‘Tis the season, part three: Good On Paper
13 December 2006The gift guide continues! Try to contain yourself! Also, people who are related to and/ or close friends with me: everything on this page is either something I’ve given as a gift previously or am giving this year, so when you open your present from me try to look surprised anyway. Anyway, here we go…
Gift Guide: Tree Killer
I like Martha Stewart. Even after that creepy made for tv movie exposed her as a lunatic slave driver, she still totally made me want to go to white collar jail and crochet ponchos. Sadly, most of her efforts are aimed at people with a lot more free time and disposable income than this girl. UNTIL NOW.
Blueprint magazine, baby! I started reading this while waiting to have the overgrown ‘fro reshaped into the swingy bob with bangs look I rock now (Cristin: “Do you like it?” The Boyfriend: “It looks good!” Cristin: “But, do you like it?” The Boyfriend: “You look great, baby.” Cristin: You hate it), and assumed it would be (a) exactly like Real Simple and (b) for housewives. The thing that won me over was actually a sidebar headline– while talking about sewing machines, some clever editorial worker bee titled it with “99 Problems But A Stitch Ain’t One.” Just in case you had any lurking confusions left about the target demographic here. I have close to a billion magazine subscriptions (and Roommate Amy just got us Newsweek and Lucky with her Amtrak points, which were literally the last ones left that we don’t have), and in order to make the subscriptions worthwhile I rip out anything I find interesting and then sort them into a series of files so that when I want a new appetizer recipe or ab routine I know exactly where to go, and while reading Blueprint for the first time I ripped out 3x as much stuff as I do from, say, Glamour. Like Real Simple, it’s a Do Everything Better guide (in the current issue, they have stuff on how to maintain the heels of your shoes, a guide to beginning running, wine tasting party instructions, and a bunch of patterns for things you can make with suede that actually made me want to sew). Unlike Real Simple, the suggestions are always managable and reasonable and don’t make you feel like a bad person for not having enough time to store your garden tools in a flower pot full of gravel in order to keep them sharp, or scan all of your bank statements and turn them into pdf files so you don’t have to keep paper records. Right. Good for: Twenty-something chicks.
Gift Guide: Reading is Sexy
This section grew out of a recent conversation with WM-friend Kyle, esq., who has recently found himself out of law school and back in the land of Choosing Your Own Reading Material, which is an overwhelming place after three years of reading legal crap, I am sure. This should keep you busy for a while:
The Tender Bar. I’ve never heard of anyone disliking this book, which is a memoir of a boy who was raised among a cast of characters at his local bar (in the town that inspired The Great Gatsby). I bought it for three people this Christmas having not read it, and started it last night and knew within 4 pages why everyone loved it. National bestseller from a Pulitizer Prize winner. Good for: Memoir fans; dudes.
Bringing Down The House. MIT kids in the ’80s use their math smarts to take a Vegas casino (legally) for $3million. And it’s a true story. And if you like it, as my older brother made the mistake of telling me he did, the author wrote another book on a similar topic, and one on American day traders running money in the Japanese stock market. Good for: Gambling addicts; dudes.
Devil In The White City. You’d think nonfiction about the 1983 Chicago’s World Fair would be boring but YOU WOULD BE TOTALLY EFFING WRONG. Not only was that the worlds fair where Pabst won its eponymous Blue Ribbon (umentioned in the book), but there was also a crazy serial killer running around offing people! This book follows both the serial killer and the architect hired to construct a fair that would put Paris and its pansy-ass Eiffel tower to shame and, believe it or not, both plotlines are equally interesting. National Book Award honor, Edgar Award winner. I’ve never met anyone who disliked this book. Good for: Dudes, The Boyfriend’s Parents (i hope), US history buffs.
Truth & Beauty. From the author of Bel Canto, this is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. I think trying to describe it further might actually be doing it a disservice. Good for: Moms That Read; Book Clubbers.
Lamb. The gospel according to Jesus’ childhood buddy (Biff) from an author with one of the most ridiculously rabid fan bases I’ve ever seen. Smart and hilarious, and will make the reader feel smart and hilarious for getting all the jokes. Good for: Daily Show fans; CCD survivors; college students that think they know everything.
Friday Night Lights. Before it was a tv show OR a movie, it was a book, and it was awesome. I am not a football fan and I have moments where I think high school football is one of the worst institutions we have in this country (largely because it can cause people to peak in high school and come screaming back to their hometowns after a semester of college when they realize there is more to life and that’s scary– sometimes called The GRock effect) and I have only ever read one other book about football (A Civil War: Army Vs. Navy, A Year Inside College Football’s Purest Rivalry, which I also reccomend) but Friday Night Lights is in the process of almost changing my mind about it all. Great book. Good for: Sports fans; Dad types; Anyone who owns Sports Night on DVD or watched Two-A-Days.
Marley & Me. If you have ever had a dog, loved a dog, seen a dog, or experienced a passing pleasant thought about a dog, this book is amazing. A journalist chronicles his experiences with “the world’s worst dog,” Marley, a hurricane of an animal and obedience school drop out. Please be warned that a story about a dog that was born 15 years ago can only really have one inevitable end and you’re going to cry. I gave this to my stepmom for Christmas last year and she finished it a few weeks before we had to put Tuffy down– I really could have timed that a lot better. Good for: Dog people; anyone who isn’t dead on the inside.
Sweet Potato Queens Book of Love. During sorority wills my junior year, my big sister left this book to someone and said that it was something “every girl should read.” I thought well, shit, that’s me! So I did. And it’s hilarious, and well done, and full of stuff that will make you think. My favorite part is where she relates her Favorite Piece of Advice, which I’m not going to ruin but I read this book 4 years ago and I still frequently think about that chapter, so that is saying something. Good for: Sorority sisters; Childhood best friends.
Also, for your consideration:
Nonfiction
Team of Rivals (Lincoln’s cabinet as you’ve never seen it before!)
The Professor & The Madman (The Oxford English dictionary as you’ve never seen it before, with serial killers!)
Manhunt (John Wilkes Booth as you’ve never seen him before!)
Freakonomics (Abortion, sumo wrestlers, gang members and elementary school teachers as you’ve never seen them before!)
Fiction
3 Responses to “‘Tis the season, part three: Good On Paper”
December 13th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
i heart the sweet potato queens! there are lots of these books, btw, so if you give one to someone this year and they like it, you pretty much have the next five years done. she’s writing a novel, i hear. hmm.
also, lamb is HYSTERICAL. i lurve it.
December 13th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
1. Thanks for the reading list.
2. I was about 17 seconds from giving a law school friend “Marley” because he had a mut puppy that was about 65% tazmanian devil and 35% asylum inmate. Then he told me that they had just found out that his wife was pregnant.
December 13th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
You’ve read Marley & Me, right? The pregnancy/ dog crossover is, like, the saddest part of that book. I cried for a week.
Devil in The White City kicks so much ass. You’ll like it.