December Staff Picks

Scot says:

“I’m nor­mal­ly averse to hol­i­day-themed books, but Peter Swanson’s name on the cov­er of this slim, read-it-one-sit­ting novel­la drew me in. In 1989, an Amer­i­can girl study­ing abroad joins a class­mate for Christ­mas in the Cotswolds. She’s imme­di­ate­ly smit­ten with the Eng­lish­ness of it all, and espe­cial­ly by the classmate’s old­er broth­er … a charmer who is also the lead sus­pect in the unsolved mur­der of a local girl. Swanson’s expert deliv­ery of twists pack an emo­tion­al wal­lop, and turns what could have been a sim­ple Yule­time goth­ic into a qui­et med­i­ta­tion on memory.”

Lib­by says:

“Anna Delveys of the world, rejoice! Your non-exhaus­tive his­to­ry of cons, bam­boo­zles, flim-flams, and fraud per­pe­trat­ed by ladies is here. Hav­ing pro­filed sev­er­al female ser­i­al killers in her first book, Lady Killers, Tori Telfer returns to mine lady crim­i­nal­i­ty and the inter­sec­tion of ego, greed, swag­ger, and cru­el­ty in this cen­turies-span­ning tome. My always and for­ev­er favorites are the Fox Sis­ters, who acci­den­tal­ly start­ed a sweep­ing reli­gious move­ment in the late 19^th cen­tu­ry, and who uti­lized the ele­ments of mag­ic, bore­dom, and oppor­tu­ni­ty that are essen­tial to the liveli­hoods of so many of Telfer’s sub­jects. The scam­mers work­ing soci­ety today use the same blue­prints and exploit the same bureau­crat­ic weak­ness­es, celebri­ty wor­ship, and love of the all-mighty dol­lar to scrape togeth­er mon­ey, pres­tige, hus­bands, or award-win­ning show dogs.”

Mad­die says:

“Set in 1920s Berlin, Madon­na in a Fur Coat fol­lows the life of Raif Efen­di, a young Turk­ish man, after a chance encounter with a beau­ti­ful artist alters his world. While brows­ing an art gallery, Raif becomes cap­ti­vat­ed by a self-por­trait depict­ing a young woman gaz­ing to one side, wear­ing a large white coat. After meet­ing the paint­ing’s sub­ject and cre­ator at a Berlin night­club, Raif becomes equal­ly enam­ored with her as he is with her art, and the two quick­ly devel­op an intense bond. Their some­times tumul­tuous yet always pas­sion­ate rela­tion­ship demon­strates feel­ings of long­ing, love, and loss. Orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in Turk­ish in 1943 and trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish for the first time in 2016, Madon­na in a Fur Coat demon­strates that the com­plex­i­ties of human emo­tion tran­scend time, lan­guage, and cul­ture. As heart­break­ing as it is beau­ti­ful, this book is per­fect for any­one who likes to hurt a lit­tle (or a lot) after fin­ish­ing a story.”