AIR MAIL’s 10 Best Books of 2024
Percival Everett’s twist on Huckleberry Finn; biographies of Reagan and Isherwood, Didion, and Babitz; and more holiday reading for every type
A Boy’s Best Friend …
At Andy Warhol’s suggestion—“she’s so-o-o interesting”—a biographer pulls back the curtain on the artist’s mother, an unsung painter in her own right
Concrete Jungles
From Marcel Breuer’s early modernist designs to Le Corbusier’s pocket gardens, two new books speak to the enduring allure of brutalism
How to Write like Harlan Coben
The best-selling author shares the tricks he uses to craft a page-turner—from conjuring up villains to landing the big ending
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a history of George Frideric Handel’s popular Christmas oratorio, an examination of old age in America, and an artist’s collection of stories and paintings
The Decline and Fall of the Campus Novel
Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and Tom Sharpe used universities as their preferred vehicle for satire. But are modern colleges too ridiculous to parody?
America’s Sweethearts
A new coffee-table book presents a visual history of the United States from the 1940s to today, courtesy of Magnum photographers
Giant Girls Don’t Cry
Edna Ferber’s great-niece pulls back the curtain on the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer’s personal life—and the sacrifices she made for her craft
We’ll Always Have the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Paul Frank rockets, Hello Kitty planes, SpongeBob Santas … Elizabeth Kahane’s photos of the New York mainstay, taken from her third-floor window over the last 25 years, are collected in a festive coffee-table book
The Pages of Sin
The prolific crime-writing legend David Baldacci discusses his feud with Lee Child, his jaundiced view of American justice, and his latest—his 54th!—thriller
Down and Dirty On the Waterfront
How the classic film, made in the wake of the McCarthy-era Red-hunting trials, pitted director Elia Kazan against star Marlon Brando
The Ayatollah and the de Kooning
The Argo-like story of the top-secret, high-stakes trade of a priceless illustrated manuscript for a modern masterwork
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss an homage to New Yorker cartoonists, a biography of the brash newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, and a heartwarming novel set in a small Irish town
High Noonan
The Pulitzer Prize–winning political columnist Peggy Noonan discusses her note from Trump, the surprising reason why he is not a Neanderthal, and writing in Edmund Burke for president
The Dorothy Parker Tapes
A biographer of the great 20th-century wit goes in search of 12 hours’ worth of lost recordings made by Gloria Vanderbilt’s husband Wyatt Cooper
Teenage Wasteland
A new book of photographs by Beth Garrabrant—the artist behind Taylor Swift’s recent album covers—documents youth in the American suburbs
Deadly Pleasures to Read and Watch
Distract yourself from real-life nightmares with this month’s best mystery book and TV series
