The holidays won’t be the same this year; but the desire to share a good book won’t change. Exchanging ideas and comfort while we’re hunkered down is a gesture of generosity. It can be a struggle to decide what to give, though, so as we do every year around this time, we’ll have a few weeks of recommendations; this week books that focus on culture, art and food fill the shelves.
Reads that are good for your environment
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 385 pages, $52.50): A beautiful gift edition of the bestseller, full of Indigenous wisdom about our relationship with Mother Earth. “Sweetgrass does not propagate by windblown seed, but by rhizomes … like a memory of something you once knew and want to find again.” A balm for our times.
Field Notes From an Unintentional Birder, Julia Zarankin (Douglas & McIntyre, 255 pages, $24.95): A lovely book about discovering the outdoors and developing an unexpected love for birding after a recent divorce. You could twin this with Feed the Birds by Chris Earley (Firefly, 296 pages, $29.95), a great guide on how to identify 196 bird species you might see around your backyard bird feeder — and how to attract them. Earley lives in Guelph and the book is endorsed by the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
Two Trees Make a Forest, Jessica J. Lee (Hamish Hamilton, 283 pages, $24.95): The winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, Lee writes a beautiful book exploring the connection between her family and the land, growing closer to her ancestral homeland of Taiwan along the way. A wonderful work of nature writing that touches on memoir, travel, history.
A Life on Our Planet, David Attenborough (Grand Central, 266 pages, $33): The legendary naturist, now 94, chronicles witnessing the decline of biodiversity, starting in 1937 when he was 11. He moves through to the future where we are “calling upon nature’s extraordinary resilience to help us brings its biodiversity back from the brink.” Powerful, realistic and hopeful.
Ice Walker, James Raffan (Simon & Schuster, 268 pages, $25): It’s one thing to see images of polar bears in stories about polar ice melting; it’s quite another to understand what they’re going through. Raffan takes a unique approach to engaging our empathy — and, by extension, our concern — by telling the story from the perspective of a polar bear called Nanu. A compelling mix of science and narrative.
Trend setters looking for inspiration
Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, Lana Del Rey (Simon & Schuster, 128 pages, $33.99): Poems and photos from the popular Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter packaged up in a lovely hardcover volume. Features her typewritten pages, including handwritten markups and additions on some.
The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness, Gucci Mane with Soren Baker (Simon & Schuster, 247 pages, $37): First, this book presents well: a gold jacket with embossed title and a heft with its weighty paper. The production is no accident — the hip-hop artist’s publication is intended to be his “playbook for living your best life.” Filled with his personal approach to success with advice on how to “Stop underestimating yourself” or “Embrace every challenge,” and plenty of colour photos of him living his best life.
Home Body, Rupi Kaur (Simon & Schuster, 192 pages, $22): She took the world by storm with her first books of poetry, “milk and honey” and “the sun and her flowers.” Her third book is a blend of her drawings and poetry, filled with poems about nature and nurture — a collection for the times we’re in.
For culture vultures
Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories, Michael Posner (Simon & Schuster, 496 pages, $40): This is a truly unique approach to telling Cohen’s life: longtime journalist Posner conducted hundreds of interviews and, instead of writing them into his own narrative, let those remembering Cohen speak in their own voices. Compelling and intimate.
A Like Vision: The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, Ian Dejardin and Sarah Milroy (Goose Lane Editions, 320 pages, $60): Canada’s Group of Seven artists are perennially popular and still the most recognizable names in Canadian art. This beautifully produced book with full-colour reproductions of the paintings is a co-production with the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and looks at the paintings through the eyes of immigrants or Indigenous people, placing them in a current context. As Milroy writes in her introduction, “These are either the least political paintings ever made (just trees, please, we’re Canadian) or the most — in what they leave out.”
Taschen is known for its beautiful art books that are mostly affordable, although some can run into the hundreds or even, on rare occasions, thousands of dollars. But this year to celebrate its 40th birthday it’s offering $35 books featuring Ai Weiwei, David Hockney, Basquiat, even the Walt Disney Film Archives. Go to taschen.com for the full selection.
The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World’s Most Famous Museum, James Gardner (Grove Atlantic, 394 pages, $44.95): We go to see the paintings and the sculptures, naturally, but the Louvre itself holds an interesting story. This is the first history of the Louvre in English; there are a few images, but really this is the story of the museum, and a deep and interesting read for anyone pining for a visit to its vast galleries and halls.
A Wealth of Pigeons, Harry Bliss and Steve Martin (Celadon Press, 272 pages, $35): Bliss is a cartoonist and cover artist for the New Yorker and Martin is, well, funny. The two have come together to create this rather quirky volume of cartoons, peppered with comic strips featuring the two of them working together. Fun.
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For lovers of fine cocktails
What wine goes with Cheetos? Sancerre. You’d know that if you owned “Big Macs & Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World” by Vanessa Price and Adam Laukhuf (Abrams Books, 240 pages, $31.99), the first book we’re aware of that can finally tell us what to drink with our Lucky Charms.
With bars shuttered, a lot of people’s home cocktail game is tighter than before but, for anyone who wants to get really serious about Instagram-worthy drinks, Natalie Migliarini and James Stevenson’s “Beautiful Booze: Stylish Cocktails to Make at Home” (W.W. Norton, 224 pages, $37) is essential.
“Behind Bars: High-Class Cocktails Inspired by Low-Life Gangsters” (Prestel Publishing, 144 pages, $19.95) is a fresh, beautifully illustrated take on classic cocktails delivered by Vincent Pollard, a cocktail bartender with a Toronto connection. Although he’s currently on sabbatical distilling gin in Colombia, Pollard tended bar here for a decade.
For that friend who loves tasty drinks but doesn’t care for alcohol, Fiona Beckett’s “How to Drink Without Drinking: Celebratory Alcohol-Free Drinks for Any Time of the Day” (Octopus Books, 208 pages, $21.99) is a perfect choice. It’s a pretty book with solid recipes.
Anyone who loves wine and has a fondness for quirky history will enjoy “Uncorked: A Corkscrew Collection,” by Jeremy Franklin Brooke and Marilynn Gelfman Karp (W.W. Norton, 224 pages, $33.95). This beautifully illustrated book chronicles over two centuries of corkscrew history — something we didn’t know we needed until now.
Dinner at home
The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, Marcus Samuelsson (Voracious, 336 pages, $48): One of those cookbooks you can sit down and read through; Samuelsson profiles Black chefs from across the U.S., celebrating them and claiming their place in the evolution of American food. Fascinating history, great storytelling, plus it’s beautifully produced and colourful, with 150 clear, delectable recipes.
The Full Plate, Ayesha Curry (Voracious, 256 pages, $38): The Toronto-born Food Network star is out with her second cookbook, filled with easy, family recipes that riff on familiar themes — burgers, but made with ground turkey; mac and cheese, made with crab — but also include her own recipes for hot sauce and very grown-up cocktails.
Kiin, Nuit Regular (Penguin Canada, 328 pages, $38): A book for the armchair-bound travelling foodie, this is a collection of 120 recipes, but it’s also a collection of essays about Nuit Regular’s growing up in Northern Thailand, summers with her grandmother, hunting with her father. All accompanied by photos shot on location.
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November 28, 2020 at 07:00PM
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Book ideas for lovers of the good life are featured in the first of our holiday book gift lists - Toronto Star
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