WIRED's Picks for the 7 Books You Need to Read This Winter
The holidays are a wonderful time to gather—safely, there’s still a pandemic going on—with friends and family and reflect on the year that was. They’re also a time when some of us (you know, the “indoor kids”) might also be seeking refuge from all that quality time. In those moments, it’s always nice to hide out with a good book. Luckily, quite a few sensational titles have dropped over the past few months, and more are on the way. From pop culture histories to time-traveling immortals, here are some of our favorites. Happy holidays, and happy reading to all.
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- Courtesy of MCDLaserWriter II
By Tamara Shopsin
It’s the late 1990s in New York City, and over on West 23rd Street, Tekserve, an independent Mac repair store, is doing a killer business. Tamara Shopsin’s LaserWriter II is a sweet, strange homage to the unsuspecting institution, which finally closed its doors in 2016 after almost 30 years of repairing fax machines, printers, and laptops for less tech-savvy New Yorkers. The fictionalized account centers on Claire, a 19-year-old who sneaks through Columbia’s gates to listen in on philosophy classes in her free time and quickly learns the ropes of mending even the most finicky devices as a new staffer. Each of her coworkers has a funny, winding path, and they’ve come together over a shared appreciation for machines and the people who love them, not to mention the lush free breakfast spread on Thursdays. In their world Apple has yet to cement its status as a device powerhouse, and technology and its many trappings are novel and charming. Still, Shopsin resists the urge to veer sickly-sweet in her nostalgia. LaserWriter II is an ode to a bygone era, but it’s also a reminder of what it can look like to care for the devices with which we spend our days. —Eve Sneider
- Courtesy of CounterpointThe Perishing
By Natashia Deón
Memory is many things. It is a bridge to the before and a site of preservation. It acts as an anchor but also works as an interior compass of the self. Most of all, though, I have come to understand memory as a haunted thing. It houses all we know, makes all of who we are; without it, one is left aimless, lost, asunder. In the absence of memory, a kind of grief takes hold. One grieves for the person they don’t know, for the life that lives somewhere on the edges of their eroded faculties. Lou is faced with those exact grievances at the beginning of The Perishing, a time-shuttling odyssey that shifts between prohibition-era Los Angeles and the 22nd century. What we don’t know, but soon come to find out, is the fact of Lou’s existence: She is immortal with supernatural powers that have helped her weather the passing of time. But there is a reason we meet her in 1930s LA—though I won’t spoil that here. Where Natashia Deón’s prose is sometimes fast-moving and breezy, the questions at the novel’s heart are meaty and elegant. Alongside authors who have portrayed Black Los Angeles with imaginative, complex soul—from Octavia Butler to Venita Blackburn—Deón has subverted the fantastic in the most satisfying of ways. —Jason Parham
- Courtesy of Abrams BooksMusic Is History
By Questlove
Each chapter in Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s new book begins with a series of bullet points— historical facts ranging from “Jesse Jackson founds Operation PUSH” (1971) to “Bill Clinton is acquitted by the US Senate in his impeachment trial” and “The peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster launches” (both in 1999). That’s because every chapter in Music Is History marks a year, and each one is meant to give context to the songs and albums that defined that time. History buffs and music fans couldn’t have asked for a better professor. Questlove—the drummer of the Roots, musical director of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and director of the documentary Summer of Soul—is an encyclopedia of music knowledge and since he starts the book with the year of his birth, 1971, he’s got lived knowledge of the songs and times he’s writing about. The result is a joy to read, full of more facts and anecdotes than a pop culture obsessive could ever hope for. Music is timeless, but it is also wedded to the era in which it was created and consumed. Having a guide to that context—the book is blessedly well-indexed by topic, song, and artist—is truly a gift. —Angela Watercutter
- Courtesy of CatapultThe Four Humors
By Mina Seçkin
Faced with a grandmother grappling with Parkinson’s, a boyfriend she can’t seem to communicate with, a father’s untimely death, and a country wrestling with political turmoil, it’s no surprise that 20-year-old Sibel can’t shake her crippling headache. In an attempt to better understand her mysterious malady while spending the summer with family in Turkey, she turns to an age-old theory of medicine: the four humors. Blood correlates to optimism. Phlegm is dependable and sleepy. Black bile means you’re melancholic. And choler spells anger. Mix all four, and you’ve got the full spectrum of human emotion and the makings of a whirlwind summer. Mina Seçkin’s debut novel chronicles Sibel’s attempts to understand herself, her family, and the stories her body tells about both with tenderness and grace. —Eve Sneider
- Courtesy of Algonquin Young ReadersHow Do You Live?
By Genzaburo Yoshino
If you like YA, read this book. If you don’t like YA (guilty), definitely read this book. It’s a Japanese classic, written in 1937 and—because Miyazaki is now making it into a movie—out in English for the first time. Apparently it’s Miyazaki’s favorite childhood book, though it’s not immediately clear why. Miyazaki makes surrealist fantasies; this is a relatively mundane story about a school-age kid who goes by the nickname Copper. (He’s a fan of Copernicus.) When Copper’s dad dies, he moves with his mother to a suburb of Tokyo, where he makes friends, makes mistakes, and makes amends. Helping him in that latter matter is his uncle, a thoughtful correspondent and confidant of Copper’s who guides him in efforts moral and intellectual; the book alternates between Copper’s story and his uncle’s writings, full of grand pronouncements. Boring? Not even a little bit. How Do You Live? is that rare thing, especially in YA: a shamelessly philosophical novel, starting with its interrogative title. It asks its young readers to think about the person they want to be, and its adult readers to reflect on the person they’ve become. So very Miyazaki, after all. —Jason Kehe
- Courtesy of Tin House BooksLesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
By Kim Fu
Each one of the 12 short stories in Kim Fu’s debut collection transports, so much so that every time I finished a story, starting the next one was like jumping into an ice bath as the detailed world of the last fell away. Though this is the first short story compendium from Fu, she clearly has a knack for the form, turning seemingly mundane details into elements that feel fundamental. In “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867,” a man negotiates with a Holodeck-type simulator to allow him to relive an ordinary memory with his deceased mother, something strictly forbidden by simulation protocols. Fu brings us to a novel future where humans no longer live on the surface of the planet in “Time Cubes,” all while the story focuses on a minute detail of that world— a toy cube with strange powers. Most of Fu’s stories are set in our present world, if slightly altered, as in “Liddy, First to Fly” where a young girl starts to grow small wings out of her feet, something her tween friends think presages her metamorphosis into a bird. Others take on a more disturbing note: a couple with a body replacement printer in their basement, who develop a habit of offing each other and reprinting their bodies; an Instagram voyeur sneaking into the funeral of a young mountain climber. There are no throwaway lines in Lesser Known Monsters; each story is rich and metamorphic, perfect for breaking the monotony of winter days. —Meghan Herbst
- Courtesy of Simon & SchusterThe Curious Viewer
By Jennifer M. Wood and the Team at Mental Floss
Just because you’ve binge-watched every show doesn’t mean you know everything. Like, did you know 30 Rock’s iconic “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” was cowritten (and partially sung) by Atlanta’s Donald Glover? Or that Emilia Clarke wasn’t the first actress cast to play Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones? The Curious Viewer is here to help. Written by the staff of Mental Floss (and, full disclosure, edited by WIRED contributor Jennifer M. Wood), the book collects facts and anecdotes about 62 of the most binge-able TV shows of the past 20 years—from 24 to The X-Files. Everything is laid out in blurbs and infographics, easily digestible and fun to read. It’s not the kind of tome one devours cover-to-cover, but it’s the perfect coffee-table book for people who constantly crave obscure pop culture facts. —Angela Watercutter
