The Book Sense Notable Picks for December are:
Fiction
Nonfiction
Cooking
Mystery and Suspense
Fiction
- Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge (NAL, $12.95 paper, 0451216431).
- The Guest by Hwang Sok-Yong, Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West (Trans.) (Seven Stories, $27.95, 1583226931).
- Popco by Scarlett Thomas (Harvest, $14 paper, 015603137X).
- Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan (Putnam, $26.95, 0399153012).
- Sleeping With Schubert by Bonnie Marson (Random House, $21.95, 1400060419).
Nonfiction
- All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists by Terry Gross (Hyperion, $14.95 paper, 0786888202).
- The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (Little, Brown, $29.95, 0316803529).
- Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316156116).
- Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West by Clemens P. Work (University of New Mexico Press, $34.95, 0826337740).
- Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World by Nicholas A. Basbanes (HarperCollins, $29.95, 0060593237).
- The Flower Shop: Charm, Grace, Beauty & Tenderness in a Commercial Context by Leonard Koren (Stone Bridge, $19.95 paper, 1933330007).
- Flying Through Midnight: A Pilot's Dramatic Story of His Secret Missions Over Laos During the Vietnam War by John T. Halliday (Scribner, $27.50, 0743274881).
- Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour by Josh Peter (Rodale, $24.95, 1594861196).
- Laughing With Lucy: My Life With America's Leading Lady of Comedy by Madelyn Pugh Davis, with Bob Carroll, Jr. (Emmis, $19.95, 1578602475).
- Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora by Andrew Lam, foreword by Richard Rodriguez (Heyday, $14.95 paper, 1597140201).
- Queenan Country: A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country by Joe Queenan (Picador, $14 paper, 031242521X).
Cooking
- The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman (Broadway, $29.95, 0767906721).
- Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas for the Weeknight Table by Moosewood Collective (Clarkson Potter, $32.50, 0609609122).
Mystery and Suspense
- Jamaica Me Dead by Bob Morris (St. Martin's Minotaur, $22.95, 0312328915).
- Six for Gold: A John the Eunuch Mystery by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer (Poisoned Pen, $24.95, 1590581458).