The Bookstorian’s Nonfiction Recommendations

For those who like their old-world memoirs with a bit of glamor and gossip, Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans — the famed writer and illustrator, whose name and drawings also adorn The Carlyle hotel’s bar — was blessedly reissued in November.

For animal lovers and science snobs alike, in An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, Ed Yong has the uncanny ability to bring readers behind the eyes (and under the skin, and in the ear canals) of an amalgamation of creatures.

For the cinephile who likes to one-up at the dinner table with tidbits of movie trivia, offer them 768 pages of behind-the-scenes secrets courtesy of Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson’s thorough and thoroughly enchanting Hollywood: The Oral History.

And while this certainly pushes the boundaries of nonfiction, consider gifting Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind, the latest collection from our current poet laureate. (Because the average reader appears more open to the allure of poetry come the holiday season.)