Gift Recommendations
Winter is well and truly upon us, and in the run up to the festivities we thought your might enjoy and benefit from some our favourite gift ideas for the end of 2009.
And of course if you have any of your own recommendations for the festive season, please feel free to pass them on to us. Season's greetings and happy book-giving!
Uncommon Arrangements / Katie Roiphe / Virage / £9.99 / 9781844082711
What could be more fascinating than someone else’s marriage...especially when we’re talking about Vanessa and Clive Bell, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, H.G and Jane Wells and many other literati of the 20th century? Roiphe’s prose fizzes with intrigue and scandal and is a perfect dip-into book to give as a gift or simply squirrel away for yourself to enjoy over the holidays.Guilt-free gossip doesn’t get any better than this.
The Complete Ripley Radio Mysteries
Patricia Highsmith / BBC / £19.99 / 9781408409473
Just the thing for a long winter's car journey ...or when you're just too full of Christmas lunch to lift a book: this year's Radio 4 adaptation of Highsmith's timeless Ripley series is unbeatable entertainment. Ian Hart is perfect as the elegantly twisted anti-hero Tom Ripley and, at 5 hours, this 5-CD set covers all 5 Ripley titles and is fantastic value. Buy for your favourite sleuth.
Sacred Hearts / Sarah Dunant / Virago / £14.99 / 9781844085965
Dunant’s latest Renaissance-set novel centres on the lives of nuns within a closed order in Italy where the struggles are not only clerical and politcal, but also those of hearts and minds. Superbly written and with an almost forensic eye for detail, it is a joy to read and you’ll be rationing out the last pages.
The Kilburn Social Club / R. Hudson / Jonathan Cape £12.99 / 9780224085847
It’s always a pleasure to discover an author at the very start of their career and if KSC is anything to go by, Robert Hudson is a name you’ll be dropping for years to come. KSC—locally set, but in a sort of parallel world where we not only win the World Cup, but the ‘UK’ team is peopled with doctors and opera singers—is an almost ludicrously ambitious epic of a novel and at over 500 pages will see the most avid reader well over the holidays. Set in the world of football, KSC has love, betrayal and great ideas as its themes. The sort of gift that will delight difficult-to-buy-for husbands, sons, colleagues and anyone you want to impress with your superb taste
Wolf Hall / Hilary Mantel / 4th Estate £18.99 / 9780007230181
A most worthy winner of this year’s Booker Prize, Wolf Hall finds Mantel in superlative form, exploring the point at which individual psychology and politics collide, in this case in the lives of Thomas Cromwell and the array of characters in the court of Henry the Eighth. Utterly gripping, fabulously written and meticulously researched, give to anyone with a passion for the past and an penchant for exploring the great novels of the present.
War Damage / Elizabeth Wilson / Serpent's Tail / £9.99 / 9781846686504
Set in the social reverberations at the end of the second world war, War Damage focuses on the gradual revelation of the flawed past of members of a minor Primrose Hill literary set. Wilson's depiction of a traumatised and shrunken London society trying to make sense of the emerging world is superb and her plotline will delight fans of superior thrillers.
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa / By Hans Silvester / Thames & Hudson / £18.95 / 9780500288054
A simply stunning collection of photography that will earn you major brownie points from recipients this Christmas. You don’t have to be a National Geographic subscriber to appreciate this feast of tribal fashion. Photographer Silvester journeyed to the wild and remote borders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya to record the decorations of the Suma and Mursi tribes, who use the abundant local flora to create the most unexpectedly gorgeous body adornments. But it’s the people themselves that make this book and the grace and beauty of their faces and forms is breathtaking. If you can’t think who to buy this for, then just buy it for yourself; you will not be disappointed. Highly recommended as an inspired and original choice for fashion and photography fans.
London Calling
2009 has seen a plethora of publications which vindicate Dr Johnson's assertion that 'when a man tires of London, he tires of life'. Forget the capital guides aimed at ourists and instead check out these examples of books virtually guaranteed to provide you with novel information or quirky facts that even lifelong inhabitants will never have been aware of.
Not For Tourists Guide To London 2010 / £9.99 / 9780981559148
With its detailed maps followed by various sections such as Arts & Enterntainment, Flat Hunting, For The Kids and Nightlife, this is all self-explanatory, but fascinating and a great stocking filler.
Secret London:An Unusual Guide / Rachel Howard and Bill Nash / Jonglez / £10.99 / 9782915807288
Secret London does what it says on the cover and describes unusal, hidden and little-known aspects of the city, invaluable to flaneurs and psychogeographers alike.
24 Hours London / Marsha Moore / Prospera Publishing / £9.99 / 9780956122292
This contains hour-by-hour suggestions of unusual, sometimes wacky things to do and places to visit, by night and day. Another little gem for the city-dweller's stocking.
Lived In London / Yale University Press / £40 / 9780300148718
Don't wince at the price, this sumptuous edition is worth every penny and makes for a very special Christmas gift indeed. Lived In London carries information and lavish illustrations on the 800 blue plaques that grace the captial. Train-spotting it is not, but you'll have fun mentally ticking off the ones you've personally seen as well as following the movements of favourite figures.
