If you’re like me, and you still don’t have a clue what you’re giving your family for the holidays this winter, we’ve prepared a gift guide for this winter season. Our choices are tailored to the specific interests of your loved ones, and I’m sure they’ll pass these great books on to you when they’ve finished reading!

For the Sports Enthusiast:

Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker uses his childhood collection of baseball cards to begin each chapter of his nostalgic and heartbreakingly comic memoir. He recounts his experiences growing up in the 1970s–a time marked by Vietnam, Watergate, counterculture, sexual liberation, and stadium rock. Cardboard Gods announces the arrival of a talented new voice in the stadium of big-league memoirs.

For the Music Lover:

Little Blues Book by Brian Robertson

Little Blues Book is a funky celebration of America’s troubadours in the court of hard knocks. With everything from instructions on how to write your own blues song to a chronicle of infamous blues deaths, Little Blues Book has a rhyme, a face, and a word of advice for just about everything life has to offer.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy is expecting a glamorous career in the show industry, complete with catered meals aboard a private jet, when he’s hired by a major record label in 2002. Instead, he finds himself eyeball-deep in mass layoffs, artist contract cuts, and all-time-low sales while in a workplace that embodies both This Is Spinal Tap and The Office. Kennedy’s absurdly hilarious and oddly heartbreaking account of his time in the trenches of the music industry is sure to entertain your favorite music fan.

For the Cocktail Lover/Literature Lover:

Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers by Mark Bailey

“What’s the use of winning the Nobel Prize if it doesn’t even get you into speakeasies?” Sinclair Lewis’ quote begins his section of this entertaining homage to American writing. Bailey’s profiles of forty-three great American writers include a favorite cocktail, true stories of their saucy escapades, and intoxicating excerpts from their literary works. We recommend purchasing two copies–one for the bedside table and one for the bar.

For the Child at Heart/Literature Lover:

What the Dormouse Said: Lessons for Grown-Ups from Children’s Books by Amy Gash

What the Dormouse Said is a compilation of quotes drawn from both classic and lesser-known kid’s books. The book is organized into helpful sections like “Goodness” and “Eating Habits” so you can have a quote handy for every occasion. The collection ranges from the touching  (“An egg, because it contains life, is the most perfect thing there is. It is beautiful and mysterious”) to the humorous (“This sharing business is for the birds”) and will entertain a reader at any age.

For theFoodie:

52 Loaves by William Alexander

After the success of The $64 Tomato, Alexander set out on a quest to produce a perfect loaf of bread. Alexander’s journey takes him through the back alleys of Morocco, a monastery in Normandy, the famed École Ritz Escoffier in Paris, the New York State Fair, and his own backyard. An original take on the six-thousand-year-old staple of life, 52 Loaves explores the nature of obsession, the futility of trying to re-create something perfect, and the mysterious instinct that makes every person on the planet, regardless of culture or society, respond to the aroma of baking bread.

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home by Bill Smith

A favorite restaurant of many in Chapel Hill, Crook’s Corner has received national acclaim from The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Travel & Leisure, and The Washington Post since it first opened its doors in 1982. Bill Smith, the chef at Crook’s Corner for over a decade, serves up a variety of recipes from his own collection. Readers can now try to recreate the classic, up-scale Southern dishes they enjoy at Crook’s Corner from their own kitchens.

Maman’s Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan

Award-winning chef Donia Bijan begins her memoir with her childhood in the midst of the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, as her family is forced to flee their home in Tehran. She continues her story with memories of her teenage years in America, her studies at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and her life as a successful chef in San Francisco. Sprinkled throughout her book, Bijan shares recipes that blend her life experiences: Ratatouille with Black Olives and Fried Bread, Purple Plum Skillet Tart, Roast Duck Legs with Dates and Warm Lentil Salad, and twenty-seven other delicious dishes.

Man With a Pan: Culinary Adventures of Fathers Who Cook for Their Families by John Donohue

My dad is an excellent chef, and while I didn’t grow up like Mario Batali’s kids did, feasting on monkfish liver and foie gras, I went to bed with a full stomach and a happy heart every night. My dad would likely find community within this collection of twenty-one essays by esteemed writers and chefs including Batali, Peter Kaminsky, Mark Bittman, Stephen King, and Jim Harrison. This entertaining collection features more than sixty recipes, some mouth-watering, others titled “A Pretty Good Cake” or “Whole Roast Cow.”

For the Naturalist:

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

With beautiful detail, Bailey recounts her experiences with a Neohelix albolabris– a common woodland snail. Sick and bedridden, Bailey observes a wild snail living on her nightstand and begins to explore the meaning of her own confined place in the world. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating examines not only human existence, but any kind of life, with grace and wit.

Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects by Amy Stewart

Following her award winning Wicked Plants, Stewart profiles over one hundred of our worst insect enemies. From the world’s most painful hornet to millipedes that stop traffic, from “bookworms” that devour libraries to Japanese beetles that munch on roses, Wicked Bugs will have even your toughest cousin waking up from nightmares of six- and eight-legged creatures.

The Music of Wild Birds: An Illustrated, Annotated, and Opinionated Guide to Fifty Birds and Their Songs by Judy Pelikan

My mom’s best friend is an avid birder with a whole windowed room in her house dedicated to bird-watching. I can only differentiate between birds by taste: chicken, turkey, duck, etc. The Music of Wild Birds remarkably appeals to both the novice and experienced birder alike. Pelikan takes her readers inside the world of bird music. Learn how to identify a bid by its song–and then how to sing back to it by following musical scores.

For the Fashionista:

Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman

In her New York Times bestselling memoir, Ilene Beckerman uses her changing wardrobe to tell the story of her life in Manhattan during the 1940′s and ’50′s. She navigates marriage, divorce, and motherhood with good humor and fabulous clothes. This pithy book is packed with brightly colored illustrations and fashion-inspired anecdotes–some of them comical, and some of them poignant. Love, Loss, and What I Wore is a celebration of love, life, and womanhood.

For the Gardener:

Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart

When I was in middle school, I watered a neighbor’s plants over winter break while they vacationed.  They paid me with a gift certificate to a local music store, which I used to purchase The Backstreet Boys’ “Millennium” album.  Had they given me this book instead, I might have developed a greater awe and appreciation for botany. Stewart, who tends a poison garden of her own, takes on a tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war in a book that is sure to inform and entertain.

French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France by Richard Goodman

Few would have the courage to pack up and move from New York to a small village (small = population of 211) in France for a year, but Goodman did.  He begins to work as hired hand in his neighbors’ fields in an effort to make friends, and this sparks within him a yearning for his own plot of land. French Dirt details the love story between a man and his garden, as well as the growing friendship between an American outsider and a close-knit community of French farmers.

A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names by Douglas Brenner & Stephen Scanniello

A poetry professor once instructed me never to write about flowers. He clearly never read A Rose by Any Name. Encompassing art, literature, science, technology, history, and everything in between, the stories behind rose varieties include enough curiosities, romance, tragedy, wit, mystery, scandal, and earthy delights to satisfy even the most nit-picky of critics.

For the Armchair Traveler:

Very Charleston: A Celebration of History, Culture, and Lowcountry Charm by Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

Gessler’s guide and illustrations are every bit as charming as the city of Charleston itself.  From winding cobblestone streets and lush gardens to schooners and sailboats, no page in this book disappoints.  Each of Gessler’s wonderful watercolors is accompanied by fascinating facts about Charleston.

It was a beautiful spring day in May and our publisher, Elisabeth Scharlatt, hosted a pre-event luncheon at her home in Southport, Connecticut. Author Stephen Scanniello, Ginny Arndt (director of programming for the Pequot Library), Carolan Workman, and myself enjoyed gazpacho, poached salmon, and farm-fresh hard-boiled eggs with stinky cheese and crackers. We sipped wine and ice coffee and chatted excitably about the roses, among other things.

While some of us meandered over ice cream and berries, Stephen and Elisabeth went out in the yard to scout the best place to plant the rosebushes that he had brought for her. A fine place was found along the white picket fence in front of the house. Stephen and Elisabeth dug in and within moments the bush was planted. Gardening has never looked so easy!

Stephen brought TWENTY rosebushes as prizes to be raffled off after the event, to earn money for the library. The lucky winners in the audience went home with a rose bush (or two!), accompanied by a flier describing the name of the plant and its required care. All were roses that appeared in A Rose By Any Name.

The event itself was great fun. In the old, beautiful meeting room of Southport’s Pequot Library, Stephen told tales of rosebushes once lost then found, scandalous re-namings of roses, and how he has worked with various organizations to preserve, protect, and bring back roses in danger of being lost forever. Oddly, many of his slides included cemeteries (where some of the best rosebushes can be found). It became apparent that Stephen makes a habit of scouting roses wherever he goes, sometimes showing a slide of a rosebush he pulled over the side of the road to photograph because he couldn’t believe that some obscure rose was growing amok in somebody’s yard. Stephen’s delight was contagious. He followed the presentation with a book signing, although I stole his attention for one moment to get the lowdown on the Souvenir d’Anne Frank rose bush I won in the raffle for my mother.

After a long and pleasant day, Stephen bade us good-bye, soon on his way to Paris to be a judge in the International New Rose Trials at the Jardins de Bagatelle.

- Andra

For Her

Going Away Shoes
By Jill McCorkle

Eleven short stories, full of longing and laughter, from the “guardian angel of short fiction.”

The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World
By Betsy Block

A humorous, life-changing book on mom’s mission to achieve the ultimate of all makeovers: improving the family meal. Complete with helpful charts, food lists, recipes, tips, and suggested culinary and farm programs for kids.

Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance
By Nancy Verde Barr

Casey Costello, an executive chef at morning television show, is too busy for men…that is until she’s unexpectedly whisked off her feet by the adorable Danny O’Shea, a rising chef from Ireland who seems like he may be more trouble than he’s worth.

For Him

Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court
By Roy Williams with Tim Crothers

An inspiring memoir from the head coach of the UNC Tar Heels Men’s Basketball team.

Boone: A Biography
By Robert Morgan

This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years.

Far Bright Star: A Novel
By Robert Olmstead

Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman,  leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice.

For the Gardener

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
By Amy Stewart

An A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names
By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

With full-color art throughout, this eclectic little volume is a marvelous miscellany starring what is arguably the world’s most popular flower.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden
By William Alexander

Part humor tale and part garden memoir, The $64 Tomato follows Bill Alexander on his journey from organic idealist to pragmatic food producer, and from eager backyard gardener to tired gentleman farmer–taking time along the way to reflect on ecology, nature, and the meaning of it all.

For the Foodie

The Feasting Season
By Nancy Coons

Meg Parker is a harried mom in a lackluster marriage until she lands a dream assignment: to write a guidebook about French history. Follow her adventures as lamb daube, paella and rosé, bull steak and anchioade, Brebis and strawberries awaken her senses.

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South
By John T. Edge

Spark a delicious road-trip with this guide to savory, Southern restaurants!

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home
By Bill Smith

Structured around the seasons and the freshest seasonal foods, this cookbook offers up marvelously uncomplicated recipes— Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Pork Roast with Artichoke Stuffing, and his signature dish, Honeysuckle Sorbet—the new bistro food of the South.

For the 20-Something

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
By John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance

The exuberant story–in words and pictures–of a much-loved indie record label that, despite the odds, has become a major success story.

Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers
Illustrated by Edward Hemingway; Text by Mark Bailey

The perfect blend of classic cocktail recipes, literary history, and tales of the good old days of extravagant Martini lunches and delicious excess.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad
By Dan Kennedy

Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he’s directing a gangsta rapper’s commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy’s in way over his head in this power-ballad to office life and rock and roll.

For the Travel Enthusiast

A  Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
By Marlena de Blasi

In search of the rhythms of country living, Marlena and her husband move to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. Together, they discover the soul of Tuscany and explore all the land has to offer.

Very Washington DC: A Celebration of the History and Culture of  America’s Capital City
By Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation’s capital city. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers.

New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
By Andrei Codrescu

New Orleans has been author Andrei Codrescu’s hometown for over twenty years. This collection of essays is an epic love song , a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

For the Pet Lover

My Therapist’s Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love
By Diana Wells

An intriguing exploration into the rewards of relationships–both the canine and human varieties–begins when the author agrees to dog-sit for her therapist. What follows is an exploration of our canine connection: what we name our dogs, how we breed them, how we’ve explored the wilderness with them, the kinds of literature we write about them, why we love them, and, most important, what we can learn from them.

First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends
By Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis

A lighthearted romp through American history, packed with drawings and paintings from early America, plus photographs, starting with Abraham Lincoln’s Fido all the way to Obama’s Bo.

Enslaved by Ducks
By Bob Tarte

Bob gets more than he bargains for when he marries Linda and moves to rural Michigan: there’s Binky, a belligerent rabbit who craves high voltage wires; Ollie, a tyrannical parakeet who brutally attacks the Tartes; and Stanely Sue, the gender-bending parrot; and more. This hilarious account gives us the other side of animal ownership: the complicated logistics of blending species under one roof, the intricate routines that evolve before you realize it, and ultimately, the distinct and insistent personalities of every animal inside—and outside—the house.

-christina