The listed books may be a nice taste for your coming holidays. Take one and enjoy yourselves!

If tragedy is the excavator (挖掘机) of beauty, the era of our pandemic shutdown showed that. Bird songs rose when noise levels from traffic, airplanes and even barking dogs nosedived. Bird-watching boomed. The world stopped, and birds and people noticed each other. A new book with brilliant illustrations by Nancy Lane, is an epic story of tough migration of a warbler (莺) told through the eyes of two little girls. The story of its adventure is smart, beautiful and a reminder of what’s possible when we notice what we have in common with a tiny bird.

Alexis Hall delivered the romantic comedy of this summer. In the book, friends long thought lost are found and slowly become lovers. Viola Carroll, a veteran (老兵) of the Napoleonic wars, was long assumed dead. Injured on the battlefield, she gave up her family, wealth and title to live as her true self. Then she returns to public life after years of absence and finds love with her sorrow-stricken best friend who’s still mourning her.

While working her day job as a pop star, Janelle Monáe has written plenty of music with science-fiction topics—most recently on her 2018 album Dirty Computer. But seeing as how Monáe tells tales in just about every medium she can get her hands on, including film, it was inescapable that she’d turn to the literary form one day as well. The book is a collection of short stories that pick up the loose threads of Dirty Computer’s. It serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within.

Internet Genealogy (族谱) is your guide to successful genealogy research using the World Wide Web. We also recognize, however, that the Internet isn’t necessarily the only source for research, so Internet Genealogy will also tell you what to do if you cannot find the records you need and how to confirm your findings. The magazine also covers advanced genealogical methods such as DNA analysis, as well as software and technology reviews, case studies, databases and other internet-related family history topics.

$27. 95 Print 1 year (6 issues)

$19. 95 Digital 1 year (6 issues)

Your Genealogy Today is a how-to genealogy magazine. People who are trying to discover their family roots know that there is no “master plan” that tells you how to conduct your research. While some ancestral lines can be traced back several generations with relatively little effort, others can only be discovered after painstaking research. Your Genealogy Today recognizes that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different records and methods that may apply to your own research.

$25. 00 Print 1 year (6 issues)

$17. 95 Digital 1 year (6 issues)

History Magazine opens a window on the past, providing believable stories about how our world became the place it is today. Written from a North American perspective, History Magazine’s articles are clear, informative and insightful and come supported by beautiful images and maps. History Magazine breathes life into stories of the past, telling tales of both critical moments and everyday life with passion and spirit.

$24. 95 Print 1 year (6 issues)

$17. 95 Digital 1 year (6 issues)

Some books chosen by Maggie Shipstead

In her novel Great Circle — a best-seller now among readers — Maggie Shipstead wrote the adventure of a missing 1950s female pilot and a film actress hired to play her. Below, Shipstead recommends three other books about the sea or sky.