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.

December is one of my favorite times of year. For many of us, it means time to bring out the Bing Crosby songbook, time to unearth the scary Christmas napkins that look as if Santa’s had one too many eggnog. . . Time to break out the leggings and the dresses to go with the leggings and indulge in holiday noshings like mulled wine, pumpkin pie and endless hors d’oeuvres (I’m of the firm belief that sometimes, a dinner composed of nothing but holiday hors d’oeuvres is the way to go).

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For many of us, December is also time to celebrate Chanukah! I’ve been a bit lax in terms of celebrating the holiday over the past few years but this was my first year celebrating with a significant other. However, since I’ve been a bit remiss in the celebrating of said holiday, this year’s Chanukah started a bit off kilter. Past attempts at Chanukah have included lighting candles over pieces of tinfoil as RAs watched fretfully (freshman year of college–no candles in the dorms allowed) and a failed batch of potato pancakes in Charlottesville one year (who knew you had to squeeze the water out of the potatoes to make them crisp?!).

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This year, though, I was in a bit of a pickle. Hours before sundown, I realized I was sans menorah and clueless as to where to purchase one in Durham. Fortunately, our good friends down the hall (isn’t that what neighbors are for?) came in at the last minute with wine and menorah in hand. They’re inter-faith, just like we are, and while the Peanuts Christmas album played in the background, we lit our candles, said our blessings, and toasted the night away.

–Megan Fishmann, publicist

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Happy Holidays to all! In honor of Chanukah, please enjoy this fabulous story on the holiday by Steve Almond from How to Spell Chanukah, a collection of 18 essays on the holiday edited by Emily Franklin.

How to Spell Chanukah

Joshua Braff celebrates the holiday in his essay “The Blue Team.”

“What a holiday! No pestilence, no slavery, no locusts, no cattle disease or atonement. No synagogue, no guilt, no mortar, and no real lesson to be absorbed and passed down to my Jewish offspring. Thank God.”

Read the full piece below.

-KatieHow to Spell Chanukah Excerpt

Christmas in the South & A Dixie Christmas: Stories set in the heart of the holiday season, from the South’s best writers, including Rick Bass, Ellen Gilchrist, Lynne Barrett, Clyde Edgerton, and more. These two volumes from Algonquin go perfectly with a cup of eggnog and a warm fire.

How to Spell Chanukah: Essays by 18 Jewish writers who extol, excoriate, and expand our understanding of this most merry of Jewish holidays. This little book proves there are as many ways to celebrate Chanukah as there are ways to spell it!

Cookie Craft Christmas: Packed with more than 60 new Christmas cookie designs to brighten up any holiday table. Full-page close-up photography, detailed decorating instructions, and plenty of recipes make this handy little sourcebook a must have for all of your holiday baking.

Christmas Sing-A-Long Car-I-Oke: Its caroling for the car! Complete with 4 sets of lyrics and an enclosed CD to keep everyone caroling in tune. Don’t go over the river and through the snow without it.

NPR Holiday Favorites: If caroling isn’t for you, then take these two disks from NPR, filled with favorite radio moments from the holidays, including David Sedaris’ now classic “Santaland Diaries,” his account of playing Santa’s little helper at Macy’s in New York.

-Katie