December 2024 MassBook List

These are just a few of the books in these genres. Find more books in these genres here.

Poetry

If They Come For Us: Poems by Fatimah Asghar

If They Come For Us: Poems
by Fatimah Asghar

This imaginative, soulful debut poetry collection captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America.

The Border Simulator by Gabriel Dozal

The Border Simulator
by Gabriel Dozal

In Gabriel Dozal’s debut collection, the U.S./Mexico border is redefined as a place of invention and crossing it becomes a matter of simulation.

Fiction

The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas

The Anthropologists
by Aysegül Savas

Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas’ distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor.

The Mistress and the Key by Ben Mezrich

The Mistress and the Key
by Ben Mezrich

Card shark Hailey Gordon and ex-con Nick Patterson find themselves in Philadelphia, immersed in the history of Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. The Liberty Bell, Charles Willson Peale’s Museum, and the Tomb of The Unknown Revolutionary Soldier are connected to Franklin in amazing ways. The more they discover, the more shocking the implications become.

General Non-Fiction

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham

Based on extensive archival research and metic­ulous, original reporting, this book follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, and offers a detailed account of the tragedy itself and the inves­tigation afterward.

Memoir, Biography, Autobiography

John Lewis: A Life by David Greenberg

John Lewis: A Life
by David Greenberg

With new details about his personal and professional relationships, John Lewis: A Life is the definitive biography of a man whose heroism during the Civil Rights movement helped to bring America a new birth of freedom.

Middle Grade and Young Adult

Shark Teeth by Sherri Winston

Shark Teeth
by Sherri Winston

Seventh-grader Sharkita “Kita” embarks on a tumultuous journey to keep her family together while handling the consequences of her mother’s alcoholism.

Worst-Case Collin by Rebecca Caprara

Worst-Case Collin
by Rebecca Caprara

In the two years since his mother was killed in an automobile crash, Colin has been anticipating further disasters, writing down what to do in the event of an avalanche or mentally practicing the Heimlich maneuver just in case–but the real trouble is that his mathematician father is obsessed with a classic math problem and has a hoarding problems that is spiraling out of control, leaving Colin desperate to hide this chaos from his friends and everyone else, even as he struggles with his own grief.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

The Changeling
by Victor LaValle

The wildly imaginative story of one man’s thrilling odyssey through an enchanted world to find his wife, who has disappeared after having seemingly committed an unforgivable act of violence.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern

Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.

Graphic Novel or Graphic Memoir

Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love by Sarah Leavitt

In April 2020, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s partner of twenty-two years, Donimo, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. About a month after Donimo’s death, Sarah began making comics again as a way to deal with her profound sense of grief and loss. The comics started as small sketches but quickly transformed into something totally unfamiliar to her. Abstract images, textures, poetic text, layers of watercolor, ink, and colored pencil–for Sarah, the journey through grief was impossible to convey without bold formal experimentation. She spent two years creating these comics. The result is Something, Not Nothing, an extraordinary book that delicately articulates the vagaries of grief and the sweet remembrances of enduring love.

Victory Parade by Leela Corman

Victory Parade
by Leela Corman

One of a group of women working as welders in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Rose Arensberg has fallen in love with a disabled veteran while awaiting the return of her husband, Sam, a soldier in the American army serving in Europe. As we follow the bittersweet, heartbreaking stories of Rose and her fellow Rosie-the-Riveters, we’re immersed in the day-to-day challenges of life on the home front as seen through the eyes of these resilient women, as well as through the eyes of Eleanor, Rose’s impressionable young daughter, and Ruth, the German Jewish refugee Rose has taken into their home

Short Stories or Essay Collections

What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.