The Best Books of 2019

Plus: The Airbnb of the outdoors, the incendiary aims of “Watchmen,” and unpretentious dinner parties. View in browser | Update your preferences 2019 in Review The Best Books of 2019 This year’s books may be slippery to categorize, but the state of them is strong—heavy on fiction, memoir, fiction that behaves like memoir, and memoir that impersonates fiction. By Katy Waldman Letter from Silicon Valley How Hipcamp Became the Airbnb of the Outdoors Can a startup save the wilderness by disrupting it? By Anna Wiener PAID POST Fascinate and delight everyone on your list. For the curious, for the health-conscious, for those who enjoy superb writing: The Body is the perfect gift for them all. New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson is at his very best in this irresistible guide to the wonder of you. From the Magazine A Reporter at Large Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India The Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies. By Dexter Filkins Annals of Alcohol The Intoxicating History of Gin The current gin craze knows no bounds, but the British have been imbibing the stuff for hundreds of years, sometimes with disastrous results. By Anthony Lane Culture and More On Television The Incendiary Aims of HBO’s “Watchmen” Damon Lindelof’s update to Alan Moore’s graphic novel is a bombshell, reordering the fictional universe and writing buried racial trauma back into comic-book mythology. By Emily Nussbaum Cultural Comment The Service That Makes Shame a Productivity Hack Part social network and part virtual co-working space, Focusmate suggests that accountability is the most powerful motivator to get work done. By Carrie Battan Read The Art of the Unpretentious Dinner Party Lots of cookbooks promise to help you entertain with ease, but Alison Roman’s “Nothing Fancy” makes that idea briny, tangy, funky, and a little polarizing. By Michele Moses Puzzles and Games Dept. The Weekday Crossword “Silkwood” co-screenwriter: six letters. By Elizabeth C. Gorski Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs Deep State D.M.V. You will hear someone call out a number. It will be a high number, expressed in scientific notation, for security purposes. By Cora Frazier Daily Cartoon Monday, December 2nd By Jon Adams Sign up for more newsletters from The New Yorker. Visit The New Yorker shop. Question about your subscription? Contact Customer Care. New Yorker digital subscribers get unlimited access to everything on newyorker.com. Log in to your account here. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please send your thoughts and suggestions to TNYinbox@newyorker.com. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, NewYorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your address book. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2019. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.