Country Style Blog
Friday, 19th December 2014

Books for Christmas gifts

by Kylie Walker

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Country Style’s books writer, Annabel Lawson, shares her suggestions for books for Christmas.


“Books as gifts” was my brief for this blog, so here we go.

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Shaun Usher’s earlier collection of letters was a bestseller. His new compilation, Lists of Note, gets 10 out of 10 for design and the choices are intriguing. Whether your fancy leans towards Marilyn Monroe’s wishlist of lovers or Isaac Newton’s apologetic list of 57 sins he’d committed or Einstein’s measly “conditions” handed out to his first wife, you’ll agree that these fragments, culled from dusty drawers and inside pockets, tell you a lot about the lister and in very little space.

How to Drive  by Ben Collins is biased in favour of manual transmissions, and it occasionally references UK driving styles. That said it’s an expert guide to acquiring noticeably superior skills. The author was the Stig in Top Gear, the helmeted mystery man who tested cars for the irrepressible Jeremy Clarkson, cutiepie Richard Hammond and the rather more adult James May. There are excellent diagrams and statistics. As with so many skills, ‘anticipation’ is the key. Did you know that the driver in the next lane talking on his phone is 23 times more likely to cause damage, injury and death than those who have both hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road?

The anniversary of the outbreak of WWI this year unleashed literally scores of novels recreating the pivotal events. Regeneration by Pat Barker was published more than 20 years ago, yet it remains the novel I treasure most from this genre. You’ll find a copy at most bookshops. “My major theme in all my work is recovery,” says Barker. Her characters, soldiers, doctors, nurses and those who interact with them, must abandon the selves they thought they owned. What follows is most certainly not hope nor redemption. It’s for each reader, individually, to judge what has been gained.

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I was hunting for a book that my sister’s whole family can enjoy and found Harlow & Sage (and Indiana). Brittni Vega uses photographs of her companion animals to tell their story. Harlow’s a weimaraner. Sage, her dachshund pal, is old and dies. Within a week Harlow is presented with Indiana, a confident dachshund puppy. Will they bond? Is it too soon? A loosely stitched feather pillow is the catalyst that brings them together.

Each time I visit my friend Susan in Batehaven she’s mastered yet another craft. The stained-glass windows and tiered waterfall are permanent fixtures. Scrolled wall hangings, stitched bird “paintings” and paper sculptures are handed out to friends to make room for projects in the pipeline. She’s currently into food as an art form. For her I’ve chosen the most visually gorgeous publication I’ve seen this year – Sepia: The Cuisine of Martin Benn. It’s a cookery book from the Sydney restaurant of that name and the creations are more like fine jewellery than actual food. Exquisite.

There’s a WTOP gene in our family (wasting time on puzzles) and the others look to me to find a source that meets our particular requirements. As a clan we are perfectly capable of doing online puzzles but there’s something about a cup of tea in one hand and a pencil in the other that gets the brain in gear. There are two musts: large format and spiral- bound so it lies flat. The New York Times Easy Crossword Puzzles: 50 Monday Puzzles series, edited by Will Shortz, fits the bill. You can buy this series online. Volume 15 is just out. They’re American so you have to know who Red Sox are and be prepared to spell ‘centre’ ‘center’ but, trust me, it’s worth it. These are the best.


Most of the finalists for the Samuel Johnson prize this year were featured in my reviews in the magazine but I missed completely the hands down winner, Helen Macdonald, whose H is for Hawk had everyone, including Britain’s poet laureate, positively babbling. Random House kindly rushed me a copy in time for the blog. It’s a memoir. Macdonald’s father died suddenly and she bought a fledgling goshawk with the intention of taming and training it. She retreated into the avian world as an escape from grief. The judges – I’m sure they won’t mind my saying this - were sophisticated city folk “who, with one exception, wouldn’t know a goshawk from a feather duster”, according to my London correspondent. But the power of Macdonald’s observations and responses simply swept them away.

Earlier this year I was in the wilds of Scotland in a tiny shop that tempted the surrounding spiritual community with chocolates, cheeses and dangerously covetable bits and pieces. I bought a foolscap exercise book covered with gaudy owls. I wrote “Rhianna at 20” on the front cover and shall give it to my pre-pubescent niece. Planning who one will turn into is one of the fun features of growing up and it’s an activity that yanks attention away from screens and the unending present. Rhianna will make her own book and one day look back to Christmas 2014 when her future began. May yours, dear reader, be both happy and fulfilling.

 

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