42 new books for holiday gifts in 2022, from Wisconsin snakes to Wakanda

Make someone richer:

Give them a book.

For your gift-giving and self-gifting pleasure this holiday season, here is a varied selection of 42 new books to choose from, including choices for children and teens. In general, I picked books published since June, including some new books by Wisconsin authors. In each case, I've either read the book already or browsed it, or been impressed by a previous work from the same author, or had the new book recommended by a trusted source of information.

Thanks to colleague Chris Foran for contributing pop-culture book selections.

These suggestions are listed alphabetically by title, with the children's set arranged in ascending order of recommended reader age.

"All This Could Be Different" (Viking), by Sarah Thankam Mathews. A National Book Award finalist for year's best novel, "ATCBD" depicts twenty-somethings eating, drinking, loving, arguing and inching their way toward maturity in Milwaukee neighborhoods.

"Amphibians and Reptiles of Wisconsin" (University of Wisconsin Press), edited by Joshua M. Kapfer and Donald J. Brown, illustrated by Erik R. Wild. Pretty much everything you'd want to know about Wisconsin's toads, frogs, snakes, turtles and other herpetofauna.

"The Art of the Break" (University of Wisconsin Press), by Mary Wimmer. In this Milwaukee-area writer's novel, a woman strives to revive the family cheese factory in rural Wisconsin, with business and personal challenges at every turn.

"Beyond Belief: Poems" (FSG), by John Koethe. Former Milwaukee poet laureate's new collection frequently looks back in time, including a teenage meeting with a remarkable physicist in "Murray Gell-Mann."

"Brewtown Tales: More Stories From Milwaukee and Beyond" (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by John Gurda. A collection of the local historian's columns and personal essays that first appeared in the Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Gurda will give an in-person talk about his new book at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 6 at Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery, 917 W. Juneau Ave. Email registration is required: publicity@wisconsinhistory.org.

"Bruno's Challenge and Other Stories of the French Countryside" (Knopf), by Martin Walker. A gentle collection of stories as much about the French countryside, wine and food as it is about the mysteries solved by a small-town police chief.

"Bryant & May's Peculiar London" (Bantam), by Christopher Fowler. A chatty guide to weird and obscure London from the characters of Fowler's long-running mystery series. A beautiful capstone to the titular duo's wacky adventures.

"A Creative Place: The History of Wisconsin Art" (Cedarburg Art Museum), by Thomas D. Lidtke and Annemarie Sawkins. An overview of artmaking in Badgerland from the Paleoindian period through the end of the 20th century. With many illustrations. Visit cedarburgartmuseum.org.

"Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship" (Orbis), by Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg. A warm collection of letters between Sister Wendy Beckett, the British nun famous for her TV art documentaries, and an American publisher, on spiritual and other topics.

“Dreams of Wakanda: Creators, Writers and Comics Legends on the Impact of Marvel Studios’ ‘Black Panther’” (Del Rey). This collection of short, often powerful essays explores the different ways Marvel’s first “Black Panther” movie rocked, reflected and revitalized the culture. It’s also a good refresher with the sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” now in theaters.

"The Evening Hero" (Simon & Schuster), by Marie Myung-OK Lee. Lee's novel, set in rural Minnesota and North Korea, braids together the nearly Lake Wobegonish tale of a man, unexpectedly retired, trying to figure out what to do with himself; a longitudinal story of how a secret shapes a life; a scathing critique of the corporatizing of American health care; and a deeply felt meditation on being a Korean American immigrant.

“The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” (Knopf), by Paul Newman. Culled from interviews and oral histories by friend Stewart Stern done in the late 1980s, this autobiography is just like the Hollywood star and humanitarian who speaks it — human, often funny, self-effacing and charming.

"Factory Girls" (Algonquin, publishes Nov. 29), by Michelle Gallen. In this new novel by the author of "Big Girl, Small Town," teen Catholic girls work in a Northern Irish shirt factory in the months before college, frequently using humor to navigate the complications of life in the final days of the Troubles.

"Funeral Train" (Kaylie Jones Books), by Laurie Loewenstein. In this mystery novel set in 1935, an Oklahoma sheriff and a railroad detective investigate a derailment and a murder against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

"The Future Is Female!: More Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women" (Library of America), edited by Lisa Yaszek. This volume presents stories from the 1970s by big names, including Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, James Tiptree Jr. and Connie Willis as well as writers who deserve wider recognition today.

"Great Short Books: A Year of Reading — Briefly" (Scribner), by Kenneth C. Davis. Fulfilling his book's title, Davis offers short, encouraging essays on 58 short books, from the obvious ("Animal Farm" ) to the surprising (Leïla Slimani’s "The Perfect Nanny").

“Hollywood: The Oral History” (HarperCollins), by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson. Two top film historians were given complete access to the American Film Institute’s vault of 53 years’ worth of oral histories and interviews with Hollywood stars, extras, directors, producers, cinematographers, writers and everyone in between in the movie business. The result is this massive, super-readable and essential first-person telling of 100 years of Hollywood history.

"Into the Riverlands" (Tordotcom), by Nghi Vo. A wandering historian and their unusual avian companion become enmeshed in the stories they're collecting in a Milwaukee writer's fantasy novella.

"Last Summer on State Street" (William Morrow), by Toya Wolfe. Wolfe's novel takes readers inside Building 4950 of the Robert Taylor Homes for several fateful months in the lives of four Chicago girls.

"Lucky Girl: How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story" (Tordotcom), by M. Rickert. Nothing enlivens the holiday season like a touch of horror, right? In this Milwaukee-area writer's novella, a writer invites four strangers to Christmas dinner and asks each to tell a ghost story.

“Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman” (Macmillan), by Alan Rickman. Rickman started keeping a diary of sorts in 1993. For the following 22 years, he jotted down notes, almost daily, on, well, everything in his life. His engaging entries give you a look behind the scenes on everything he worked on (including the “Harry Potter” movies but not “Die Hard,” made before he started jotting) and just about everything in his world, from his voluminous friendships to the movies he watched.

"Milwaukee Scavenger: The Ultimate Search for Milwaukee's Hidden Treasures" (Reedy Press), by Jenna Kashou. A spiral-bound scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and helpful pictures, taking readers from Bronzeville and Lindsay Heights through the Harbor District and east side. There's even a chapter on the Hop streetcar.

"The Milwaukeean: A Tale of Tragedy and Triumph" (Twin Arrows Books), by Joey Grihalva. Milwaukee writer Grihvala's biography of rapper-producer-performer Klassik frequently broadens into a kaleidoscopic portrait of local hip-hop and cultural scenes.

"Musical Tables" (Random House), by Billy Collins. The former U.S. poet's laureate's new collection consists entirely of short poems, many laced with his characteristic humor.

"Once Upon a December" (Berkley), by Amy E. Reichert. Know someone who'd enjoy a Hallmark-adjacent holiday romance with a sprinkle of magic? Put this novel in their stocking. You can buy a signed copy Nov. 30, when Waukesha County writer Reichert speaks and signs books at 6:30 p.m. at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave. Register via boswellbooks.com.

"Painting Beyond Walls" (Milkweed), by David Rhodes. A near-future novel from the Wisconsin-based author of "Driftless," centered on conflict between residents of a gated community and their poorer rural neighbors.

“Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked the Big Screen” (Running Press), by Fred Goodman. A former Rolling Stone editor rounds up the usual suspects (“A Hard Day’s Night,” “Purple Rain,” “Gimme Shelter”) and some of the less usual ones (the 1967 British drama “Privilege,” 2019’s “The Black Godfather”) in this very entertaining and idiosyncratic look at the intersection of modern popular music and the big screen.

“Scenes From My Life: A Memoir” (Crown), by Michael K. Williams with Jon Sternfeld. Williams, who died in September 2021 at age 54 of an overdose of a mix of drugs, lays out in direct and often moving detail the moments of his life that shaped who he became — one of the most electrifying and true actors of his generation.

"Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons" (St. Martin's Press), by Ben Riggs. For more than 20 years, Lake Geneva was the center of the role-playing-game universe. Milwaukee native Riggs, a gamer and game podcaster, explains how it got that way and what happened.

"The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human" (Scribner), by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Like the late Oliver Sacks, Mukherjee is a physician and scientist who writes with literary skill and compassion. Here he takes us on grand rounds of the cell the same way he enlarged our understanding of cancer and genes in earlier books.

"Stella Maris" (Knopf, publishes Dec. 6), by Cormac McCarthy. A brilliant young mathematician, who's also mentally ill and suicidal, shows up at an asylum in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, where she has mind-bending and combative dialogues with a psychiatrist. "Stella Maris" is a companion novel to McCarthy's recently released "The Passenger." A tip: If you like Walker Percy's novels and essays, "Stella Maris" is a must for you.

"Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle" (Duke University Press), by Shannen Dee Williams. Historian Williams chronicles the powerful but hitherto underreported role of Black Catholic religious in civil rights.

"Teresa of Calcutta: Dark Night, Active Love" (Liturgical Press), by Jon M. Sweeney. A biography of the Albanian nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who made caring for India's poorest people her vocation.

Books for children and teens

"A Seed Grows" (Holiday House / Porter), by Antoinette Portis. Artist Portis shows the life cycle of a sunflower, from seed to sprout to plant to seed, in this picture book. For readers 3 years and older.

"Big Truck, Little Island" (Candlewick), by Chris Van Dusen. In this picture book, after a semi jacknifes on a small island's only road, children come up with a creative solution for people stuck on either side of the accident. For readers 3 years and older.

"Does a Bulldozer Have a Butt?" (Chronicle), by Derick Wilder, illustrated by K-Fai Steele. A picture book that explores a tushy subject with wit and humor. For readers 3 years and older.

"Frizzy" (First Second), by Claribel A. Ortega, illustrated by Rose Bousamra. A Dominican girl's quest to get her hair right becomes an exploration of colorism, standards of beauty and self-identity. For readers 8 years and older.

"The Last Mapmaker" (Candlewick), by Christina Soontornvat. In this fantasy with an implied Asian setting, a young mapmaker's assistant hiding a family secret sails the high seas on an expedition to a fabled continent where they may be dragons. For readers 8 years and older.

"Alte Zachen (Old Things)" (Cicada), by Ziggy Hanaor, illustrated by Benjamin Phillips. In this graphic novel, Benjy accompanies his testy grandmother, Bubbe Rose, on a shopping trip through Brooklyn and Manhattan. She's a Holocaust survivor whose experience affects her present-day interactions. In a surprising visual twist, her flashbacks are shown in vivid color, while the present-day scenes are in black and white. For readers 12 years and older.

"Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants" (Zest), by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt. An adaptation for young readers of Potawatomi botanist Kimmerer's deep exploration of indigenous ecological wisdom and practices. Kimmerer earned her doctorate in plant ecology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. For readers 12 years and older.

"Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete" (Meyer & Meyer Sport), by Gwen Jorgensen, Nancy Jorgensen and Elizabeth Jorgensen. How did Waukesha native Gwen Jorgensen become an Olympic champion in a demanding event? Her mother and sister, both writers, help Gwen tell the story. For readers 14 years and older.

"Rust in the Root" (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray), by Justina Ireland. A steampunk fantasy set in an alternate United States during the Great Depression, with a Black teen mage battling malevolent forces. For readers 14 years and older.

MORE 21 recommended books by Wisconsin writers from the 21st century

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 42 new books for holiday gifts in 2022