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By December, publishers have usually released their bestsellers in anticipation of the holiday shopping season. Here are some standouts coming out this month that should not be missed.
Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson – Dec. 1
It has become almost commonplace to hear stories about celebrities like Madonna and Oprah opening schools in impoverished nations, but in Stone into Schools, readers learn about Greg Mortenson, an “ordinary” man who has made it his life’s mission to build schools in the Middle East. Mortenson is the co-founder of the Central Asia Institute; for the past 16 years, he and his team have been traveling throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan to help locals start up their own schools. This book details his work in the northeastern Wakhan Corridor region of Afghanistan. Mortenson faces many adversities, including lack of funds, prejudice against educating girls and U.S. bombings in civilian areas. But his successes have inspired many, including Pakistani officials who awarded him their country’s civil honor, the Star of Pakistan. The Kite Runner’s Khaled Hosseini writes the foreword to this inspiring humanitarian account and follow-up to previous bestseller Three Cups of Tea.
Summertime by JM Coetzee – Dec. 24
South African-born author JM Coetzee’s reputation precedes him. This Nobel Prize laureate almost won his third Man Booker Prize with Summertime when it was short-listed earlier this year. This fictionalized memoir tells us about Coetzee’s life, but from an unusual source. Instead of an autobiographical account, the story is narrated by a young English biographer researching Coetzee’s years in Cape Town, South Africa. Taking a Citizen Kane-esque approach, the biographer meets with five people close to Coetzee and tries to connect their fragments into a unified chronicle of the secretive writer’s years. This third-person tale allows Coetzee to take a step back, poke fun and comment on the events that influenced his life and career.
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde – Dec. 29
In Jasper Fforde’s latest novel, seeing really is believing. Shades of Grey takes readers to a dystopian land where a person’s class is determined by the colors that they can see. Edward Russett is perfectly content with his life in the “colortocracy” and just hopes to move up in the social hierarchy by marrying into a family with heightened visual perception. But a young woman, a Grey named Jane, makes Eddie question their society for the first time. Although her rank is below his Red, her gray vision allows her to see during the night, a time when higher-level color viewers are literally left in the dark. But the ruling body, the Collective, does not tolerate anyone who questions their authority, and Eddie’s prying hands him in trouble pretty quickly. It will be up to Jane to help Eddie enlighten their fellow people about the Collective’s wrongdoings and see the murky shades of gray lurking in their crisp, color-defined world.
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