2023 Holiday Gift Guide: Part 1

Welcome to the Parnassus Holiday Gift Guide! We asked our booksellers to rise to the herculean task of narrowing down their favorite books of 2023 to just a handful of titles, and after much discussion about who got to recommend what, and how many titles constitute a “handful,” they each decided on a few books to claim as their favorites. The picks range from middle grade novels, to YA fantasy, to sociology, to mysteries and pretty much everything in between. If you don’t already have a go-to bookseller for recommendations, you will soon. Enjoy Part 1 of the Gift Guide, and stay tuned for more!

ALY’S FAVORITES Y/N: A Novel

By Esther Yi

This may be the weirdest book I have ever read, but somehow it makes sense. Our character falls into the world of K-pop fandom and her life is consumed, rationalizing her increasingly obsessive thoughts and behavior through a Your Name self-insert fanfiction. Hauntingly accurate at times, Yi gives us a narration that shows exactly what we don’t want to become and what we are worried others think we might be.

Rouge: A Novel

By Mona Awad

Beauty takes a twisted turn in this dark take on a modern Snow White tale. After her mother’s death, Belle returns to her home and her childhood traumas. Around every corner is something leading her to what might be a skincare-based cult, and in every mirror is a new reflection on what makes us beautiful.

Chaos & Flame

By Tessa Gratton, Justina Ireland

This start to a series pulls you in immediately. In a world divided by warring houses, where myth and magic might not be a thing of the past, Darling Seabreak comes across two brothers who will change her life and the world forever.

CAT’S FAVORITES The Great Transition: A Novel

By Nick Fuller Googins

A hopeful book about the climate crisis? Yes! Fast-paced and contemplative, this is a novel about what it means to be part of a community and a family and all the ways people sacrifice to show up for those they love.

The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen

By Bee Wilson

Have you ever thought about cooking and what it means to fall in love with it at different points in your life? The mundane things like how to time the poaching of a carrot or something big like making banh mi at home for the first time? Bee Wilson has written an ode to home cooking and I loved just reading this book as much as I loved cooking from it. Perfect for cooks of all backgrounds and experience levels.

Absolution: A Novel

By Alice McDermott

Set in the simmering heat and bustling unrest of 1963 Saigon, an older Tricia recounts her time in Vietnam as the wife of an engineer brought to consult with the military. This is historical fiction with a lot of bite- McDermott creates a complex story and cast of characters who stayed with me and forever changed the way I think about how history is lived by everyday people.

ELYSE’S FAVORITES Day: A Novel

By Michael Cunningham

A compelling story of big family love, loss, and grief, with every character so beautifully realized. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Michael Cunningham has written another stunning novel. I’m tempted to turn to page one and start all over again.

The Postcard

By Anne Berest, Tina Kover (Translator)

An anonymous postcard is delivered to a family in present day Paris during the holidays, opening up an epic dive into the horrors of the holocaust and it’s effect on a particular family. It’s a haunting mystery that is gripping until the final page

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel

By James McBride

A novel about community, struggle, survival and hope. Part history and mystery, a compelling book written by a brilliant storyteller.

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

By Margaret Renkl

Each essay inspired me to connect more deeply with the natural world. A magnificent gem that is a celebration of the spectacular, and vulnerable, world around us. I will be giving this to everyone I know and love!

JENNESS’S FAVORITES Wrecker

By Carl Hiaasen

A decades-spanning murder mystery set in the Christmas summer of rural Australia, this novel pulls you in and does not let go. Family secrets and small-town suspicion permeate this atmospheric drama which builds to a deeply human, complex – and satisfying – ending.

Maame

By Jessica George

I loved this quiet, quirky, heartfelt book about 25-year-old Maddie and her journey through many of life’s contrary experiences: first love and heartbreak, familial responsibility and independence, ambition and settlement. Naive yet over-burdened for her age, Maddie is a sympathetic and dauntless character you will root for. It makes you wish her world – our world – was a little easier to navigate.

KATIE’S FAVORITES Ander & Santi Were Here: A Novel

By Jonny Garza Villa

This book is perfect. That’s my review. Anything else I say will be woefully inadequate. But that’s probably not enough, is it? Ander and Santi Were Here is a beautiful story of queer first love, of fighting for that love when the cards are stacked against you, and for finding your own way in this world. I loved this book with my whole heart.

Vampires of El Norte

By Isabel Cañas

Vampires of El Norte is a paranormal western set in 1840s Mexico. Nena and Nestor are childhood friends separated in their youth after a violent attack on Nena by a monster the rancheros cannot identify. Reunited a decade later as the Yankee army encroaches on Mexico, the two friends are reunited and must heal wounds to fight a common enemy. All while mysterious and deadly attacks continue to plague their community. This is a fantastic genre defying novel that grabs you from the get-go and doesn’t let go.

Something Wild & Wonderful

By Anita Kelly

Have you ever read a book and catch yourself weeks later still swooning? That is how I feel about Anita Kelly’s sophomore release. A perfect grumpy/sunshine dynamic, a spectacular meet cute. and chemistry for days. This lovely book is one that I found myself coming back to again and again throughout the year and sighing with happiness.

MADDIE’S FAVORITES Ripe: A Novel

By Sarah Rose Etter

Ripe is a gut punch. In it, we follow Cassie as she struggles in a demanding and demoralizing Silicon Valley tech job and goes through her days constantly accompanied by a floating black hole that follows her at all times (yeah, seriously). This book is brilliantly intriguing from the first page. It is smart, it is poignant, and in the best way possible, it is weird.

The Laughter: A Novel

By Sonora Jha

This novel is masterful from beginning to end. In The Laughter, Oliver Harding is a middle-aged tenured professor who has developed an obsession with his younger Muslim Pakistani colleague, Ruhaba. Jha somehow pulled off writing a narrator that I despised from page one yet still felt so eager and compelled to keep reading from. I would call this the most under-rated book to come out this year.

How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind

By Regan Penaluna

Parts memoir, parts biography, this is a rich account of women philosophers ignored by history and the experience of what it’s like to be a woman today pursuing a field that has worked for centuries to erase you. After graduating with a minor in philosophy without ever learning about a woman in the field, I realize how critical books like this are.

RACHEL’S FAVORITES Masters of Death: A Novel

By Olivie Blake

Masters of Death is Olivie Blake’s masterpiece. The set-up is simple: vampire real estate agent must sell a haunted house, but the execution is genius. I’m baffled by how she turns this premise into devastating literature. The ensemble cast has complex relationships and heartbreaking backstories that jump off of the page. This book is not just for fantasy fans, but for any mortal who ponders death.

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love: A Novel

By Lex Croucher

Gwen & Art are not in love. Instead, they’re pretending to help each other hide their queer identity. This will go down in history as one of my favorite comfort reads. Gwen and Art and the knight and prince they each fall in love with are the characters I visit when I’m feeling down. Their campy, swoon worthy romances were pure escapism with the perfect dash of hope.

The Centre

By Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

How far is society willing to go for advancement? The Centre ponders this question amid the backdrop of gothic horror, obsessive female friendship, secret societies, and an ending to match Ari Aster’s Midsommar. No line is left uncrossed.

SARAH’S FAVORITES Lucky Red: A Novel

By Claudia Cravens

A queer, feminist take on the classic Western novel? Count me in! Bridget, penniless and alone, crosses the American prairies and happens upon Dodge City, where she takes up residence in a brothel in order to survive. What follows is a gorgeously written, deeply human, and completely immersive story about queer womanhood, friendship, and freedom. I loved every page.

The Sea Elephants: A Novel

By Shastri Akella

A powerful, emotional, and at times disturbing story of a young gay man growing up in India. The incorporation of Indian myths and legends was the beautiful thread that tied the story together. It’s a profound debut.

Learned by Heart

By Emma Donoghue

Based on the true story of the relationship between Anne Lister and Eliza Raine, Learned by Heart is a gorgeously written historical novel about deep and dangerous love. I cherished the slow, deliberate pace of the story and felt completely immersed in the 19th century boarding school setting.

First Editions Club: December Selection Day: A Novel

By Michael Cunningham

Writing about a pandemic during a pandemic is a tricky business. When faced with uncertainty, many of us looked to the past (some glorious historical fiction was written during the pandemic) or we concentrated on an unknowable future light years ahead (lots of dystopian fiction as well). In Day, Michael Cunningham chooses instead to look around.

Told in three parts, Day takes place on April 5th, 2019, April 5th, 2020, and April 5th, 2021—three views from one family over the long haul of COVID-19. Dan and Isabel live in a Brooklyn brownstone with their two young children, Nathan and Violet. Isabel’s brother Robbie lives upstairs. It’s a balance that worked until it didn’t. With everyone trying to do their jobs and go to school from home, things are too close now, space is too tight. Robbie needs to leave but it’s very possible that Robbie is the glue that’s holding things together. Robbie, meanwhile, is held together by the perfect man who he’s invented on Instagram.

With spare and gorgeous writing and pitch-perfect dialogue, this book stands beside Cunningham’s masterpiece, The Hours, both for its structure and the delicacy with which the story unfolds. It feels less like a novel about life and more like life itself. Day also functions as something of a time capsule. It’s as if Cunningham scooped up the pandemic and put it in these pages so that we would remember what it was really like. What was it like? It was complicated.

Enjoy.

Ann Patchett

More about our First Editions Club: Every member receives a first edition of the selected book of the month, signed by the author. Books are carefully chosen by our staff of readers, and our picks have gone on to earn major recognition including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Plus, there’s no membership fee or premium charge for these books. Build a treasured library of signed first editions and always have something great to read! Makes a FABULOUS gift, too.

Browse through these recommendations and many more in our 2023 Holiday Catalog!