37 of Winter’s Best New Books to Get You Through the Chilly Season

​Three Days in June by Anne Tyler ​In this is a quick, absorbing read, the Pulitzer winning Tyler (for 1988’s Breathing Lessons) features a socially awkward mother-of-the-bride, who, at 61, faces the loss of her job and the arrival of her ex-husband while navigating her daughter’s wedding — whose future husband may not be such a winner — all told with Tyler’s usual warmth and wit. (Feb. 11)​ ​

​Crush by Ada Calhoun ​Crush is one of my faves of the year so far, bringing up similar themes featured in 2024’s fabulous All Fours by Miranda July, although Crush is a less wacky and more cerebral story about a woman/wife/parent in midlife who begins to wonder if there’s a way to have more. “Don’t we make our own cages?” asks our narrator, a ghost writer and mother of a teenager who’s also supporting her unproductive artist husband. He suggests that they open their marriage a crack and allow each other to flirt with other partners, and she goes for it. What could go wrong? An awful lot, of course, but some things go very right. (Feb. 25)​ ​

​Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld ​Sittenfeld, the author of bestselling novels like Prep and Romantic Comedy, is back with a wonderful story collection, many featuring beautifully drawn middle-aged characters struggling with very human insecurities, disappointments and conflicts with friends or lovers. One tale brings back Fiora from Prep, now decades older and attending her boarding school reunion; in another, “A for Alone,” a woman tries an experiment (“a mixed-media project,” she calls it) where she sees if a man and a woman can really spend time alone together as friends, without complications. The answer is… complicated. (Feb. 25)   ​

​Also of note:​​

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison: The author of This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving focuses on the long, complex relationship between Ruth and Abe Winter, moving back and forth through time to build a rich portrait of a couple navigating decades of upheaval. (Jan. 7)​ ​ ​

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis: An anthropology student takes part in a 1936 archaeological dig in Egypt; decades later she’s working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when a valuable Egyptian artifact goes missing — by the bestselling historical fiction author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue and many others. (Jan. 7)​ ​

​More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova: The neuroscientist author of bestselling novels such as Still Alice tells the fictional story of Maddy Banks, a college student struggling with a bipolar disorder diagnosis. (Jan. 14)​ ​

​Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey: The Pulitzer finalist, for the wonderful, ethereal 2012 novel The Snow Child, reimagines the story of Beauty and the Beast. (Feb. 4)​ ​

​The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens: A Serbian woman flees Bosnia and her traumatic past 30 years ago, and now is settled in Minnesota, where she’s known as (you guessed it) the quiet librarian. Then her past comes back to haunt her. (Feb. 18)​ ​

Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: Harper Perennial; Penguin Books; Pamela Dorman Books; Getty Images)

​On the Lighter Side ​

​Eddie Winston is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin Ninety-year-old Eddie is a kindhearted romantic, who befriends a young woman, Bella. When she finds out that he has never been kissed, she becomes determined to help him find love. One of those books that can make you feel a little better about humanity, it’s by the British author of the uplifting 2021 gem The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot. (Dec. 31)​ ​

​The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi ​You may have heard of the trend toward healing fiction, led by the recent flood of feel-good novels, often from Japan and Korea, that feature cozy settings and, frequently, cats. This one is set at a snug seaside café near Tokyo, where the food offers customers a chance to see the people they’ve loved and lost. It’s billed as “a warm hug of a novel.” (Feb. 4)​

​The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu has similar warm-hug vibes, offering a charming-sounding tale set in a Japanese pet store. (Feb. 25) Another is The Café With No Name by Australian author Robert Seethaler, about a man who sets out to open a café in 1960s/1970s Vienna where a diverse group of characters find warmth and connection. (Feb. 25)​

​We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes ​By the bestselling author of Me Before You (among many others), this is a chaotic, ultimately heartwarming story about the messy life of Lila, who at midlife is dealing with a broken marriage, a career on the brink, teen drama, and her father and stepfather both moving into her already hectic home. Her main goal? Keep it together for the kids … though a sexy fling sounds fun, too. (Feb. 11)​

​​Every Tom, Dick & Harry by Elinor Lipman ​Lipman is known for her comic touch (her first book, Then She Found Me, became a 2008 movie starring Helen Hunt and Colin Firth). Here a woman takes over her parents’ estate sale business and ends up with some controversial clients who run what appears to be a B&B but is actually something quite a bit naughtier. (Feb. 11)​

​Nonfiction/Health/Lifestyle ​

​365 Connecting Questions for Couples by Casey and Meygan Caston ​This author couple, founders of Marriage365 (a marriage-solutions company, offering relationship courses, coaching and such), have updated their previous book listing a year’s worth of open-ended questions designed to get couples talking and creating deeper bonds. Some questions are likely to stir the pot a bit (“How many times have you been in love? Tell me about it”), others are just kind of fun, like, “If a movie were being made about us, who would play you and me?” (Dec. 3)​

​Rise. Recover. Thrive. How I Got Strong, Got Sober, and Built a Movement of Hope by Scott Strode ​Strode, in his early 50s, describes his descent into addiction (beginning with his first beer at age 11), road to recovery, and founding of The Phoenix sober community with more than 500,000 members and an emphasis on staying physically and socially active. Referring to this as a “memoir with a mission,” he lays out a roadmap for others who’ve struggled with addiction, noting, “People dealing with addiction are not a problem to be solved. They are full of potential waiting to be drawn out.” (Jan. 7)​ ​

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields In her wonderfully titled latest, Shields, 59, writes about how she’s embracing what she’s gained through the years (confidence, for one), and dispelling myths about “women of a certain age.” It’s part memoir, part cultural commentary. (Jan. 14) ​

​And the long-neglected subject of menopause is suddenly the subject of a slew of books, as acknowledged in Menopause Is Hot: Everything You Need to Know to Thrive by journalists Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie (Jan. 21). The intro was written by actress Naomi Watts, 55 — who has her own book on the topic coming out on the same day: Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause, which she discussed with AARP Members Edition.​

Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: Tiny Reparations Books; Rick Steves; Celadon Books; Getty Images)

​More Nonfiction​

​Fearless and Free by Josephine Baker​The St. Louis-born dancer-actress-singer Josephine Baker’s 1949 memoir, now publishing in English, recounts her youth in St. Louis, move to Paris, Jazz Age stardom and spying for the French Resistance. (Feb. 4)​ ​

​On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves​The travel guru with an empire that includes loads of bestselling guide books and a small-group tour company was once a scruffy young man with a thirst for adventure, no money and no clue what he was doing when he set off in 1978 with a friend to complete the legendary Hippie Trail, a trek through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. This is his journal from that heady, rough trip — full of mishaps and excitement. It’s quite the journey, but rather than read his day-by-day recaps, I might have been more interested to learn about the years that followed, when he managed to transition from that 23-year-old wanderer to the 69-year-old master traveler he is today. (Feb. 4)​ ​ ​

Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us by Jenny Finney Boylan ​Boylan, 66, lived 40 years as a man and the last 20 as a woman; this is her story, including how her everyday life was transformed with her gender (she’s still married to the same woman she married some 35 years ago), including how people have reacted to her as attitudes toward transgender people have shifted. It follows her 2003 memoir She’s Not There, released a few years after she came out as transgender. Boylan is also the coauthor with Jodi Picoult of last year’s bestselling novel Mad Honey. (Feb. 4)​ ​

Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates ​Gates, 69, tells his remarkable origin story, from childhood through the beginnings of Microsoft, which he cofounded with Paul Allen back in 1975 at age 19, when he was still too young to rent a car. He paints a vivid self-portrait of a difficult (for his parents) little boy then an awkward, clearly brilliant teen whose biggest joy was solving problems. His early life parallels and intersects with the story of the personal computer, whose rise was shaped by Gates and his pals’ radical idea: that the magic of computing was in the software, not the hardware. Two more volumes will follow in the coming years. (Feb. 4)​ ​

Also of note:​

​Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry: The author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of America, a National Book Award winner, explores the color blue in African history. (Jan. 28)​

​Harriet Tubman: Military Scout and Tenacious Visionary: From Her Roots in Ghana to Her Legacy on the Eastern Shore by Jean Marie Wiesen and Rita Daniels: The authors dove deep into the historical record to flesh out the life and contributions of the legendary Tubman, who escaped slavery and helped rescue enslaved people as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. (Feb 4)​

Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance & Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s by Charles Piller: Journalist Piller reports on corruption within the scientific and pharmaceutical communities, including, he argues, falsified research results in the search for Alzheimer’s treatments. (Feb. 4)​

Legends and Soles by Sonny Vaccaro: Vaccaro, 85, details his role in the legendary signing of Michael Jordan for Nike. (Feb. 25) ​