Season's Readings: Top Picks From Indie Booksellers

By Susan Stamberg

Published December 3, 2009 at 3:22 AM EST

In this season of tight wallets and open hearts, it might be wise to choose holiday gifts that will stay around for a while. And who better to turn to for reliably stirring seasonal picks than your trusty independent bookseller?

This year, the booksellers reach into their shelves and pull out tomes on a wide range of weighty topics, from a family in mourning in Jonathan Topper's This Is Where I Leave You to a Nigerian girl, rebuilding a family under duress, in Little Bee. Other selections are heavy simply by virtue of their page count: the four-volume collection of Paris Review Interviews packs 50 years of conversations with some of our greatest writers into some 2,000 pages. Which should just about keep the book lover on your list occupied until next year.

Susan Stamberg

Nationally renowned broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg is a special correspondent for NPR.

See stories by Susan Stamberg

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