Whether you spend the Christmas holidays tucked up beside the fire, or hidden away in a far corner avoiding everyone, it’s nice to have a book by your side to pass the time away. Here’s some of our literary choices, a mix of new and old books, to read this Christmastime.

Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik
There were few literary figures as enigmatic as Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. In one of the most hyped books of the year, Lili Anolik tackled both ladies at the same time. By placing Joan and Eve side-by-side, Anolik was able to examine the strange relationship they had, going deep on their interactions and the overlaps in their social groups, resulting in a fascinating double-portrait of two of LA’s most important writers.

“Eve really benefits from Joan,” Anolik told us in an interview, “because I think there’s just a need for an un-Joan, like an anti-Joan. If Eve didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her just to balance out the universe.”

Read more of our interview with Lili Anolik here

Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz
Originally published by Charco Press back in 2017, Ariana Harwicz’s Die, My Love is about to see a revival of interest as the basis for Lynne Ramsay’s new film of the same name starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Set in the French countryside, it follows a young mother who is quickly losing her grip on reality. She begins lashing out at those around her, including her husband and child, as she falls deeper into psychosis.

Fire Season: Selected Essays 1984-2021 / Do Everything in the Dark by Gary Indiana

This year we lost the great Gary Indiana, the curmudgeonly genius who skewered everything from the art world, cinema, celebrity and tabloid culture. As the art critic for the Village Voice from 1985 – 88, he became famous for his acerbic wit that left no prisoners in his path. A prolific writer right up to his death, the 2022 collection Fire Season: Selected Essays 1984-2021 is the best overview of his non-fiction essays and criticism, while Do Everything in the Dark (2003) is a good entry point to his numerous novels. Set in New Yorks art world, it follows a group of artists who watch their scene fall apart at the turn of the millennium.

Constant Reader: The New Yorker Columns 1927–28 by Dorothy Parker
And who would Gary Indiana have been without Dorothy Parker? A brand new collection of Parker’s New Yorker columns from 1927 and 1928, when she wrote book reviews under the nom de plume the Constant Reader, displays a writer at the height of her powers. For Parker, a book review wasn’t simply a book review, it was a way of critiquing literary culture, New York itself, high society and any other mundanity that crossed her path. It is an essential collection of work from the writer who once famous said, “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

Love Junkie by Robert Plunkett

One of the most exciting rediscovered authors of recent years has been Robert Plunkett. Not least because Plunkett is still alive, defying the old adage that they’ll love you once you’re dead. Love Junkie, which was brought back into print this year after decades as an underground cult hit, is his gossipy tale of a New York housewife who falls in love with a gay porn star. Plunkett, who is something of a literary John Waters, sold the film rights to Love Junkie to Madonna, who loved the book, but the film never got made. Not that it would ever be truly possible to adapt Plunkett’s catty prose to the screen.

Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode by Jen Calleja
Jen Calleja has had a prolific few years. The author and translator has published the short story collection I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For (2020), the book-length poem Dust Sucker (2023), the verse novel Vehicle (2023) and this year brought out Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode, a series of essays and poems that explore popular culture through Calleja’s theory of “goblinhood”. It’s just a bonkers and brilliant as it sounds. 

The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne
Griffin Dunne is probably best known for playing Paul Hackett in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours but growing up, he was essentially LA royalty. His father was Dominick Dunne, the movie producer turned investigative journalist, and his aunt (through marriage) was Joan Didion. His memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club, is catnip for anyone interested in 70s and 80s LA. From the parties his parents threw that were full of stars to the stories of growing up with his best friend, Carrie Fisher — it’s one of the best memoirs released this year.

Selected Amazon Reviews by Kevin Killian
When Kevin Killian died in 2019, not only did he leave behind a legacy as one of major figures of the New Narrative movement, he also left behind thousands of Amazon reviews. From 2003-2019, he was one of Amazon’s most prolific reviewers, bringing his distinctive voice to the review section of a role of duct tape, the blu-ray of Love Actually, a pack of pens, among many other innocuous items. Selected Amazon Reviews is a 600-page selection of Killian’s Amazon reviews that acts as one of his final great works.

Zardoz by John Boorman
After making his controversial masterpiece Deliverance in 1972, the British director John Boorman followed it up with the bizarre sci-fi film called Zardoz. Most of the plot is completely incomprehensible but, in something of an attempt to clear things up, Boorman penned a novelisation of Zardoz which has gone on to become a strange cult classic in its own right. Finally reissued this year, the novelisation of Zardoz now has a new introduction by Boorman, who looks back at the legacy of his strangest film (and novel) after fifty years.

Queer by William S. Burroughs
One of the biggest films of the year, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer took its inspiration from William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel Queer. The story of Lee, a heroin addict living in Mexico City, whose life is changed by the introduction of a younger man named Allerton. Guadagnino’s adaptation is much cleaner than Burroughs’ grittier and hardcore novel, which fits within the lineage of works like Junkie (1953) and Naked Lunch (1959). Something nice and fucked up for the festive season.