More and more, I feel a book, preferably a good book, is pretty close to perfect as far as gifts go. Even if a person on your gift list isn’t what you would call an avid reader, you might stimulate their curiosty just enough to get them interested in how reading can enhance their lives. A book is also something a friend might want to keep around for awhile and every its read, they’ll think about who gave it to them. Consider these for a Christmas gift.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut – Part comedy, part tragedy, this is Vonnegut’s take on the silliness and creepy confusion of the modern world we live in. His writing and wit are both as sharp as a knife and his insightfulness of the human condition will make you think about things from a slightly different perspective.
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway – Hemingway has been out of favor with the smart circle for the past decade or so, and to be honest, I don’t think I would have liked the guy all that much if I’d known him, but, I think his sparingly simple writing style is like a cool splash of water that wakes you up after reading too many wordy and long winded authors. A Moveable Feast is a look at what it was like in Paris almost a century ago but really, it’s what it’s like to be young and capable of documenting it well.
Ulysses by James Joyce – The polar opposite of Hemingway’s style, Joyce is like a fine wine that should be appreciated over a long expanse of time. Ulysses is a big book, both in length and content. On one level, it documents the lives of Dubliners on a summer day, on another, it’s a commentary of human faults and that part of each of us that’s our own; our inner voice that’s always pulling us one way or another while trying to make sense of the world around us. It’s like a really good piece of music in that you find something new each time you read it.
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami – Actually, anything by Murakami would make a good present but this short story collection by the Japanese author is a good introduction to his style. He has that rare ability to transport the reader somewhere between reality and the supernatural and most people who enjoy good writing will enjoy the ride. There’s a certain freshness to his writing that’s hard to quantify and that’s just what makes his works so interesting.
The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter – Here again, any of the Inspector Morse series by Dexter would make a good gift for the person who likes detective fiction and in particular, British detective fiction. I was a huge fan of the Inspector Morse series on PBS and progressed to the novels. His books are a sort of time capsule of Britain of the Eighties and Nineties; pre 9-11, pre facebook and before the world went 24/7.