Here at Common Good, one gift almost all of us can agree on is a book. And we’re pretty sure you or someone you know feels the same. We’ve reviewed and recommended more than a few books this year. Here are a few worth remembering — and gifting — this holiday season.


The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel

By Julia Alvarez (Algonquin Books)
This novel by an iconic writer lands just about how you’d expect. In the cemetery of untold stories, incomplete manuscripts come to life.
$26.04 at bookshop.org

I Cannot Control Everything Forever: A Memoir of Motherhood, Science, and Art

By Emily C. Bloom (St. Martin’s Press)
Certainly a book about motherhood. But it’s also about much more.
$26.97 at bookshop.org

Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention

By Sarah Clarkson (Baker Books)
Clarkson assures readers that this “state of the heart” is still discoverable.
$17.66 at bookshop.org

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

By Robin Wall Kimmerer (Scribner)
A creational model of abundance and reciprocity from the author of Braiding Sweetgrass.
$18.60 at bookshop.org

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

By Cal Newport (Portfolio)
Newport thinks knowledge workers are too burnt out, because they’re trying to do too much, too fast.
$27.90 at bookshop.org

We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Transforms Us

By Whitney K. Pipkin (Moody Publishers)
Pipkin proposes that death’s transformations are not only for the dying.
$13.94 at bookshop.org

Reading Genesis

By Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
This reading of the Bible’s foundational book from (arguably) America’s best living novelist is more than worth your attention.
$26.97 at bookshop.org

What Went Wrong with Capitalism

By Ruchir Sharma (Simon & Schuster)
The economy isn’t working for everyone. In this new book, investment strategist Ruchir Sharma aims blame at both major parities.
$27.90 at bookshop.org

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

By Joseph E. Stiglitz (W.W. Norton & Company)
If America’s super free economic system is best, why are so many Americans doing worse?
$27.89 at bookshop.org

Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment

By Charles Taylor (Belknap Press)
One of this century’s most important thinkers tackles the interplay between human capacity and existence.
$35.29 at bookshop.org

Bake & Pray: Liturgies and Recipes for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice

By Kendall Vanderslice (Tyndale Momentum)
Vanderslice offers an invitation to see the ways an everyday task can nourish the spirit.
$21.38 at bookshop.org

A Theology of Health: Wholeness and Human Flourishing

By Tyler J. VanderWeele (Notre Dame Press)
VanderWeele argues that in whatever application, health means the wholeness designed.
$50.40 at bookshop.org