December 2025 list by Nanette Alderman |
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100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist's Guide to a Happy Life
by Dick Van Dyke
On the eve of his 100th birthday, national treasure Dick Van Dyke brings us this autobiographical collection of stories, reflections, and life advice on how he's maintained a zest for life. Dick Van Dyke danced his way into our hearts with iconic roles in Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Now, as he's about to turn 100 years old, Dick is still dancing and approaching life with the twinkle in his eye that we've come to know and love.
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The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
by Richard Bell
Historian Richard Bell reveals the full breadth and depth of America's founding event: the American Revolution was not only the colonies' triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England, it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos. Repositioning the Revolution at the center of an international web, Bell's narrative ranges as far afield as India, Africa, Central America, and Australia.
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Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes
by Helen Goh
Yotam Ottolenghi pastry chef and recipe developer Helen Goh draws on her rich multicultural heritage to deliver more than 100 of her favorite recipes. Goh not only shares her favorite baking recipes, but also reflections on life, sharing how baking can bring us together and add meaning and joy to both significant and everyday moments.
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Becoming an Artist
by Scott Christian Sava
rom the internet's art dad an encouraging and inspiring guide for artists of all levels to embrace failure, overcome self-doubt, and rediscover the joy of creating art. That art is all about experimentation, failing, and trying again. Becoming an Artist is part encouragement, part storytelling, part sketchbook. Filled with art, stories, silly tangents, hard-won wisdom, and over 50 black-and-white watercolor illustrations, all created during a very hectic week in New York City. Whether you're a total beginner, a burned-out pro, or someone who hasn't made art since middle school, this book is your permission slip to just make stuff. To be weird. To be imperfect. To be human.
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Countdown to Riches
by Rhonda Byrne
Financial struggle is caused by one thing--our thoughts. To have a rich life, you have to use your mind, the very thing that has previously kept money from you. You must free yourself once and for all of a scarcity mindset, which unfortunately plagues the majority of people. Find 21 days of life-changing practices leading to financial freedom, adopting new habits that will create and maintain wealth.
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The Encyclopedia of Ugly Fashion
by Karolina Żebrowska
Revel in the bad decisions of others with this collection of history's most bizarre fashion trends that will leave you asking, Who would even wear this? Featuring historical context and illustrations pulled directly out of the past, fashion historian and influencer Karolina Żebrowska appraises each look with an equal amount of thoughtfulness and humor.
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The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan
by Lyse Doucet
The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolized a dream of a modernizing country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.
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Foundations: Timeless Design That Feels Personal
by Nate Berkus
From one of the world's most influential designers, a rich tour-de-force that explores how history, character, and vision come together to make a home at once timeless and personal. Nate Berkus is beloved for his elegant, narrative-driven interiors that are layered and deeply personal. In this beautifully photographed book, filled with Nate's warmth and years of knowledge, he shares his Four Tenets of Good Design.
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Grit, Spit, and Never Quit: A Marine's Guide to Comedy and Life
by Rob Riggle
Comedian Rob Riggle's frank, funny, and inspirational memoir about how the lessons he learned while serving in the US Marines prepared him for life, especially when it came to pursuing his comedy dreams. Before he graced movie screens in films like The Hangover and television in shows like The Daily Show, Rob Riggle served his country as a Marine for twenty-three years. He helped liberate an embassy in Liberia, served at a refugee camp in Albania before going into Kosovo, did search and rescue at Ground Zero, and was deployed to Afghanistan twice.
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Heart Life Music
by Kenny Chesney
In college, Kenny Chesney found himself on a barstool with a guitar and an unexpected connection between people, life, and songs. His heart caught fire. With Nashville's vibrant creative scene, characters, legends, and places now long gone from the city he encountered in those early days, Chesney explores the quest to find himself as an artist and a man, as well as a sense of home anywhere there's an ocean.
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The History of Money: A Story of Humanity
by David McWilliams
In this fresh, eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money--from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley. The story of humanity is inextricable from that of money. No innovation has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet's history so dramatically. And yet despite money's primacy, most of us don't truly understand it.
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Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department
by Carol Leonnig
From Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, a shocking investigation of unparalleled depth into the subversion of the Justice Department over the last decade, culminating in President Donald Trump upending this cornerstone of democracy and threatening America's rule of law as we have long known it.
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Lessons from Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters
by Chris Matthews
A tribute about why Robert F. Kennedy's revolutionary vision offers the roadmap America needs today. 100 years after his birth, Bobby Kennedy matters more than ever. That is because he led us in pursuit of America's ideals. He took risks for peace and united a fractured country. He showed moral courage and political bravery. In today's bitterly divided nation, his message has the power to help us reimagine a better future.
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Midnight Flyboys
by Bruce Henderson
In 1943, the OSS--precursor to the CIA--came up with a plan to increase its support to the French resistance forces that were fighting the Nazis. To start, the OSS recruited some of the best American bomber pilots and crews to a secret airfield twenty miles west of London and briefed them on the intended mission. Given a choice to stay or leave, every airman volunteered for what became known as Operation Carpetbagger.
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Off the Scales: The Inside Story of Ozempic and the Race to Cure Obesity
by Aimee Donnellan
In Off the Scales, Reuters journalist Aimee Donnellan illuminates the history of a medical breakthrough that is poised to change the world, while raising difficult social questions about inequality and morality. Through original reporting and rigorous research, she forecasts the future of GLP-1s and examines what their explosive popularity tells us about our ideals of beauty and the lengths to which people will go in order to become thin.
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The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State
by Michael Steinberger
Brings us into the world of the controversial technology firm Palantir and its very colorful and outspoken CEO, Alex Karp, tracing the ascent of Big Data, the rise of surveillance technology, and the shifting global balance of power in the 21st century. Palantir builds data integration software: its technology ingests vast quantities of information and quickly identifies patterns, trends, and connections that might elude the human eye.
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Unscripted
by Cheryl Hines
Best known for her twenty-four-year portrayal of Cheryl on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Cheryl's story begins in small-town Florida and unfolds across the glittering stages of Hollywood--and right into the heart of the Kennedy family and a presidential campaign. With her signature wit, Cheryl shares hilarious and heartwarming stories from her career in comedy, acting alongside legends like Robin Williams and Larry David, and surviving in Hollywood's unpredictable landscape.
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Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime
by Sarah Weinman
An eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions it raised about women's rights that would reverberate for decades. In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in United States history to accuse her husband of rape, at a time when the idea of marital rape seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four states. Embodies vociferous debates about gender, sexuality, and power, while highlighting the damaging and inherent misogyny of American culture then and still now.
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