Alcatraz
Edited by Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington
Gazebo Books
$34.99
A gazebo makes gorgeous books, and this one prides itself on its layout: the contributions appear according to their length, moving from the shortest to the longest pieces and the illustrations complement the shape of the written pieces.
RecipeTin Eats: Dinner
By Nagi Maehashi
Pan Macmillan
$24.99
The fastest-selling debut book since records in Australia began, this is 150 recipes from Australia’s most popular cook, whose blog is a sheer delight. She photographed most of the meals, as well as making them. You can’t miss with this one.
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries
Edited by Alan Taylor
Canongate
$29.99
Some people – old people – remember Alan Rickman mainly as the evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard (yes, it’s a Christmas movie) but of course, he became far more famous forplaying Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter. He had the most marvellous voice, and if this book, published posthumously, is a guide, he was also a fine writer and a great friend. The foreword is by Emma Thompson, who says: “I am still heartbroken that Alan is gone but these diaries bring back so much of what I remember of him – there is sweetness, his generosity, his championing of others, his fierce critical eye, his intelligence, his humour.”
The afterword by his widow, Rima Horton, is very moving, too.
The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding
By Holly Ringland
HarperCollins
560pp, $32
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Holly Ringland, this book reads like a mesmerising fairy tale for grown-ups. Wise and lovely. Lose yourself in it this summer.
My Sweet Guillotine
By Jane Tuttle
Hardie Grant
$24.99
Jayne Tuttle is fast emerging as one of our finest. Her debut, Paris or Die, was terrific; she returns to Paris with My Sweet Guillotine. Tuttle has worked in France as an actor, voice-over artist, playwright, translator, and bilingual copywriter; she was awarded the Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship in 2021 from the Varuna Writer’s House and – bonus! – she co-owns The Bookshop at Queenscliff in coastal Victoria. Anyone who brings a bookshop to life deserves your support.
The Book Of Roads & Kingdoms
By Richard Fidler
HarperCollins
448pp, $39.99
The story of medieval wanderers who travelled out to the edges of the known world during Islam’s fabled golden age of science and literature, by one of the ABC’s favourite broadcasters and brightest minds.
“Where is the money?” Azealia Banks in pay dispute with Australian promoter
“You’re trying to use a character assassination as a means to not pay someone for work that they did," says the US rapper.
Margot Robbie in Barbie throws back to A Space Odyssey
Greta Gerwig has swindled us all with the first trailer for her upcoming film.