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Holiday Gift Guide 2007
By
Published: Dec 20, 2007
Category:
Beyond Classification
There are holidays to visit the Bentley dealer, but this doesn’t feel like one of them. For all but the top half-percent, the dominant vibe this season is caution and frugality. The hot gift, I read, is large, flat-screen TVs. Runner-ups: iPods, cell phones and jewelry. And then, I guess, the gift cliche: sweaters.
Not exactly a list that makes you think, “Wow, those items will show my loved ones exactly how I feel about them.”
So…what to give?
Kits.
A kit is “a collection of articles usually for personal use” — emphasis on personal. That means you couldn’t give the collection you create for cynical Uncle Jerome to Aunt Mary, the family Pollyanna. But it also means personal on the giver’s end; the collection expresses your taste, knowledge and wit.
Happily, culture is still so affordable you can tie a bow around a decent stack of books, music and movies and the occasional gadget. With that in mind, I’ve created a list that marries genres — and, I hope, suggests matches appropriate to your family and friends.
These categories are arbitrary. Feel free to mix and match, or create kits of your own. And feel good about shopping online and massively shrinking your carbon footprint.
At the bottom, I’ve listed a few favorite causes; it’s my hope you’ll include a donation, however small, with each kit you give. It is, after all, the season….
Seasonal
Christmas with the Tallis Scholars: The world’s premier choral group in a selection of Renaissance chants, motets, carols and hymns.
Vivaldi: If you’re sick to death of “The Four Seasons,” this lovely choral music will make you rethink Vivaldi.
Coffee Table Stunners
Derry Moore: The Architectural Digest photographer takes you into his favorite rooms.
Bunker Spreckels: Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence: Clark Gable’s stepson was a brilliant surfer and a troubled soul.
Armchair Adventure
Mediterranean Summer: On a trillionaire’s yacht, as told by an observant chef. With recipes.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin: In these classic French stories, a “gentleman burglar” commits such elegant crimes you wouldn’t dream of rooting for the cops.
Sir Edmund Hillary: From the plains of Australia to the peak of Everest, and beyond.
We Die Alone: One of World World II’s most thrilling — and little known — stories of espionage, betrayal and escape.
The Adventuress
The Wilder Shores of Love: Four 19th century women defied convention and went off to make fresh starts in North Africa and the Middle East.
Eat, Pray, Love: After a rough divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert traveled the globe to find herself — and did.
The Diana Chronicles: Tina Brown delivers a stunning biography of the virgin bride who became a world-class problem for the English royal family.
Inspiration
And There Was Light: He went blind as a child, but that didn’t stop him from becoming an important Resistance leader in World War II.
Pema Chodron: The woman who has become the best-known Buddhist thinker in America cuts through the theory to make the case for meditation.
For Children
The Snowman: An exquisite animated film with a song that takes even a kid’s breath away.
Laurie Berkner: Compared to Raffi, she’s The Beatles.
Magna-Tiles: The child makes architecture and learns proportion, you get blessed silence — a win-win.
The Adventures of Polo: A story told in pictures so a child can “read” it to you.
Fancy Nancy: Eloise for the post-millennial child.
Roald Dahl: Giant peaches, glass elevators, chocolate factories and a fantastic fox.
For Animal Lovers
Dreaming in Libro: How a feminist writer fell for a mutt, and how that “good dog tamed a bad woman.”
Deborah Butterfield: She builds large, sculptural horses that feel real.
For Young Career Women
Basic Black: The president of Hearst Magazines tells young women how the world really works.
The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work: Two office veterans explain the office.
The Quality of Life Report: A junior TV producer decides to do a segment from the Midwest, with comic results.
For Manly Men
Johnny U: A meat-and-spuds biography of Johnny Unitas, quarterback for the Baltimore Colts and legendary tough guy.
Younger Next Year: At 80, you can feel like 50. You just have to lift a lot of steel.
Without Limits: A film bio of Steve Prefontaine, the James Dean of American track.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: Bill Bryson’s hysterically funny — and very misspent — youth.
Green Holiday
SIGG Water Bottles: Because drinking from plastic bottles that don’t get recycled is sooo 2004.
PUR Water Filters: Because buying water is even more retro.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The book that explains, better than any other, why “industrial food” is to be avoided.
Real Food: The book that tells you what to eat after you’ve forsaken industrial food.
Virtual Meals for Food Lovers
Between Meals: A.J. Liebling’s classic account of his culinary education in France in the early 1930s.
Life Is Meals: Kay and James Salter — he could be our great living short story writer and novelist — recall glorious evenings.
My Life in France: Julia Child’s smart, unfailingly candid memoir.
Drink Up
The Joy of Drinking: The history of alcohol, served with a twist.
Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine: Sensible advice, without a touch of oak or a hint of licorice.
Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers: What the legends drank, and their outrageous drinking stories.
Deep Thoughts
Banker to the Poor: Nobel Peace Price Laureate Muhammad Yunus explains how micro-credit can lift the poor.
The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein indicts the latest version of capitalism.
Deep Economy: Bill McKibben looks into the future and finds hope in the place where you live.
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Philosophy explained through jokes, many of them actually funny.
For the Cynic
A John Waters Christmas: The sicko director’s favorite holiday hits: “Santa Is a Black Man”, “Here Comes Fatty Claus” and (of course) The Chipmunks.
Bill Hicks: This comedian lived on bile, then shared it. Sample: “Let’s lighten things up and talk about abortion, shall we?”
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: If Cheech & Chong were young professionals, stoned and desperate for Sliders…..
Life’s Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can’t Take It Anymore: When the little guy fights back — or just acts out.
For Cooks
Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen: Two noted New York chefs serve up family cooking, with every recipe something you might actually want to make.
Cook What You Love: The proprietors of a restaurant on Anguilla offer recipes that explain why people fly to the island just for dinner.
For Francophiles
Quiet Corners of Paris: Can you be alone in beautiful parks and streets? In Paris, yes.
Pudlo Paris: where to eat, and why.
Provence A-Z: Peter Mayle tells you all he held back in previous books.
Hot Stuff
Simple Passion: She lives to wait for her lover, who comes and goes.
The Garden of Eden: Hemingway, of all people, wrote a dirty book about a honeymoon that goes wrong.
Mating in Captivity: A therapist suggests that erotic distance, not talking, may cure the bedroom blahs.
A Sport and a Pastime: James Salter’s elegant novel about a young Yale grad’s affair with a small town girl in rural France.
Thrillers/Mysteries
Identity Theory: Fast-paced, grown-up, politically astute — and damned exciting.
The Killer Inside Me: A crazed killer tells his story, and, in the process, drives you crazy.
Get Carter: Young Michael Caine in an unrelenting tough role. Be very afraid.
Gadgets
Altec Lansing Speaker System for iPods: Small, powerful, clear, and it runs on electric current or batteries.
Shure E3c Stereo Headphones for iPods: Like being in the recording studio.
The Gift of Laughter
Mitch Hedberg: “When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like he’s saying, ‘Here, you throw this away.’”
Eddie Izzard: "They say ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.’ Yes, but guns help."
Billy Connolly: “I’m in my 50s — the prostate time of life." [All other quotations are profane.]
Boomer Music
John Fogerty: He’s a 62-year-old grandfather, but this CD rocks like vintage Creedence.
Robert Plant/Alison Krauss: The voice of Led Zeppelin meets the queen of bluegrass. The result is surprising, spooky, beautiful.
Mark Knopfler: Yet another thoughtful, complex CD from the master of guitar cool.
The Traveling Wilburys: The classic songs by the ultimate super-group (Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne) are finally back in circulation, with a delightful bonus DVD.
The New Breed
Josh Ritter: “The Animal Years” was my favorite CD of 2007. With “Historical Conquests”, the 30-year-old singer-songwriter has done it again.
Brandi Carlile: If Janis Joplin could have hit the notes as written, she’d have sounded like this.
Teddy Thompson: The prodigiously talented son of rock royalty has made a terrific one-off of…country-western classics.
Eddie Vedder: The Pearl Jam leader’s songs for “Into the Wild” go beyond music; these sounds pierce the soul.
Esoterica
Paolo Conte: The ultimate European saloon singer, drink in hand and cigarette burning.
Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective: These Belize musicians sing in a nearly extinct language, but their beat is infectious and universal.
Noirin Ni Riain: An Irish treasure with a “voice from a cloud” — and the beauty is indeed otherworldly.
Jim White: Midnight trains in the South, mysterious women and atmosphere that won’t quit.
Family Viewing
Local Hero: A heartless oil executive goes to Scotland to buy a town. Magic ensues. As does a flawless Mark Knopfler soundtrack.
The Castle: An Australian simpleton is about to lose his house. But maybe simple is best when it’s time to stand up for your rights. Contains some cursing.
Modern Masterpieces
After the Wedding: This Danish film provides a major emotional wrench — and surprising joy.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller: Julie Christie and Warren Beatty star in Robert Altman’s unlikely Western, with moody songs by Leonard Cohen.
The Conformist: Bertolucci’s most artful film connects Italian fascism and decadence.
Butler Classic Movies
Dodsworth: He’s rich, she cheats and no one gets “blamed” in one of William Wyler’s best films.
It Should Happen to You: Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon in George Cukor’s comedy about getting famous in New York
Love Me Tonight: a romp of a ’30s comedy in which the songs advance the wonderfully absurd plot.
Charities
Kiva.org: You don’t make a donation, you invest in a small business in a remote corner of the planet — and you get repaid, with thanks.
The Heifer Project: You know the saying: “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” Well, here you can buy an animal for a poor, rural family.
World Wildlife Fund: Give $50, get three bracelets handmade from acai seeds in the Amazon.
Share Our Strength: The most efficient anti-hunger cause I know of.
