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2017 Head Butler Holiday Gift Guide: Stocking Stuffers
By
Published: Dec 12, 2017
Category:
Holiday
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDES
The Holiday Gift Guide
The Food Edition
Gifts for Kids
The Luxury Edition
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Small gifts. Budget-friendly. In two categories: Under $15 and Under $10. You’re welcome.
UNDER $15
The Queen’s Gambit
My favorite book. But here’s a Reader Review: “I don’t read mysteries. I don’t read thrillers. I’m a Barbara Pym kind of reader, who likes books in which the big events are cups of tea. But I got “The Queens Gambit” out of the library and couldn’t put it down. I gave it to my husband, who definitely does read thrillers, and he gulped it down in a day.
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Catch a Fire
Yeah, you’ve got the greatest hits. But do you have the greatest album? Not until you have this. “Catch A Fire” — their debut album, long before they turned into Bob Marley and the Wailers — offered sweet seduction songs. Angry political songs: “ No chains around my feet/But I’m not free/I know I am bound here in captivity…” And the spooky Rasta dreamscape, “Midnight Ravers,” with its devastating opening condemnation (“You can’t tell the women from the men/ ’cause they’re dressed in the same pollution”) and its Book of Revelations vision: “I see ten thousand chariots/And they coming without horses/The riders — they cover their face/So you couldn’t make them out in smoky place.” Rarely has music been better matched to lyrics.
Louise Fili: Quattro Parole Italiane: 12 Note Cards and Envelopes
Four Italian words: ciao (hello), auguri (greetings), grazie (thank you) and prego (with pleasure). Why are these cards so striking? It’s not the words, which are refreshingly ordinary, but the typography, which is dramatic and different and, at the same time, nostalgic and familiar, taking you back to visits to small towns in Italy or, more likely, period movies like “The Conformist.”
Nóirín Ní Riain: Vox de Nube
There are voices that crack glass. That’s impressive, always. Nóirín Ní Riain has a voice that stops you in your tracks and fills your eyes with tears and makes all that is holy to you as real as your hand. If you don’t believe that, listen to ten seconds of “Magnificat cum alleluia” and see if you don’t suddenly feel the impulse to drop to your knees.
Perfetto Pencils
Louise Fili: “The two-color, double-sided pencils, commonly in red and blue, are ideal for teachers to correct homework. (“Errore lieve, segno rosso; errore grave, segno blu”: red for a minor infringement, blue for a serious offense.) When Princeton Architectural Press invited us to come up with a line of gift products, the two-tone pencils seemed perfect — thus the name. Steering clear of blue, our least favorite color, we opted for our signature red and black. No eraser, by the way. Who makes errori?”
Moleskine Notebooks
The leather-like cover takes more wear than you’ll ever give it. The elastic band is useful both to keep the notebook closed and to mark your place. There’s an inner pocket to hold business cards, receipts and small photographs. The spine is sewn, not glued, so the cover lies flat when it’s opened. The paper is acid-free. What more do you want from a notebook?
Emily Dickinson Notecards
A dozen 5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″cards, “made with prints from the beloved poet’s pressed-flower albums, where she collected over four hundred specimens.” With matching envelopes, in a matching box.
Mitch Hedberg
“An escalator can never break — it can only become stairs.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. I just know a girl who would be really mad if she heard me say that.”
“When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like he’s saying, ‘Here, you throw this away.’”
“I order a club sandwich all the time, but I’m not even a member.”
“When I was a kid, I lay in my twin bed, wondering where my brother was.”
“Do you think that when a guy got the idea for a bong that a black light popped on?”
“Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read.”
“I have no problem not listening to The Temptations.”
“I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just gonna ask where they’re going and hook up with them later.”
Between Meals
In 1926, A.J. Liebling had graduated from college and had bungled his first job. It seemed to his father that this was a good time for him to study for a year in Europe. Liebling pretended to protest. “I’m thinking of getting married,” he lied. “Of course, she’s ten years older than I am….” The story of his romance — which was utterly fabricated — worked like a charm. His father not only bought him a steamship ticket, he gave him a $2,000 line of credit. And Liebling went to Paris and began to eat.
Old Filth
No one really knows Edward Feathers. He’s held it all in. Only when his wife dies does he become unmoored enough “to flick open shutters on the past.” And because Jane Gardam knows everything about this man’s life — every hidden event, every unspoken longing — what she delivers in 289 pages is an unimaginably satisfying and involving book. “Old Filth” is like no other recent novel I can name; it reads as much like exhaustively researched biography as brilliantly paced fiction.
UNDER $10
The Polar Express
On Christmas Eve, a father tells his son that there’s no Santa Claus. Later that night, a train packed with children stops in front of a boy’s house. He hops on and travels to the North Pole, where Santa offers him the first toy of Christmas. The boy chooses a reindeer’s bell. On the way home, he loses it. How he finds it and what that means — that’s where you reach for the Kleenex.
Miles Davis: Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud
This soundtrack, recorded in a single, champagne-fueled session, is one of the greatest jazz soundtracks in film — some say the greatest. Miles Davis’ trumpet couldn’t be more evocative: mostly slow and breathy, thoughtful and tender, lonely and okay about it.
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens and Jesse Kornbluth: How is that for a byline? How did it happen? Because the Dickens masterpiece is 28,000 words. Good luck reading them all to a kid. So I edited it to 13,000 words, and Paige Peterson created great illustrations.
Proraso Shaving Cream
Proraso was formulated by a venerable company in Florence in 1948. The ingredients remain unchanged. All natural, of course. Friends who have tried every multi-bladed trick razor and cream in the world say this is the missing link to an even, truly close shave. And it smells great.
Nam Prik Asian Chili Hot Sauce
Nam Prik is an Asian chili sauce that was both spicy and sweet. Nam Prik (pronounced: nam-preek, literally “fluid chili”) isn’t like all the other smartly-labeled sauces you see on grocery shelves. It delivers fire and flavor, adding personality to eggs, Mexican food, Asian dishes, meat and chicken entrees — it could be the next Sriracha.
“Maybe You Touched Your Genitals” Liquid Hand Soap
The label features an attractive woman in a crisp white blouse and a neighborly smile shaking hands with a man in a suit. A “Secret Santa” present for the dinosaur male in the office who didn’t get the memo?
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
The duets of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell were recorded in forever ago 1967. What songs were on that CD? Oh, just classics: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” “You’re All I Need to Get By.” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.” “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You.”
The Snowman
A boy in rural England builds a snowman. At midnight, as the boy looks out his window, the snowman lights up. The boy runs outside. He invites the snowman to tour his home. Then the snowman takes his hand. And off they fly, over England, over water, to the North Pole. There, Santa gives the boy a scarf. The boy and the snowman fly home. As the boy is going inside, the snowman waves — a wave of goodbye. The boy rushes into his arms and hugs him. The next morning, the snowman’s just a few lumps of coal and an old hat. Did that magical night really happen? The boy reaches into his pocket and finds the scarf. He drops to his knees and, almost as an offering, places it by the snowman’s hat. Fantastic story. Amazing animation. The most beautiful song. This 22-minute film is the very definition of perfection. For kids 3 and up. [I’m reminded that the book is just as exceptional, and ideal for kids 4 to 8.]
Married Sex: a Love Story
From the New York Times review: “Kornbluth’s debut novel, about a happy marriage interrupted by a ménage à trois, could easily have coasted on its promise of titillation. Instead it is a skillfully written, lighthearted and clever story that manages to be steamy but never salacious… Kornbluth has a screenwriter’s ear for witty banter, and the novel hinges on the charming voice of its narrator.”
