Four New Books Suitable for the Gifting
Manolo says, the holidays, they are upon us like the hungry red-and-green colored lion! Quick, you must make it happy by purchasing gifts of merit!
Thus, here are four books published in the past year that are worth giving to the people about whom you care.
1.
The duchess of smart Mediterranean cooking books, Claudia Roden, is back with this worthy entry, The Food of Spain.
2.
It is no secret that the Manolo is intensely fond of the comic novel, and this book about the pair of sibling hired killers, The Sisters Brothers, is the best comic novel of the past year.
3.
For the gardening gnome in your life, what better gift than The Founding Gardeners: How the Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden, where they were learn that Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the flowering acacia to be “the most delicious flowering shrub in the world.” (And who knew those things were even edible!)
The Manolo loves this comprehensive book, FASHION: 150 Years of Couturiers, Designers, Labels by the Charlotte Seeling. It is encyclopedic without being dull and dry, and has pretty pictures by the score. This would be the perfect thing for the young person who has the deep interest in the fashion, but little knowledge of its history.
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Comments
thea 13 years ago
To heck with gifts, I NEED “Fashion” and can we petition the producers of Project Runway to make it required reading for every contestant?
It makes me want to commmit designercide when some wannabe designer gives Tim Gunn a blank stare when he mentions the Beatles Sgt Pepper look, or doesn’t know the difference between an Elizabethan and a Victorian silhouette….
Any knowledge of Mainbocher or Chanel or Schiaparelli would be as distant as the Moon to these ‘fashionistas’
It is to weep….
Unovis 13 years ago
The Founding Gardeners looks wonderful. I’ve added it to my “want” list.
You might be interested, come January, in a book coming out about these early gardeners and botanical explorers and their exchanges with England — Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia, 1740-1840 (Yale U. Press). The illustrations are fantastic–of books, drawings, paintings, and decorative arts–and the text is fascinating.