Books for the Season from Beauty News NYC

Gift yourself or the bibliophiles in your life one of these best recent fashion, fiction, memoir and culture books this holiday season.

I must have been a bear in another life. The late falls and early winters trigger my disappearance into cerebral joy and practices that other times of the year douse too much work and social competition on.

Then come snow days, winter breaks and lazy holidays at home or away… The ending months of the year afford us the slowdown and time inside that reading a good book is meant for. I am happy to recommend some of what I’ve read or will be reading and gifting in these holiday months.

FASHION & STYLE

First up: fashionistas and style aficionados will find inspiration and even learn much fashion history in these groundbreaking and enlightening 2025 offerings picked especially for the dynamic and diverse Beauty News NYC tribe.

1. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style by Monica L. Miller with Andrew Bolton, William DeGregorio, and Amanda Garfinkel (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025)

Photographs by Tyler Mitchell

The 2025 MET Gala was a time. This lovely coffee table book from the Metropolitan Museum of Art explores and explains the annual costume ball’s 2025 theme “Tailored for You,” a celebration of the impeccably dressed “Black dandy” historical figure and tradition in America.

Price: $75

Available HERE.

2. It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin by Marisa Meltzer (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

Little is known outside the fashion world about this mysterious muse behind the Hermès Birkin bag fever. Meltzer’s comprehensive coverage of the life, loves and work from London to Paris of original style influencer Jane Birkin will fill you in.

Price: $28

Available HERE.

3. British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon by Julie Summers (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 2024)

If “fashion Bible” were a person, it would be named British Vogue. This aptly categorized biography chronicles the many people and moments responsible for turning this former solution to wartime shipping restrictions overseas into a power nation’s premier print publication.

Price: £24.99

Available for download HERE and to ship from the UK HERE.

4. The Look by Michelle Obama with Meredith Koop (PRH, 2025)

Loved as much for her glamourous yet accessible working woman s wardrobe as her role in history, Michelle’s latest prolific output covers her superior fashion sense. You will have a lot of fun with her telling of growing her style IQ from a Chicago South Side upbringing, to an unforgettable pre-fame wedding dress, and onto countless viral hits as First Lady.

Price: $50

Available HERE.

5. Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an Icon by Lauren Sherman & Chantal Fernandez (MacMillan, 2024)

Anyone who says they didn’t catch the Victoria’s Secret bug from the 80’s to the mid-aughts may be kidding themselves. Didn’t Gen X and all above or below live for its annual televised Fashion Show? Authors Sherman and Fernandez dissect how mass hysteria for every man’s go-to Valentine’s Day gift and every female’s go-to sex kitten turn degraded to a national joke before coming back in a smart rebrand.

Price: $29.99

Available Here.

6. Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

Anolik’s use of private diaries, letters and more reveal the secrets behind this decades-long relationship of these two icons synonymous with style as much as literature. This rare window into the notoriously guarded Didion through the once uninhibited Babitz before her disappearance from public life is sensational.

Price: $29.99

Available HERE.

FICTION

We got you covered if curling up with a great mystery, thriller or romance is your cup of tea. Click images to buy in hardcover or newly in paperback.

7. King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (MacMillan, 2025)

Warring brothers, sisters, family secrets and a stumble into a down South crime ring propel this fast-paced thriller centering on a family mortuary business. (Price: $28.99)

8. This Is the Only Kingdom by Jaquira Diaz (Hachette, 2025)

Puerto Rico backdrops this blissful love story turned generational saga of survival and identity when a murder stunts a family’s once ideal course. (Price: $28)

9. It Was the Way She Said It: Short Stories, Essays, and Wisdom by Terry McMillan (PRH, 2025)

The real and imagined ephemera from one of America’s most treasured authors make up this overdue, worthwhile collection of short works to join her iconic novels. (Price: $28)

10. Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon (PRH, 2025)

A brother and sister’s escape from a cult is just the first dark layer of this twisty tale of murder in Michallon’s second inventive mystery. ($29.00)

11. The Usual Silence by Jenny Milchman (Thomas & Mercer, 2024)

Milchman fans meet her first series character, Arles Shepherd, in this gritty exploration of the perpetual aftershocks of crimes against children. (Price: $14.92)

12. You Know What Did: A Novel by K.T. Nguyen (PRH, 2024)

Hold on tight in this carousel through an art influencer’s fractured psyche after her Vietnam War refugee mother’s death leads her to become a suspect in a prominent missing person’s case. (Price: $28.00)

13. Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (MacMillan, 2025)

A local womanizer’s sudden death at Chicago’s Essie’s soul food cafe starts this hilarious but taunt adventure with a spunky heroine on the case. (Price: $28.00)

14. Come Close: A Romance Novella by Felicia Pride (Honey Chile Entertainment, 2025)

This refreshing one-night read takes us on Amaya’s journey back home to direct her first film- and to stumble into the arms of Kyrie, the high school love that got away. (Price: $7.99)

15. Colored Television: A Novel by Danzy Senna (PRH, 2024)

Senna’s wry humor and commentary on the biracial experience undergird this slapstick tale of Jane’s exhaustion with the hand-to-mouth professor and author life that leads her to Hollywood hijinks. (Price: $29.00)

16. Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger (Harper Collins, 2025)

Unger’s gothic, Agatha Christiesque tale takes us to stormy Falcoa Island- where an adventurous daredevil, single mother and more collide in a strange game of hide and seek with survival as the final prize. (Price: $30)

MEMOIR

These versatile life stories will uplift, soothe and recharge you in chilly temps. Click images to buy in hardcover or newly in paperback.

17. Make Something Real by Tiffany Gholar (Blurb, 2025)

When an art book isn’t just an art book, it’s *Make Something Real*: Gholar’s piercing account of continuing to create through the throes of a pandemic and politics’ threats to her exhausted psyche. (Price: $60)

18. Slices of Life by C.C. Hawk (DRL Press, 2024)

A South Side of Chicago, prep school and Ivy League girl reimagines, reexamines and reflects on her colorful life and legacy from the wisdom of retirement in this sparkling debut collection. (Price: $15)

19. The Last American Road Trip by Sarah Kendzior (MacMillan, 2025)

Kendzior’s determined nationwide tour taken to keep her family in love with America, even while it disappears as she knows it, will break and warm your heart at once. (Price: $29.99)

20. Matriarch: A Memoir by Tina Knowles (PRH, 2025)

Knowles’s cathartic, honest rendering of all it took to rise from Southern dirt poverty to grueling self-made wealth and family stardom is easily the best memoir of the year. (Price: $35)

21. Firstborn Girls by Bernice McFadden (PRH, 2025)

You have found a new classic in this bountiful portrait of the writing life, from the car accident that took McFadden’s life but gave it right back in her youth to her first novel debuti near to middle age. (Price: $30)

MORE

In the mood to dare yourself to something more provocative? These eclectic works may change your mind on some things or just serve as perfect awkward work Christmas party conversation starters. Click images to buy in hardcover or newly in paperback.

22. Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette, 2024)

There is a point to this wide-ranging upgrade to Gladwell’s debut book, but you’ll have to work for it and face hard truths along the way. (Price: $32)

23. How to Become a Black Writer: Creating & Honoring Black Stories That Matter by Marita Golden (Books That Save Lives, 2024)

A living literary legend at once chronicles her writing life and pays homage to the literary legends who inspired her to it in this arresting memoir and . (Price: $17)

24. The Siren’s Call by Chris Hayes

Be prepared to face facts you may not like or realities you’d rather turn away from as Hayes calls us out for losing our natural instincts to pay attention and, more importantly, details how we may get them back. ($32.00)

25. Tears for Tears: Aesthetics in Grief Minor by Sandra Ruiz (NYU Press, 2025)

Adding her Chicago Puerto Rican heritage and poetic compulsion to affectionate critiques of woefully obscure artists of color, Ruiz carefully teaches how grief and sorrow resuscitate us individually and collectively back to life and work. (Price: $30)

26. Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship by Dana A. Williams

Skip past countless biographies and redundant celebrations of Morrison as a writer on to this clever biography of the woman as an editor, a history-making legacy in its own right. (Price: $23.99)

Whether your tastes lean to fantastic fiction or newsy and nonfiction sides, books remain the most versatile stocking stuffer and gift mainstays. Plus they ship well and often worldwide. So keep these on your lists for early and last minute shops or simply to treat yourself.

What are you reading? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram.

Kalisha Buckhanon

Kalisha Buckhanon is small town born-and-raised Midwesterner, until college as a University of Chicago English major, and next as a Manhattan-made author launched by The New School's M.F.A. program. Her celebrated novels are UPSTATE, CONCEPTION, SOLEMN and SPEAKING OF SUMMER. She's been a true crime commentator for BET, ID and TV One as well as taught often in the inner city since college. She loves culture, books, movies, vegetarian food and live music or theater. She lives and works between Chicago and New York City, but you may visit her anytime at Kalisha.com.