It’s mid-December. Are you still searching just the right thing for someone on your list?
When you give someone a book, you’re giving a gift that could be life changing.
A year ago, I referenced E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web as my first self-help book. Reading that on repeat helped me survive, at age seven, my parents’ divorce. Books are a portal to another world that offers more than just mindless escape. Stories help us make sense of things; stories help us heal. Stories change us, and they help us change.
Here are the books that moved and changed me in 2024, organized in a way that I hope helps you in your holiday gifting.
For those who have things to overcome:
Memoirs offer strength through the stories of others who made it through. Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle and its prequel, Half Broke Horses are both incredible stories, testaments to resilience and the transcendence of love.
Ina Garten’s Be Ready When the Luck Happens reads like a conversation with a close friend who also shares her recipes. Not since reading Nora Ephron’s Heartburn have I so enjoyed cooking my way through a memoir. It was Nora, all those years ago, who taught me to “be the heroine of your life, not the victim,” and Ina continues in her stead.
For women doing hard things:
Tara Mohr’s “Playing Big” is a field guide to stepping outside of your comfort zone, and I refer to it often in my own journey.
Kara Lowentheil, a fellow Life Coach School grad and rock star at the intersection of coaching and feminism, published her own manifesto, Take Back Your Brain, this year. The personal is indeed political, and Kara teaches that liberation begins inside our own minds. Her words are those of a kind, witty big sister, marching alongside you in the revolution.
For inspiration and connection:
Michael Paterniti’s “Love and Other Ways of Dying” is a collection of perfect essays, painting humanity in unflinching detail. Each one broke my heart, and somehow uplifted it as well.
For the World War II buff on your list, The Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts may be one story they haven’t yet heard. Through the tale of the rescue of purebred horses stolen by the Nazis and hidden throughout Europe, this book illustrates the power of small acts of compassion in the face of massive suffering.
For those healing from grief:
Grief might be the most universal human experience, yet somehow also the loneliest. Sloane Crosley’s Grief is For People offers an honest, intelligent exploration of loss, well outside the confines of the typical self-help genre.
For those at midlife pondering the next chapter:
Arthur Brooks’ From Strength to Strength is a compassionate guide to finding meaning and purpose in the second half of life.
For a long, cozy read:
Daniel Mason’s North Woods and Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water are sweeping, immersive novels that span generations, perfect for long winter nights when you want to lose yourself entirely in a story.
For the thinker and philosopher:
A read that will fundamentally reshape how you understand humanity, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens is more than a book. it’s mind-expanding journey that will change how you see our species, our history, and our potential. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t just inform—it changes your entire worldview.
This holiday season, consider that in giving a book, you gift a potential transformation: A window into another world, another perspective, another possibility.
Because ultimately, stories do more than entertain. They help us live better, deeper, more connected lives.
