16th annual New College holiday book guide

Each year, the Herald-Tribune invites faculty, administrators and staff at New College of Florida to recommend books to our readers that had a particular impact on them. They don’t have to be new.
Would you like to choose a gift that inspires someone to think about life’s most important questions? Many of this year’s books explore the challenges of understanding our relationship to the past, achieving wisdom or practical success, or remaking the world by opening ourselves to new ideas. Authors reevaluate the New Deal, examine the religious revival in China, lay out 34 plans for newly enlightened national policies, or rescue the skills of their ancestors from being erased by history. Literary works range from the grim humor of historical fiction to a blend of fantasy and reality in an environmental novel. In graphic novels from different cultures, authors reinvent “Frankenstein” by portraying a black scientist reanimating her child, or reimagine Frankenstein as a creature made of war dead in the Arab world.