Popping back into your feeds to share some book recommendations for the 2024 holiday season. Whether you’re looking for a book for yourself or a book to give as a gift, there is hopefully a little something for everyone below. Happy reading!

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I’m about one-third of the way through this book and it radiates much like Kimmerer’s previous book Braiding Sweetgrass. It is a good reminder to get out of consumeristic and transactional ways and to see nature as a reciprocal relationship.  

For memoir lovers make sure to give them The Manicurist’s Daughter: A Memoir by Susan Lieu. Susan’s book is filled with grief, raw emotions – tantrums and love, acceptance, and looking forward. A highly recommended book.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis is a book for the moment and the movement. We’ll need it in 2025 and for the next four years. Get one for you and a friend or colleague to share ideas.

Brittney Griner’s Coming Home, is worthy of a holiday gift for the sports lovers in your life. I don’t read a ton about sports, but I picked this up based on Heidi’s recommendation. I learned so much more about Griner’s time in a Russian jail, wrongfully imprisoned. I also now have a deeper appreciation for women’s professional sports because of this book.

If you’re looking for a fiction read, Heidi (of Color Brave Space fame), recommends Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. Sometimes we need some mystery in our lives.

If you have any Buddhist in your life or anyone wanting to explore feminism in religion, debut author Nhi Tran’s Budding Lotus in the West: Buddhism from an Immigrant’s Feminist Perspective is intriguing. It is an important book exploring women’s role in religion.

Every booklist needs a cookbook recommendation. On the Curry Trail was a delightful read. It was fun to learn about the history of curry and explore different curries from around the world. I enjoy a good cookbook that has recipes that connect food, people, and places in one book. Gift this to someone who is looking for

My resident manga lover recommends I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: The Complete Manga Collection by Yoru Sumino. The title has sparked a heated debate in our house about the title, good books spark debate. The premise of the book centers around the main character having terminal pancreatic cancer and keeping it a secret.

She also recommends Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang. This is a good book for talking about anti-Asian racism and group think in the face of rhetoric and fear – important themes for the coming years.

If you need a gift for a younger child, especially girls (or any gender and grow their feminism) Goddess: 50 Goddesses, Spirits, Saints, and Other Female Figures Who Have Shaped Belief is a good one. It is a gorgeous giftable book at an affordable price.  

Here are a few Christmas theme picture books:

Tamales for Christmas is a recently released picture book. Based on the author’s childhood experience of watching his Grandma makes thousands of tamales to help the family afford Christmas gifts. It is a lovely picture book and shares how family and community comes together as a support network.

An Anishinaabe Christmas by Wab Kinew shares how a Native Anishinaabe boy interprets his family’s winter traditions. Christmas gets blended into Native traditions.

Santa’s Gotta Go! Had me laughing. In this book Santa is not the model house guest. At the end of the story Santa gotta leave so the family can have some peace back.  

For more book recommendations see Fakequity’s Bookshop store link. All of the above links are affiliate links that generate a small profit for Fakequity. I use the profits to donate books to public schools and to support the blog.