Here are but a few recommendations sure to please someone on your list:
"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote.
I think this should be required for every reader who celebrates any holiday
with family or friends. Give this with a small packet of tissue. A classic.
"Geniuses of the American Musical Theatre: The Composers and Lyricists"
by Herbert Keyser.
You don't have to be a crossword puzzle addict to know the names of
these composers. With this volume you will learn the stories behind the
creations of George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim and others.
This is not a book many would buy for themselves and that is why it makes a
great gift: unexpected, yet familiar with a beat some can and do dance to.
***also recommend "The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer" by Johnny Mercer.
Charles Harper's "Birds & Words"
Working in a style he called minimal realism, Charles Harper is the most
famous illustrator you never heard of. Anyone who attended school when
textbooks were still all the rage will recognize his illustrations—-he was
commissioned by dozens of publishers to illustrate the dull text.
"Birds & Words", first released in 1972, is a remarkable collection of
silk-screened imagery that was created for the Ford Time, a lifestyle
magazine put out by the Ford Motor Company. Well, if that doesn't pique your
interest be certain that if you go out on a limb and buy your fanatical
bird-watching friends this book, they will tweet your competency at gift
giving.
***also recommended: "Charlie Harper: An Illustrated Life" by Todd Oldham. A
must for any graphic designer.
"The Book of Genesis" illustrated by R. Crumb.
This is not a book to give your aunt who is a pillar of her church
community, unless your aunt joined the church at the corner of Haight and
Ashbury during the sixties. No, the genius of R. Crumb is more earthy and
raw than your garden variety illustrators of biblical stories. From the
jacket copy: "Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and
scholarly interpretations that have often obscured the Bible's most dramatic
stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of biblical originals. Nothing is left
to the imagination—from the serpent in Eden, a humanoid reptile who appears
like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a "kind of depressed
guy who doesn't strike you as physically courageous" to his brother, Esau,
"a rough and Kick-ass guy." This literal interpretation of the Robert Alter
translation and the King James Version of the bible is at once profoundly
honest and deeply moving.
Stocking stuffers.
Penguin Books Great Ideas Series.
Twelve new volumes have been added to this set of books that have changed
the world or transformed the way we see ourselves. Lovely covers are a
throwback to the days of hand set type and make the books extra special.
Choose from the following volumes:
Plutarch - "In Consolation to his Wife"
Robert Burton - "Some Anatomies of Melancholy"
Blaise Pascal - "Human Happiness"
Adam Smith - "The Invisible Hand"
Edmund Burke - "The Evils of Revolution"
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Nature"
Soren Kierkegaard - "The Sickness unto Death"
Leo Tolstoy - "Confession"
William Morris - "Useful Work v. Useless Toil"
Frederick Jackson Turner - "The Significance of the Frontier in American
History"
Marcel Proust - "Days of Reading"
Leon Trotsky - "An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of
Europe"
"Go Fish for Art."
The parent's choice gold award winning game that includes "Go Fish" and
"Memory" as the players fish and memorize artists and their works. The three
decks include: "Modern Artists," "Van Gogh & Friends," and "Impressionist."
Picks by Sarah
Bagby, December 17, 2009
