We asked our Penguin Random House publisher reps, Jason and Stefan, for their picks of "you can't go wrong with this book as a gift or for yourself."
Stefan: A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being. This is a profound, beautiful, and another Ozeki masterpiece. One of my favorite novels from this year.
Stefan: The le Carré estate has come forward with a complete novel, Silverview, for posthumous publication. It turns out that John wrote it in 2014, then set it aside to work on his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel. Before he died, he asked his sons to pursue publication. The book is fraught, forensic, lyrical, and fierce, at long last searching the soul of the modern Secret Intelligence Service itself. It’s a superb and fitting final novel.
Stefan: From acclaimed author of Tin Man, Sarah Winman, comes a captivating new novel of people brought together across four decades of love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster. A beautiful novel of art, friendship, hidden love, and war that reminded me of reading Julian Barnes. And If you've read A Room With a View you'll find a bit extra to love here.
Stefan: The second in The Thursday Murder Club series, the first of which Kate Atkinson called "A little beacon of pleasure in the midst of the gloom . . . SUCH FUN!" What could be better than adorable but don’t-underestimate-them septuagenarians solving murders? After all, among them, they’ve got more than 300 years of experience! If you haven't read the first, pick up The Thursday Murder Club then happily pick this one up too.
Stefan: A great paperback not to miss. June Jones emerges from her shell to fight for her beloved local library, and through the efforts and support of an eclectic group of library patrons, she discovers life-changing friendships along the way. A lovely heartwarming story set in a sleepy English village. Lonely librarian June Jones has never left her town and the 30-year-old spends her days buried in books. When the library is threatened with closure, June is forced to come out of her shell to save her library.
Stefan: Need more romantic comedies in your life? When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman's carefully calculated theories on love into chaos. PhD candidate Olivia Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships but her best friends does. Trying to convince her that she's dating someone, she kisses the first person she comes across...a young hotshot professor who's kind of an ass. What's more fun than a STEM based romance?
Stefan: Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? These are the goals of Rationality, Steven Pinker's follow-up to Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates's "new favorite book of all time"). Based on a hugely popular course that Pinker teaches at Harvard this returns him to his core area of expertise--human cognition. From the profound to the hilarious, Rationality is now more relevant than ever and--against all odds--Pinker remains an optimist.
Stefan: The first-ever full reckoning with Marvel Comics' interconnected, half-million-page story, a revelatory guide to the "epic of epics"--and to the past 60 years of American culture--from a beloved authority on the subject who read all 27,000+ Marvel superhero comics and lived to tell the tale. For the Marvel superfan and the Marvel-curious. This is well-written popcorn. Wolk digs deep into the comics say about the rise and fall of particular cultural aspirations, the progressive visions and the painful stereotypes, and the way they it all feeds into a potent cosmology that echoes our deepest hopes and fears.
Stefan: The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy. History has not been kind to George III, not to mention Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton! Read on to see why.
Stefan: From the author of the definitive New York Times bestselling history of the Beatles comes the authoritative account of the group Jack Black and many others call the greatest rock band of all time, arguably the most successful, and certainly one of the most notorious. Spitz is the first writer to take Zeppelin's music seriously, and the book is so much fun. Spitz captures the full story of the band for the first time, from the relationship of Plant and Page, from their start playing in tiny clubs to playing in the world's biggest stadiums. A great gift!
Stefan: An enchanting collection of lists, musings, prompts, and illustrations that will inspire you to cherish all of the things--from the extraordinary to the every day, from the big to the little--that bring hope into our lives. This is for fans of: Dusk Night Dawn, The Book of Awesome, and 14,000 things to be happy about.
Stefan: If you love to host and entertain; if you like a good project; if you crave control of your food; if fast food or the frozen aisle or the super-fast-super-easy cookbook keeps letting your tastebuds down; then Joshua Weissman: An Unapologetic Cookbook is your ideal kitchen companion.
Jason: Spanning from 1990s Afghanistan and Iraq to 2016 San Francisco, this timely novel follows a group of Muslims as they try to create new lives for themselves in the U.S. It has something serious to say, but in a seriously funny way.
Jason: A wonderful, wise little novel about one Midwestern woman's attempts to keep her four backyard chickens safe… that's really about grief and hope, the compromises we make for love, and the joys and sorrows of everyday life. (And yeah, chickens too.)
Jason: A big-hearted, completely charming novel about a very likeable woman who meets a much-loved man and how they create their own extended family.
Jason: Packed with brilliant writing, fully-realized characters, and a complex plot with grand sweep, this novel about living life on one's own terms satisfies on every level, making it that rare 600-page book you'll wish was even longer.
Jason: A masterful novel based on the life of Andrew Haswell Green (1820-1903), mostly forgotten today despite having been central to the creation of modern-day New York City. Intimate yet epic, subtle yet strong, it dazzles with its contrasts.
Jason: A savvy, snarky, and satisfying romantic comedy / drama (a rom-com-dram?) about imperfect parents, friends with kids, friends with benefits, and a not quite Mr. Right who disappears soon after saying "I love you."
Jason: A stylishly subversive novel set in 1941 Paris in which an elderly American expat and her friends from the fringes of polite society help thwart the Nazis. Fun fact: Schaffert lives in Nebraska.
Jason: A visceral coming-of-age novel about the lengths one young man will go to save his mother, about the dangers of toxic masculinity, and about a how hard it can be to catch a break in America today. This can be a tough book to read (it's a real gut punch), but it's totally worth it.
Jason: A chilling mix of family drama and literary thriller about how sometimes one must repress the past to survive the present, how childhood is a different country entirely, and how brotherly bonds can remain even after they've supposedly been severed.
Jason: A philosophical page-turner about a Paris-to-NYC flight that lands in June… carrying the exact same people who landed on the exact same flight back in March. It's twisty, trippy good fun!