When all else fails, buy them a book - like
maybe one of these 2007 releases that you might have missed. By
Jenna Schnuer
FOR THE CELEBRITYOBSESSED: A BOOK ON BEING
FAMOUSIn My Blood: Six Generations of
Madness and Desire in an American Family by
John Sedgwick (HarperCollins, $26). A deep depression inspired John
Sedgwick to look at his family history and the mental illness that
runs through his family tree. He found that Sedgwicks have played a
role in American history from the earliest days. Theodore Sedgwick?
Friend of George Washington. Ellery Sedgwick? Ran the
influential Atlantic Monthly
for 30 years. Kyra Sedgwick? Scores high in Six
Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
FOR THE HOME COOK: RECIPES FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE
WELL KNOWN BUT WHO AREN'T CELEBRITY CHEFSAmerican Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic
Recipes, edited by Molly O'Neill (The
Library of America, $40). Lit-minded foodies must make room on
their bookshelves for this comprehensive look at food in America.
It covers everything from what Lewis and Clark downed during their
journey to the modernday organic obsession. It even features what
is believed to be the first-ever recipe for ice cream written by an
American. His name? Thomas Jefferson.
FOR THE TRAVELER: MAPS THAT MAKE YOU
SMARTER Cartographia: Mapping
Civilizations by Vincent Virga (Little,
Brown; $60). Put the borders you've crossed in your personal
travels into historical context. This book is packed with maps from
the Library of Congress that detail how the world has been divvied
up during the last six centuries.
FOR THE NONREADER: A BOOK TO
READHow to Talk about Books You Haven't
Read by Pierre Bayard (Bloomsbury, $20). The author, a
psychoanalyst and a professor of French literature at the
University of Paris VIII, offers help to those of us with holes in
our reading history. "Skimming books without actually reading them
does not in any way prevent you from commenting on them," Bayard
argues. "It's even possible that this is the most efficient way to
absorb books, respecting their inherent depth and richness without
getting lost in the details." Word.
FOR THE WORKOUT FANATIC: THE SPEED-WALKING ROUTINE
YOU'LL NEVER DUPLICATEA Land So Strange:
The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca by
Andrés Reséndez (Basic Books, $27). Not long after Christopher
Columbus did his thing in North America, four shipwrecked men
journeyed from what is now Florida to the West Coast and dealt with
a load of tough tasks along the way, including years of enslavement
in the Southwest. Luckily for modern man, Reséndez is a marvelous
storyteller who makes you feel like you are there - even if you're
really just lying on the couch.
FOR THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND BOOK CLUB: THE BOOK OF
THE YEARThe Hanna-Barbera Treasury
by Jerry Beck (Welcome Books, $45) Admit it: You
still watch The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo still does right by
your funny bone. Well, now you can celebrate all the good that
Hanna- Barbera cartoons were without feeling the least bit silly.
This book looks at the studio's work as art. And art is good for
you.
Holly, Jolly Holiday Tomes
Celebrate the season with two new books that offer
a quirky look at our favorite time of year.
The History of
the Snowman by Bob Eckstein (Simon Spotlight Entertainment,
$15). They sit ever so quietly on front lawns. They grace holiday
cards. They ask for nothing. They're snowmen. Humor writer Bob
Eckstein is finally giving the snowman his due. Packed with
cartoons, loads of info you didn't know you'd want to know (but,
trust us, you do), and wonderful old pictures, The
History of the Snowman is one of the quirkiest and most
charming history books to come along in years. You'll never
nonchalantly stick a carrot in an unsuspecting snowman's face
again.
How to Spell Chanukah … and
Other Holiday Dilemmas, edited by Emily Franklin (Algonquin,
$19). Whether you spell the Jewish holiday Chanukah or Hanukkah or
Hanukah or you don't have any idea how to
spell it at all, you'll find plenty of "that happens in my family,
too" in this book. The Festival of Lights is the jumping- point for
a collection of essays with everything from an obsession with
Christmas to how to handle parents' tchotchkes when they them to
you because they're downsizing to a condo. - J.S.
Kids' Books
Comeback
A Kentucky publishing company is giving new life to lost
children's classics.
By Kristin Baird Rattini
There is no shortage of children's books on the
market. Indeed, when you think of all the kids' books being written
by celebrity authors, it might seem like there are far too many
children's books around these days. So how do you get a book
noticed in a crowded market? A savvy entrepreneur finds a way to
sell something that already has name recognition - something, in
fact, that people are willing to pay a premium to get. Something
like Mr. Pine's Purple House or
Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat.
Yes. Squash-You-All-Flat. Maybe you didn't
read it growing up, but a lot of people did. And now they want to
pass it, and books like it, on to the latest crop of child readers.
That's where Jill Morgan comes in. In 2000, Morgan, a used-book
dealer based in rural Cynthiana, Kentucky, founded Purple House
Press with a simple goal: to revive well-loved children's books
from decades past that had fallen out of print. Since then, she's
had more than simple results. Purple House Press has sold more than
250,000 copies of the books it has revived.
With Purple House Press's 33rd title - Three
Little Horses by Piet Worm - set to hit bookstores in
January, Morgan told us what it takes to unearth these buried
treasures.
How did you get into the business of republishing
out-of-print children's books?
I used to sell out-of-print books. A lot of people requested
Mr. Pine's Purple House by Leonard Kessler.
It was a favorite of mine too. When I first started, it sold for
$25 online. But as demand for the book increased, the price rose to
$300. I thought that was outrageous. I decided to see if the author
would let me reprint it. For the company, that's the greatest
reward - knowing that people have been looking for these books for
so, so long. Now that they're back in print, they can get as many
copies as they want, and the books don't cost a fortune.
Mr. Pine was first
printed in 1965. Was Kessler shocked when you contacted
him?
He was surprised that people remembered Mr.
Pine so fondly, because it had been 30 years since he had
done the book and it had since gone out of print. He decided to
trust me. It worked out well. He has designed the two logos for our
company. He's also become kind of like a surrogate grandfather for
me. I never thought when I was three years old that I would meet
the author of my favorite book.
Is it always that easy to find the authors or
their estates?
No. Usually I end up plugging away on the Internet, searching for
them. For Three Little Horses, the author
lived in the Netherlands. I found the name of the little town where
he was born. I wrote an e-mail to a museum in his town. They gave
me someone else to contact, who then gave me someone else. Finally,
I got a contact for the family.
For those who missed it the first time around,
what's Three Little Horses
about?
It's about little horses that dress up as people and go into town.
It has princesses and horses - every girl's dream.
How do books come to your attention?
A lot of books we've done are those that I remember from when I was
a kid and now have trouble finding. Others were requested by my
customers when I sold out-of-print books.
In that case, you probably hear a lot of,
"There's this really great book …
" Yes. Sometimes people
bring me a book to look at. We've actually found a few books that
way. I've had quite a few people ask me for Miss
Suzy by Miriam Young and Miss Twiggley's
Tree by Dorothea Warren Fox, and it's great to be able to
tell them that we have it already. Miss
Suzy is one of our bestselling books.