The books we’ve selected for the 2018 holiday season – to give or get —  start with a thrilling mystery.

Author Susan Orlean (who wrote the Orchid Thief),  regales us in her new book, Library, with the tale of Harry Peak, the would-be/never-was movie star, whose celebrity derived from setting the Los Angeles Central Library Fire in 1987, destroying nearly 500,000 books and damaging some 700,000 others. (The worst library fire in US history) She’s on the trail of other stories, both ancient and new. The Washington Post calls her book, “ A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries.”

Author of the single-subject, single-word books, Salt, Cod, and Paper, Mark Kurlansky, is back with Milk: A 10,000 Year Food Fracas. It’s a bodily fluid that ranges from human to bovine – and looks like Kurlansky has all the bases covered.  You’ll find out that it makes a difference if you were nourished by your mother’s milk, and why some indigenous women have nursed piglets and deer. This is a page turner.

As for the rest, we’re saving the details – but here are some hints: women artists and photographers who shaped the art world; Legos and termites (what they have in common!),and a comprehensive biography of the human heart.

Come back for our full 2018 holiday books round-up!