Holiday Gift Guide: The Best Books of 2014

Complex rounded up the best books to gift this holiday season.

Dec 08, 2014
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Believe it or not, people still read books. And I'm not just talking memoirs by twenty-something HBO stars or former SNL cast-members—and, you know, those can be cool—but contemporary fiction, graphic novels, essay collections, even poetry. Books! They truly never get old.

Even though you may be swiping through your pages on an iPad this season, we thought it'd be good to highlight some of the best books that dropped this year. From a bloody Jamaican conspiracy theory to beautiful art books about the history of cinema, these are The Best Books to Gift in 2014. 

Nathan Reese is a News Editor at Complex. He tweets here.

A Brief History of Seven Killings

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Genre: Novel

Author: Marlon James

Price: $19.95

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings is brutal, engrossing, and massively ambitious. Centered around the politically motivated assassination attempt on Bob Marley's life in 1976, the book weaves a rich tapestry of violence, poverty, and conspiracy set in a Jamaica that few Americans have encountered. 

Wolf in White Van

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Genre: Novel

Author: John Darnielle

​Price: $13.25

Buy it now at: Amazon

You may know John Darnielle as the verbally gifted troubadour behind indie folk outfit the Mountain Goats, and his first novel has all the wry wit and heartbreaking storytelling he brings to his music. But don't take our word for it: Wolf in White Van is already on the shortlist for a National Book Award. 

On Set With John Carpenter

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Genre: Non-fiction (photography)

Author: Kim Gottlieb-Walker

Price: $20.82

Buy it now at: Amazon

Carpenter geeks rejoice! Kim Gottlieb-Walker's beautiful new collection of photographs of the director—many from his early years—show the legendary filmmaker on the set of his biggest hits. While it's fun seeing Carpenter at work, the best part is just getting a feeling of what it was like to be on freewheeling film sets in the '70s and '80s. 

Saga: Book One Deluxe Edition

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Genre: Graphic novel

Author: Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Fiona Staples (artist)

Price: $30.58

Buy it now at: Amazon

Saga is the most critically acclaimed comic of the last few years for a reason: Thrilling, hilarious, and moving, it's Romeo and Juliet as a space opera. This new hardcover edition collects issues 1 through 18 in truly deluxe form, with some great extras. Any comic book fan will love it. 

Bark

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Genre: Short story collection

Author: Lorrie Moore

Price: $12.19

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Lorrie Moore is one of our best living humorists, and her new collection is as incisive as ever. Taking on topics like divorce, politics, and mental illness, Moore captures small personal failings and turns them into universally translatable comedic truths.

Criterion Designs

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Genre: Non-fiction (Film/Art)

Author: The Criterion Collection

Price: $72.27

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Purchasing a Criterion Collection film is more than buying a classic with lots of great extras—it's also an investment in a small work of art. The cover designs seen on Criterion DVDs and Blu-rays are legendary, so it makes sense they'd want to collect the best of what they do in one place. No design nerd or film buff should go without it. 

The Bone Clocks

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Genre: Novel

Author: David Mitchell

Price: $11.99

Buy it now at: Amazon

Any new book from David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, number9dream) is an event, and The Bone Clocks is no different. A return to the intersecting vignettes of Cloud Atlas, Mitchell transports the reader from a dystopian future to the U.K. in the '80s. Combining grandiose pulp with literary acrobatics, Mitchell has a style few living writers can match.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

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Genre: Novel

Author: Haruki Murakami

Price: ​$15.57

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Even a minor Murakami novel is still a Murakami novel. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki may not match the magic realistic heights of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle​ or the elegaic nostalgia of Norwegian Wood, but it's still a pleasure to float along with the celebrated Japanese writer's spare prose. The story, as far as there is one, follows the titular Tsukuru as he digs into his past to find out why he was abandoned by his closest friends years before. The result is personal, elegiac, and occasionally beautiful. 

10:04

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Genre: Novel

Author: Ben Lerner

Price: $13.31

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Ben Lerner's 10:04 is a deceptively deep novel about the possibility of language's ability to foster community, but it's also the story of a writer who happens to be having a really tough time finishing his book. Also, he's trying to help his his best friend get pregnant. (It gets weird). Walt Whitman is involved. (Trust, it's really good.)

Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997

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Genre: Non-fiction (Photography/Film)

Author: Karina Longworth

​Price: $21.21

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Hollywood: Frame by Frame is a behind-the-scenes look at the sets of some of the most famous movies of the past half-century. It's full of candid, sometimes hilarious snaps from classics including Some Like It Hot, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Taxi Driver, and The Silence of the Lambs. Give it to your cool aunt who showed you The Godfather for the first time.

The Wake

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Genre: Graphic novel

Author: Scott Snyder (writer), Sean Murphy​ (artist)

Price: $18.62

Buy it now at: Amazon 

The Wake is a horror comic, sure. But it's also a swashbuckling pirate adventure, a dystopian sci-fi saga, and a story about humanity's potential in the face of apocalyptic adversity. Writer Scott Snyder (Batman, Wytches) and artist Sean Murphy (Punk Rock Jesus​) have created a modern masterpiece. 

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

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Genre: Non-fiction (Trivia)

Author: Randall Munroe

​Price: $14.40

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Randall Munroe is famous for creating the computer-geek Internet comic XKCD. With What If?, he expands his formula to take on absurd hypotheticals from a scientific viewpoint. If you ever wanted to know how long you'd last in an imminent robopocalypse, Munroe has you covered. 

 

Citizen: An American Lyric

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Genre: Poetry

Author: Claudia Rankine

​Price: $12.46

Buy it now at: Amazon 

Claudia Rankine's new collection of poetry—yes, poetry—centers on racism and violence in America. Both deeply personal and sadly universal, Rankine's observations are more relevant now than ever. 

Hip Hop Family Tree 1975-1983 Gift Box Set

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Genre: Non-fiction graphic novel

Author: Ed Piskor

Price: $42.87

Buy it now at: Amazon

Cartoonist Ed Piskor's ongoing Hip Hop Family Tree series tracks the evolution of rap music in exhaustive detail. This boxed set, collecting the first two volumes of beautifully-rendered art, has all the charm of crate-digging through dusty '70s LPs in your favorite record shop. 

 

My Struggle: Book Three

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Genre: Novel

Author: Karl Ove Knausgaard

​Price: $17.08

Buy it now at: Amazon

Your favorite over-sharing Norwegian is back with volume three of his six volume epic about his boring, ordinary life. Of course, I'm underselling Knausgaard's achievement. The author has taken the world by storm, chronicling his life so far with some of the most honest, hilarious, and personal prose of the new millennium.

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