January Magazine Holiday Gift Guide 2009

Books are easy to operate and to maintain. No special instructions or tools are required. But what a gift! Worlds and lives and entire universes can live between those modest little covers.

So what makes a good gift book? That’s easy: it must be just what the recipient wants, needs, desires or -- at the very least -- one that will amuse. And just as there are millions of people with differing dreams and interests, there are also millions of books reflecting all of those dreams, addressing all of those interests.

The gift of a book can be extremely intimate, demonstrating your love and affection with your choice. Or it can be the most generic present in the pile -- a beautiful coffee table book that says: “I don’t know much about you, but I like you well enough to get you something good.”

We hope you have a wonderful holiday 2009! And if you’re still hunting about for that perfect last minute gift, remember: what could be more perfect than a book?

January Magazine’s 2009 Holiday Gift Guide is here.

Have a wonderful Holiday!

Holiday Gift Guide: Freedom: A Collection of Short Fiction Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human from Amnesty International

This is the best gift, the ultimate gift, the gift that gives forever.

Freedom (Key Porter Books) is an Amnesty International collection that includes the work of some of the world’s top authors. Each writer reimagines a single right from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations after World War II.

The anthology is movingly introduced by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. “And what have art and literature to do with human rights?” Tutu asks. “They are all bound up with this wonderful talent we humans have: to empathize with others. If, by reading any one of the stories in this anthology, we are enabled to step, for one moment, into another person’s shoes ... then that is already a great achievement.”

Considering that the book includes work by some of the foremost contemporary storytellers in the world, it’s hard to imagine anyone leaving this collection entirely unmoved. Contributing writers include Kate Atkinson, Ishmeal Beah, Paulo Coelho, Nadine Gordimer, A.L. Kennedy, Henning Mankell, Yann Martel, Rohinton Mistry, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Banana Yoshimoto and several others.

It’s a fantastic collection for a wonderful cause: an important book.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming by Guy Dauncy

Issues of climate have been in the news a lot in the last few weeks, sometimes for better reasons than others. We’ve never spent quite this much time thinking about where all of this is leading. For a lot of people, the realities of global warming are difficult to accept because, if we acknowledge that the Earth is melting, then what? Where do we go from there?

While there is no shortage of books on the topic, few are both as informational and lucid as The Climate Challenge (New Society Publishers), energy maverick Guy Dauncy’s take on the topic.

Dauncy (Stormy Weather, Enough Blood Shed) is an author, speaker and futurist who attacks his topic with passion, knowledge and a surprising amount of humor.

Dauncy tackles the of topic climate change at the source: with a brief history of Man on Earth. Historic photos show blast furnaces in the forest and charcoal burner’s huts. Then we are told -- in-depth but in an entirely clear way -- about various gases and black carbon. In short: before he gets to the solution, Duancy carefully looks at the problem, A sort of “how did I get here” moment that will explain the seriousness of the situation to all but the most skeptical of watchers.

While the problem is well explained, most of the book is given over to solutions. “What then must we do?” he asks before going on to answer his own question. The answers are clear, if not always easy, but Duancy does a memorable job of getting us off the couch and into the field. As Duancy says at the beginning of Chapter 86: “Scramble! This is serious.”

Holiday Gift Guide: Chocolate: More Than 50 Decadent Recipes by Dominique and Cindy Duby

Chocolate: More Than 50 Decadent Recipes (Whitecap Books), the latest book from world renowned chefs and cookbook authors Dominique and Cindy Duby, came out in October but, somehow or another, the food styling and even the recipe choices seem very Christmas-sy. Or maybe that’s just me. Lots of reds and greens. Lots of shiny foils. It all looks distinctly... seasonal.

It’s not true, of course. Chocolate is intended for year ‘round enjoyment. But if you only had one book to get you through the sweet part of the season, you could do a lot worse than this one.

In many ways, Chocolate is a natural progression from the cookbooks the Dubys have already written. From their first book, 2003’s Wild Sweets: Exotic Dessert and Wine Pairings to Wild Sweets Chocolate in 2007 to last year’s Crème Brulèe with Chocolate. Now here we are at Chocolate, a book that touches almost every aspect of cooking with and using that ever popular ingredient.

The recipes here range from ultra simple -- like Baked Chocolate Custard Pudding -- to comfortably old-timey -- Dark Chocolate Pots de Crème -- to silly -- Chocolate “Chips & Salsa” -- to perfectly sophisticated -- Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse Patè.

Like the recipes themselves, instructions range from suitable to the beginning chef to a few that probably only those with a fair amount of kitchen time logged will want to attempt. In both cases, though, the instructions are clear and non-hazy and the food styling and photography is so fantastic, it’s difficult to not want to try everything.

The recipes are varied and terrific but two sections at the back of the book really elevate Chocolate: one chapter offers some serious words on how to pair wine with chocolate. Another chapter offers tips and techniques for getting professional looking results.

The book is from Whitecap’s Definitive Kitchen Classics series. It is not over-reaching to suggest that Chocolate will live up to that promise.

Holiday Gift Guide: A Guide to Fantasy Literature by Philip Martin

Author, editor and folklorist Philip Martin knows his fantasy literature. The newly published A Guide to Fantasy Literature (Crickhollow Books) is a reworking of The Writers Guide to Fantasy Literature, first published back in 2002. This new work reorients Martin’s take, opening it up to a broader audience of writers and readers. It was a good idea and it works.

In addition to talking about specific authors and works, Martin addresses the genre in new and interesting ways:

By and large, this field of literature is a lot of new wine in old bottles. Fantasy is a form of traditional culture. Like all vibrant, living traditions, it allows a tolerable amount of experimentation, adaptation, and acceptance of new forms over time.

Though in some ways, Martin’s work is a scholarly one, he never seems to lose sight of his readership, bringing interesting, learned and accessible thoughts on all aspects of fantasy fiction, from the history, through patterns, places, characters and so on. A Guide to Fantasy Literature is a very good book. Anyone with a strong interest in fantasy literature will come away from Martin’s guide knowing more than what they arrived with.

Holiday Gift Guide: Planet Ape by Desmond Morris with Steve Parker

If you wanted to commission the penultimate book on apes, the name Desmond Morris would come up. Many books and paintings and years ago, zoologist, ethnologist, artist and brilliant thinker wrote The Naked Ape. It was 1967 and it shocked the world by writing about man in the same way one would write about animals. It was a ground-breaking work, an international bestseller and it led to a 1973 film of the same title as well as wide-spread reconsideration of the way we think about humans and animals and the little that can separate them.

In the time between, Morris has written about many things, including dogs, horses, cats, babies and other things. Many of those books have been bestselling. But none could compare with that first all-important bestseller and more than 40 years later, and with Morris now into his 80s, he’s come back to some of the ground he covered in The Naked Ape, with Planet Ape (Firefly Books). This time out, though, it’s the hairy apes that have focus: the naked ones get the (justifiable) blame.

This is a fantastic book. One can not imagine a better one on this topic. It is gorgeous enough to sit on a coffee table, yet informative enough for the reference section of a library. Wonderful photos illustrate page upon page of facts and thoughts and ideas. And in the true tradition of a book by Morris, you not only learn about the subject at hand, you are also pushed to think independently about what all these facts might mean. The information is shared in a thoughtful, intelligent way and, without even realizing it, we end up learning as much about ourselves as we do about the apes Morris obviously has a very real affection for.

A portion of the profits generated by Planet Ape are earmarked for charities who are working to conserve the apes Morris and co-author Parker deliver to us so vividly. Once you’ve experienced Planet Ape, you’ll understand just how important that is.

Holiday Gift Guide: Jack Kennedy: The Illustrated Life of a President

Is there anything we don’t already know about JFK? I doubt it. Yet year after year, authors find new angles with which to tantalize us about the man, his family, and his legacy. This year’s entry is Jack Kennedy: The Illustrated Life of a President (Chronicle Books), which relates the late president’s story in cogent prose, but the real prize here is the facsimile of personal memorabilia and documents. Postcards, holiday cards, personal latters, diary pages, drafts of key speeches, JFK’s Navy ID card, handwritten notes for Profiles in Courage, and much more. This treasure trove is shows us JFK in a whole new way, letting the evidence of his charmed, cursed life stand for itself, with no explanation or embellishment. The book also features photographs of other artifacts, as well as the iconic images of the subject’s life, from childhood to Dallas. It also includes a look at what happened after the assassination: how LBJ assumed the role of President, how he carried on JFK’s efforts, Bobby’s and Jackie’s and Teddy’s lives, and even the lives of John and Caroline. Though there’s no shortage of Kennedy books, this special addition to that library is something to be seen and cherished.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods by Kate Inglis

Growing up in a family where books were firmly part of the culture, it was unthinkable that a Christmas should pass without at least a few of the neat, flat packages that indicated a book. The ones from my father were always extra special. He’d pay special attention and know just what I was hoping for -- usually something with horses, so I guess it wasn’t that much of a challenge -- and he’d buy the prettiest edition he could find.

I thought of all of these things when I first saw Kate Inglis’ The Dread Crew (Nimbus). It’s a good book -- sure it is, and we’ll get to that in a moment. But before you ever experience the story, you see that it really is a pretty book. One I think my father might have selected for me, with all the other circumstances being right. There’s something lasting and promising and deliciously old-timey about the cover and binding of The Dread Crew. And that’s all right, because Inglis and her band of merry men deliver on all of those promises.

“Under the darkest cloak of night,” Inglis begins, “her cats are first to sense the rumble.”

The Dread Crew is a tale of imagination and friendship. Having found some fairly unmistakable signs, young Eric Stewart sets himself up as a pirate hunter. He tracks a band of backwoods pirates and -- just as he’s sure he’s about to come upon them -- all of the signs disappear. It turns out Grampa Joe has been hiding the band of pirates on his property, but even Grampa Joe might not be able to hide them when the Pirate Union tries to track them down.

This is a spirited tale, gorgeously rendered. A debut work from a confident writer I feel sure will delight us again in the future.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Indie Rock Coloring Book by Yellow Bird Project

This is not so much a review as a mention: a great project for a great cause that makes a great gift!

The Yellow Bird Project is a Montreal-based non-profit organization who have, since 2006, worked with a number of indie rock acts to create T-shirt designs that, in the end, benefit a wide range of charities.

The Indie Rock Coloring Book takes it to the next level, offering up 28 coloring and activity pages by created for the project by UK-based artist, Andy J. Miller. Each page represents an indie icon, including Rilo Kiley, Devendra Banhart, MGMT, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene and a bunch more.

A quibble (seems like I can’t not do something reviewish each time out): like the T-shirts, it would have been nice to have seen at least some of these illustrations created by the indie artists themselves. Some of them are multi-talented and would have been up to the task. It’s a small quibble, though: Miller’s illustrations are mostly bright and innovative and would be lots of fun to color.

A foreword, hand-lettered by Rilo Kiley’s Pierre de Reeder sets the tone and the intent: “This wonderful coloring book,” writes de Reeder, “is yours to enjoy and be inspired by, and is a great example of how you can turn your love for music and art into something that can really help.”

The Yellow Bird Project Web site is here.

Holiday Gift Guide: Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy

On the one hand, it might seem counterintuitive to offer Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (Haymarket Books) as a gift idea. Yet these thoughts on the very nature of democracy are a powerful gift, indeed. And what better time to read Booker Award-winning author Arundhati Roy’s examination of India’s crumbling democracy?

While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By “democracy” I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration, I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.

So is there life after democracy?

In this series of themed essays, Roy explores the questions and political challenges probably most important to India today: the marginalization of religious and ethnic minorities and the neo-liberal economic reforms that Roy argues are turning India into a police state.

“The idea of extermination is in the air. And people believe that faced with extermination they have the right to fight back. Perhaps they’ve been listening to the grasshoppers.”

The author of The God of Small Things, Roy writes with a rare and confident beauty. Passion rings through every line, passion and the belief that the things she’s writing about here are important, they need to be said. I think that’s true. In many ways, it’s true not just for India but the world.

Holiday Gift Guide: Precious Metal: Decibel Presents 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces edited by Albert Mudrian

Understand going in that this is a book for the already converted. If you -- or the person you’re trying so hard to find the perfect gift for -- is not already deeply infected by heavy metal music, then Precious Metal (Da Capo) is not for you. Or them. But if they are... if they are this is seriously the best gift a metalhead could get.

And why? These are the untold stories. Okay: that’s not strictly true. These are the selectly told stories, originally told in Decibel Magazine -- the voice of extreme music. The 25 tales collected in Precious Metal are the best of the best of Decibel’s Hall of Fame pieces. As a result, they’re pretty great. If you’re unfamiliar with Decibel’s Hall of Fame and how it works, in the words of editor Albert Mudrian, it goes like this:

Take a classic extreme metal record (as determined by our staff) released at least five years ago, track down and interview every band member who played on it, and present them questions exclusively about the writing, recording, touring and overall impact of said album.

The result is, well... obvious, right? There’s a reason Decibel is simply the best in its field. It pushes itself beyond the readily apparent, beyond the everyday and comes up with stuff like this.

So who did Mudrian determine should be included in this round up of best of the best? Well, as I said, there are 25, so I’ll just hit some of the albums that I feel are the highlights: Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, Morbid Tales by Celtic Frost, Napalm Death’s Scum, Paradise Lost’s Gothic, Eyehategod’s Take As Needed. It’s an incredible list and since it combines not only some of metal’s top stories, but also some of the top writing about metal around, it’s just an incredible win-win.

Precious Metal is an absolute must for the metalhead on your list.

Holiday Gift Guide: 12,167 Kitchen and Cooking Secrets by Susan Sampson

It seems safe to say that no one -- but no one -- is going to know all the tips in 12,167 Kitchen and Cooking Secrets (Robert Rose). That’s one of the things that makes the book a terrific gift: the would-be home chef and the kitchen star will both find things to interest them in this book. It’s the sort of tome that real food lovers will be able to spend hours with.

With 12,167 tips to choose from, I don’t even know where to start. Every time I put my nose back into the book, it’s in there for another half hour’s grazing. What’s the difference between mayonnaise, hollandaise and béarnaise? (Not a lot when you come down to it: “All three members of the ‘aise’ family are emulsions made with egg yolks, an acid and a slowly incorporated fat.”)

How to make perfect choux pastry.

How to pick a perfect avocado and -- once you’ve got it -- how to pit it.

Eight keys to cooking with sucralose.

How to choose the right cooking oil for the job at hand.

Should you use pot barley or pearl barley?

Buckwheat groats or kasha?

Block or deli cream cheese?

Food editor Sampson says she was pressed into writing this book by friends who were astonished at the little things she knew, the “secrets” that she says are never really secrets. “Just undiscovered territory. What’s obvious to one cook is a revelation to another.”

The revelations are here -- one simple “secret” at a time. A terrific gift for anyone interested in the fascinating world of cooking and food.

Holiday Gift Guide: Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts

When we think of space travel, people of my generation think of the Apollo missions. Starting in 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, we reached beyond our own planet to look deeper into the world beyond home. This book comes at that idea from a new vantage point, that of the astronauts themselves. In essays and stunning photographs, Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts (Abrams), lets us experience those missions from the inside, getting to know what Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Alan Bean, and the other astronauts were thinking and doing at that time in our common history. Each has chosen a favorite photograph, as well, one that crystalizes their own experience.

Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts is an eye-popping book that brings tangible glory to a time that seems almost quaint and ancient now. The grandeur of those missions, the seat-of-your-pants wishful thinking they embodied, and the venturing into truly unknown territory all make NASA’s troubles of recent years seem almost -- but only almost -- beside the point.

Holiday Gift Guide: Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman

Raymond Chandler at least lived in Los Angeles during the time he wrote his seven Philip Marlowe detective novels (beginning with 1939’s The Big Sleep), and knew well the landmarks that fueled the fiction he wrote. But for most of us, either the setting or the time period, or both, is foreign. We can do no better than to imagine the surf-slapped piers and lushly landscaped estates and fleabag hotels in which he set his action.

While there’s certainly delight to be found in making up images of those locations for ourselves, it’s also interesting to see some of the actual places Chandler had in mind as he sent Marlowe out to question suspects, bitch-slap cops with sarcasm, and fend off bruisers intent on making his body a masterpiece in black and blue. Elizabeth Ward and Alain Silver took on this very task when they published Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles (1987), a photographic tour of Southern California’s largest burg, with excerpts from Chandler’s novels. And now Catherine Corman, the daughter of filmmaker Roger Corman and the editor of Joseph Cornell’s Dreams (2007), offers her own take on that subject in Daylight Noir: Raymond Chandler’s Imagined City, published by Charta.

Photographer Corman has assembled here more than 50 black-and-white studies of everything from Lido Pier to the iconic Hollywood sign, from MGM Studios to Musso and Frank’s Grill, from Union Station to the old Bullocks Wilshire department store (those last two being credited to architects John and Donald Parkinson). Some of the sites in Corman’s collection were identified in Chandler’s work; others were lightly fictionalized. Many of these shots are fascinating, even without considering their association with one of America’s foremost detective novelists. But the Chandler excerpts Corman employs bring another creative dimension to her Daylight Noir spreads. I only wish she’d identified which books they come from. My other quibble: There’s at least one instance here (see pages 56-57 and 88-89) where parts of the same building -- Santa Monica City Hall (another Parkinson creation) -- are used twice. Surely, Corman could have substituted a different landmark and quotation in one of those cases.

Writer Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City, Motherless Brooklyn) supplies a short but pithy preface to Daylight Noir that sets the haunting scene for these images. However, it’s a quote from English novelist J.B. Priestley, contained in Corman’s own introduction, that reveals the most about Chandler’s P.I. and his world:

Despite the pervasive solitude and moral wasteland at the heart of Los Angeles, Chandler does find meaning in it. As James said, he loved the city for its pathos. There is a kind of desolate candor, a tragic sense of honor, in the insistence on perpetuating a façade long after everyone knows it lacks substance. This is what Marlowe’s enemies, the ruthless city fathers and low-life gangsters, are ultimately doing. Eventually, like Conrad’s Marlow in Heart of Darkness, Marlowe discovers the truth but loses the impulse to expose it. He falls in line with illusion.

This may be a volume of real-life photography, but it’s illusion -- the unpredictable artistry of imagination -- as much as substance that is at the heart of it all.

Holiday Gift Guide: Merry Christmas, Even If You Don’t Buy This Book

Let’s be honest: there is not enough book here to even begin to write a review. Merry Christmas, Even If You Don’t Buy This Book (Sterling) is a small and sweetly snarky book of seasonal postcards. I’m writing about it for two reasons: both important. Reason one: It’s clever. It says what a lot of people are thinking in a way that can be cheerfully shared with friends. Reason two: In a year where we are, more than ever, encouraging people to buy books during the holiday season, this is one you can buy easily and share with a lot of people.

Viewed from one angle, though, Merry Christmas, Even If You Don’t Buy This Book isn’t even really a book. It’s a collection of 45 postcards -- bound together as a book, hence the ISBN and book-like form. And I don’t know for certain that each card is based on classic Christmas clip-art, but it certainly looks that way to me.

And then the sweetly snarky part. The image is Santa Claus sitting at a piano and laughing so hard it looks as though he might fall down. The caption: There’s nothing like holiday cheer to offset devastating seasonal affective disorder.

Another: Santa is speaking while popping out of (or into?) a chimney. “I hope your Christmas display doesn’t incinerate your home and loved ones.”

Or a couple, sitting next to a Christmas tree, speaking to the child at their feet: “I want a menorah for Christmas.”

There are a lot more, obviously. Forty-two more, to be precise. It seems likely that most everyone will find at least a handful to inflict on their friends. A fun, arms akimbo way to meet holiday 2009.

Holiday Gift Guide: Poems for the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names by Soraya Peerbaye

The thing that first attracted me to Soraya Peerbaye’s debut collection was its title. Let’s face it: Poems for the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (Gooselane Editions) is, on the surface of things, such an odd thng to call a collection of poetry, it’s almost ludicrous. As much as I might have wished to walk away from the slender volume, I couldn’t. The name held me fast.

As it turns out, the title comes from the book’s fourth section, the part that deals with a trip Peerbaye took to the Antarctic Peninsula. “Horizon pulls: a trick knot. The seal undoes itself.”

As much as the crazy title might have been the thing that initially drew me, Peerbaye’s writing convinced me in a moment. I offer the opening stanza of “Zistoire,” the first poem in the collection, by way of example:

I’ve learned that the story comes from the invitation to come in. The embrace, his cheek against mine, the stubbled feel of a sun-hollowed sea urchin. He leaves his shoes at the door, hangs hit coat on the banister; I put on the kettle. The story comes from the invitation to come in.

Though the poems that make up the collection are quite different in style and meter and substance, Peerbaye’s writing is consistently muscular and ephemeral, two adjectives that would seem not to belong together in the same sentence yet, somehow, with this writer’s work, it does. As I said, this is a debut, and it’s wonderful. I can’t even imagine what comes next.

Holiday Gift Guide: Kitchen Scraps by Pierre A. Lamielle

What happens when you take a talented designer and illustrator and send him off to cooking school? If you’re lucky and the stars are aligned, you get Kitchen Scraps: A Humourous Illustrated Cookbook (Whitecap Books).

This is the perfect gift book. To be very honest, I can’t imagine very many people buying this book for themselves. It just isn’t that sort of cookbook: yummy photos, cozy write-ups, inspirational stories. Kitchen Scraps does none of those things, yet the things it does do, it does very well. Lamielle describes what Kitchen Scraps is and is not in his introduction:

It is not a cookbook for busy families, it will not make you a kitchen deity, and it will certainly not make you lose 10 pounds. Kitchen Scraps will delight, offend, and make you hungry.

The recipes are terrific: well thought out and engagingly shared. If some of the recipe names are ridiculous, they are also the point. Additionally, those recipe names will indicate if you share Lamielle’s sense of humor. (Not all will.) Steak and Kidney Cowpie has nothing to do with the business end of a cow. Suzette’s Massacre is an updated (Lamielle says “massacred” ) version of Crepes Suzette. And Lamielle does Brussels Sprouts not one, but three ways: in beer, in junipers and gin and in brandy. And it’s not just the booze that differs: these are three very different approaches to handling an unpopular yet delicious vegetable.

Lamielle’s illustrations are just as impressive as his recipes, but in an entirely unexpected way. These aren’t illustrations of food -- at least, not really. But rather lighthearted riffs through a style and on a subject clearly close to the author’s heart.

A fantastic gift book.

Holiday Gift Guide: Lakeshore Christmas by Susan Wiggs

People who love Susan Wiggs’ work really, really love it.

People who love gently soppy Christmas tales really, really love them.

And while it might be true that sometimes those are the same people, there’s something desperately engaging about Lakeshore Christmas (Mira) Wigg’s crisply engaging fictional celebration of Christmas that invites readers along on another visit -- the sixth -- to the world of Wiggs’ bestselling Lakeshore Chronicles.

There’s nothing earth-shatteringly new going on in Lakeshore Christmas. Rather, Wiggs has opted here to put a contemporary spin on a classic Christmas tale. Small town librarian Maureen wants to put the best ever Christmas pageant that Avalon has ever seen. The only thing stopping her is former child star Eddie Haven, whose misbehavior has landed him into a court ordered recovery that shows every sign ruining Maureen’s seasonal spirit. But it’s Christmas, time of miracles. And it’s no likely no spoiler at all to say that no one puts a title and cover like this together in order to give you a crash landing.

Lakeshore Christmas is not going to be everyone’s cup of nog. But every holiday season seems to bring at least one significant feel-good entry. For holiday 2009, Wiggs’ well written contribution packs all the Christmas cheer you’re going to need. Maybe some besides.

Holiday Gift Guide: Field Guide to Candy by Anita Chu

For some of us, the true meaning of the holidays can’t be found in spiritual lessons. It isn’t in the gifts we give or get or even in the time spent -- or avoided -- with friends and family. Rather -- again, for some -- true holiday meaning can be found in the volume of sweetness we collect, consume and -- if the bounty is sufficient -- share.

Sharing that bounty of sweetness on this holiday might be helped somewhat by Field Guide to Candy (Quirk) an amazing compendium of all that is sweet. In case you’re wondering about that, dig this crazy subtitle: How to Identify and Make Virtually Every Candy Imaginable. Need I say more? Not really. If that was all the information you had, it would be all you need. Except, I guess, that it works. If you’re actually a serious sweet aficionado, this is the sort of book you’ll find yourself referring to again and again. It’s well organized, well and sensibly illustrated and the recipes are boiled right down to basics, with straight-forward instructions and easy to find ingredients.

For gift giving, Field Guide to Candy satisfies almost every requirement. Who doesn’t love candy? And this is a book that includes recipes that even children could make with just a small amount of supervision. A bonus: Field Guide to Candy is small enough to fit into a generous stocking. A sweet gift on several fronts!