Take A Cozy Spin Around The Globe With The 8 Best Books Of November

When a football player goes viral for his cupcake business and views on baking, he turns to a social media expert from his past, his best friend’s sister, for help. Things are getting hot in the kitchen and it isn’t just the cupcakes in the oven…

In a Japanese café, you can time travel to fix the past, but you must return before the coffee gets cold. In this installment of the magical cozy series, there’s a father struggling with his daughter’s wedding, a woman wanting to give a gift to a loved one, a boy who wants to smile, and a child with no name. Make a fresh cup and dive in.

This Norwegian story has a new English translation, just in time for the holidays. Sisters Ronja and Melissa get their father a job at a Christmas tree stand, only to discover he’s spending time and all their money at his favorite pub instead. The sisters take his place at the lot and dream of a better life. Soon the town is bestowing acts of kindness upon them, destining this to be a holiday classic.

In a small Irish village in December, 1962, the local doctor and his adult daughter are left with a baby to care for. This leads to reflections on missed opportunities, hopes for new beginnings, and a return to a beloved setting from Williams’s previous work, “This Is Happiness.”

Not to be confused with our own article series, this book a curated collection of bites based on a podcast by Mahnke. He shares whimsical anecdotes about the stranger side of history, from the invention of the croissant to an surprising rescue of Lincoln’s son. This makes a great gift and beautiful book to display.

Novels by Japanese author Murakami are always weird and wonderful and his latest is no exception. Here, a man searches for his lost love, taking him to other worlds where unicorns wander and shadows are untethered. In a mountain town, he becomes a librarian, learns about the link between worlds, and maybe gets the answers he’s been looking for all along.

Joan Didion has always been a bit of an enigma, but this book unlocks her, as well as the inner-mind of another fellow writer, Eve Babitz, through Babitz’s letters. The two women were friends, then enemies and when Babitz died in 2021, she left a treasure trove of correspondence behind. It reads like a diary, but feels like a feud.

From the author of "Night Film" comes an equally dark and twisty tale of the underground scene, mixed with splashes of pop culture. Dia becomes an intern at her favorite gaming company, Darkly, which has amasses a cult following. It's been shuttered since the mysterious death of its designed Veda, but as Dia and her fellow interns comb through the relics of Darkly, they find clues, secrets, and lots of question as to why they’re really there.