photo credit: diongillard
This week’s Monday List is designated to help out all last minute shoppers… (who have some cash!)
Here is a selection from NPR’s Favorite Gift Books of 2008, plus an excerpt of why each was chosen.
I have heard great things about the Oxford Project, 6 Word Memoirs, and State by State…
”…Picture books, traditionally, are big. This one passes up the opportunity to grandstand and instead goes small and texty and smart.
Leibovitz uses her crisp intelligence to tell the stories behind not necessarily her most enduring images (though some of them — of John and Yoko, Demi Moore — are here) but the ones that inform her experience as an artist. She talks philosophy and strategy about shooting (among other things) fashion, nudes, advertising and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In this case, a thousand words are worth a picture.”
“ …For every thrilling and provocative picture here — of Belushi, Coppola, Depp, Streep, Hoffman, Brando and on and on — Mark probably has a hundred more in her files. As her images make clear, movie sets are often peculiar (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and surreal (Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes). Accompanying texts by the likes of Mike Nichols, Helen Mirren and screenwriter Robert Towne reinforce Mark’s visual thesis: Sometimes the best scenes are the ones not written.”
”It’s easy to see why the great photographer liberated certain sitters in this collection from the rigor of his trademark format. The energy of so many of the artists he adored could barely be contained by a stage or a screen, let alone a plain white background and black frame. Handfuls of images in the aptly named Performance have been scattered across essential Avedon monographs of the past. But gathered here and paired with hundreds of other indelible pictures, the cumulative electricity and force of Capote, Streisand, Nureyev, Garland, Hepburn (both), Monroe, Grant, Bardot, etc., is positively overwhelming.”
”Even Bill Keller, the paper’s managing editor, says making up the front page is an imperfect science. But on Nov. 5, the New York Times got its top headline spectacularly right: “Obama!” Enough said. In this fascinating monster of a book, more than 150 years of history is on display. All the great events are here in 24-point type: the Lindbergh crossing, the sinking of the Lusitania, the JFK assassination, Sept. 11, even Custer’s Last Stand. The book itself contains large-format reprints of hundreds of such front pages. The three accompanying DVD-ROMs present the other 54,000 or so lead pages published since the Gray Lady’s launch in 1851. Personal favorite banner headline, from Oct. 15, 1912: MANIAC IN MILWAUKEE SHOOTS COL. ROOSEVELT; HE IGNORES WOUND, SPEAKS AN HOUR, GOES TO HOSPITAL.”
”At a chunky 574 pages, this is a slender book only by comparison to the Complete Front Pages. But State By State — a compilation of 50 thoughtful, entertaining and surprising essays by an all-star cast of hipster contemporary scribes — shares Front Pages‘ ambition, journalistic mission and sparkling execution. Need a rowdy sophisticate to rhapsodize about Joisey? Get Anthony Bourdain. Who could make sense of expansive Montana? Why not the squeaky-voiced Sarah Vowell. Among others doing their patriot duty: Dave Eggers (IL), Jonathan Franzen (NY), Jhumpa Lahiri (RI). Says Ha Jin about his life in Georgia: It “made me turn to the Bible.”"
“There may be a better way to teach a kid the alphabet but certainly not a more goofily entertaining one. The epitome of an elegantly designed but simple-as-ABC pop-up book, ABC3D starts calling out to you as it sits on your little one’s nightstand. Its 3-D cover literally winks — “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” — as you walk by… Flip it open and, page by page, the alphabet rises out of the fold in one ingenious maneuver after another. Not only will your child learn the alphabet, but this book may also turn him or her into a physicist — or pre-K’s most deft origami expert.”
”There’s a lulling and seductive beauty to Alex MacLean’s breathtaking aerial photographs of America. Even from the unsteady vantage point of a single-prop plane, MacLean’s eye manages to find and capture entrancing geographic patterns and colors. It’s only on closer scrutiny that you see the scars and obscene clutter of parking lots and power plants on our once pristine landscape. But MacLean’s book is much more than a facile visual indictment of urban sprawl and ecological neglect. It’s an extremely thoughtful, well-organized and researched contemplation of where we might be headed — with or without all of those dazzlingly circular superhighways.”
“Conceptually and literally, one architecture book outweighs all the rest this year: 1,037 buildings; 653 architects; 89 countries; 800 pages; 20 pounds — the largest book I’ve ever seen, period. It requires its own plastic carrying case, a transparent lime-green thing that is a design wonder in itself. But spread the book open, and you’ll tumble into a color future-world of architectural ideas, global cityscapes, angular abodes, envelope-pushing stadiums, high-tech lakeside bathhouses and bottomless textural detail.
Like any atlas, this one is organized geographically and festooned with maps and data. But photographs dominate every immaculately designed page and are informed by the discreet presence of blueprint drawings and crisp text blocks smart enough to educate an experienced architect but plainspoken enough to ignite the imaginations of the Home Depot set. Consider it an exercise in fantasy house hunting or city planning or home building. Or just think of a world in which bold and eco-friendly ideas can flow from the architects in Port of Elizabeth, South Africa, to those in Wangdi, Bhutan — or Caldaro, Italy, or Appleton, Wis. …”
You wouldn’t want to try this in, say, New York City, but when Peter Feldstein set out, in 1984, to snap portraits of every single person in his hometown of Oxford, Iowa — population 676 — it seemed like a manageable idea. It morphed into a great one more than two decades later, when Feldstein re-shot those same friends and neighbors (or as many of them as he could find) and happened onto a case study in human evolution and perseverance.
Young girls in 1984 are now grown women; grown men in ’84 have now grown warier or wiser (and, in most cases, heavier). Their then-and-now portraits, shown side-by-side, tell one powerful story; in accompanying texts, their beautiful testimonials to time and life and people tell another.
This expanded and newly released edition of the early-2008 New York Times bestseller builds on the gleeful and compulsive readability of the original. The concept, inspired by Hemingway, is simple: Sum up your life in six words. Here’s what The Know-It-All author A.J. Jacobs came up with: “Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again.” Mary Roach, author of Stiff, Spook and Bonk: “Cadavers played an unexpectedly large part.” Iron chef Mario Batali: “Brought it to a boil, often.” You don’t have to be famous to be witty. Sublime lines from the book’s “obscure” contributors include: “The freaks, they always find me”; “Loved Natalie, love Jacqueline, married Debbie”; “Thought long and hard, got migraine”; “No, you are in MY way.” Let me give it a try: “Wrote pricey gift guide. Advice: Amazon!”
Despite a staggering intellect and talent that set him apart, the writer David Foster Wallace was by all accounts a determinedly decent and humble everyman. His death this year, at the unbearably young age of 46, was not just an impossible loss to his family and friends, but also to the literary world. For a moment, at least, it felt like the extinguishing of thought itself, and of promise and art and passionate curiosity. For some of us, the only way to salve the sadness was to bathe in Wallace’s exuberant writing. Any of his published works would do, but this essential collection of his journalistic pieces — now more than 10 years in print — is particularly alive with laughter and fearless invention. The man burned brightly, and, as gifts go, he gave generously. This season or any other, you couldn’t do better than to pass along his flame.
Thanks for sharing the great gift ideas! Another creative, thoughtful, last-minute holiday gift is one that helps others at the same time. A few weeks
ago, I started interning at a great nonprofit called DonorsChoose.org,
which delivers much-needed materials (like books galore!) to public school students. They
offer holiday gift cards unlike any I’ve seen: the giver makes a
tax-deductible donation by purchasing the gift card, and the recipient
chooses a specific classroom project to support. S/he could choose a
classroom in their hometown, or a project involving their favorite
hobby like knitting, technology, etc. There are over 14,000 projects
on the website, from every state and any topic you can imagine, so
it’s a very personal gift. Your recipient can even search for books on the site, and give them to public school kids!
The really fun, unique part of the gift card is that the recipient
then hears back from the classroom she supported!
Check them out at: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/giftoptions.html
so many of the books on this list appeal to me! I know you intended it as a gift-giving list, but I’m going to forward it to my husband with a few notes for a gift wish list!!
The Oxford Project book looks fascinating!
Good idea, Dawn!!
Wish I had thought of that…