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Holiday Picks 2023

ID: A table with a sign reading 'Holiday Bookseller Picks' heavily laden with tall stacks of books, each one with a shelftalker (label with a bookseller review hanging out from under the book).

As always, our booksellers have picked some favorite titles to spotlight for our holiday shoppers this year! Holiday picks are one of my favorite NCB traditions. Compared to our "Books of the Year," we're able to share older and/or more idiosyncratic books that might have fallen between the cracks amongst more high-profile releases. And we have some great ones for you this year! Click on each title to read our booksellers' recommendations.

 

Jen Beagin
Current price: $17.00
NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND CULT FAVORITE “Wild…hilarious…so good.” —Cosmopolitan, Best Books of the Year * “A laugh-out-loud bad romance for Gen Xers and an ode to misfits who just want to belong.” —Oprah Daily * “Always interesting…too fun to stop.” —Vanity Fair “One of the funniest books of the last ... Read More about
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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “Reading rocker Smith’s account of her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, it’s hard not to believe in fate. How else to explain the chance encounter that threw them together, allowing both to blossom? Quirky and spellbinding.” -- People It was the s ... Read More about
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Berlin Game begins with a plea from "Brahms Four," one of Britain's most valuable agents stationed in East Germany: He wants to cross the Iron Curtain and come to the West. Bernard Samson, the former field agent now stationed in London, is tasked with the rescue. But before he even sets out on the m ... Read More about
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Wil Huygen
Current price: $35.00
An updated and revised edition of the New York Times bestseller Gnomes, the beloved illustrated survey of gnome life, history, and lore, which has sold astronomically since its original publication in 1977.  Introduction by Brian Froud, conceptual designer of the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal an ... Read More about
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Ryoko Kui
Current price: $15.00
When young adventurer Laios and his company are attacked and soundly thrashed by a dragon deep in a dungeon, the party loses all its money and provisions...and a member! They're eager to go back and save her, but there is just one problem: If they set out with no food or coin to speak of, they're su ... Read More about
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Learning to sew your own clothes can be utterly life changing. Forget squeezing into ill-fitting garments which aren’t to your taste, or struggling to find anything in your size – once you can sew, you can make a whole closet of clothes, in any style or fabric, to fit your body. But, learning to sew ... Read More about
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Jacqueline Holland
Current price: $29.99
“A new kind of vampire story, and the result is a surprising and spellbinding tale.” —Laura Moriarty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chaperone“Great for fans of Interview with a Vampire and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.” —Library Journal Suspenseful and enchanting, this breathtaking ... Read More about
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Mindy Mejia
Current price: $16.99
“Dark and atmospheric, with palpably vivid details and complex characters harboring plenty of secrets” (Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of The Marriage Lie), this riveting and suspenseful thriller—by the author of the critically acclaimed Everything You Want Me to Be—follows the m ... Read More about
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Devrie Brynn Donalson
Current price: $26.99
A refreshingly honest, wonderfully humorous, and entirely inspiring exploration of change, fear, and what it really means to be alone, from everyone's favorite TikTok oracle, Devrie Donalson. Dear Reader Just Doing Your Best, Give me a minute, and I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you about my junior ... Read More about
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Rebecca Yarros
Current price: $29.99
A #1 New York Times bestseller • Optioned for TV by Amazon Studios • Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 ... Read More about
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Next Chapter is thrilled to stock A Frog In the Fall (And Later On), a comic by Linnea Sterte, published by Peow Studio.    "A tale about toads, frogs and life" A minor frog (hatched this spring) encounters two toads, who have captured the ghost of a Shungiku flower that withered and died just recen ... Read More about
Vajra Chandrasekera
Current price: $27.99
A 2023 New York Times Notable Book “The best book I've read all year. Protean, singular, original.” —Amal El-Mohtar for The New York Times The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel ... Read More about
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Kevin Kling
Current price: $16.95
Kevin Kling's first book, The Dog Says How, brought readers into his wonderful world of the skewed and significant mundane. Kling does it again in Kevin Kling's Holiday Inn, a romp through a yearful of holidays and a lifetime of gathering material. A wiener dog with an amazing capacity for destructi ... Read More about
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Lauren Groff
Current price: $28.00
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, LA TIMES, SLATE, HARPER'S BAZAAR and others “Part historical, part horror, part breathless thriller, part wilderness survival tale, The Vaster Wilds is a story about the lengths to which we will go to s ... Read More about
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Daniel Clowes
Current price: $30.00
This long-awaited new graphic novel from Daniel Clowes (Ghost World and Patience) is a genre-bending thriller from one of the most innovative storytellers of all time. Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story — actually, stories — of its title character. ... Read More about
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Melissa Broder
Current price: $27.00
From the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, a darkly funny novel about grief and a “magical tale of survival” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In Melissa Broder’s astonishingly profound new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues he ... Read More about
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