![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/suzette-1.jpg\")
<\/a>My great Norton rep Suzette Cianco was at the store today attempting to stop me from writing this post by showing up for an appointment in the afternoon before I could make time to write this, literally forcing me to do it in the late evening. Who knew she could be so evil?<\/p><\/div> The residents of DDG’s holiday gift guide are presented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPreparing for the Holiday Season, like getting ready for a long hike, has a pronounced way of sharpening our focus and attention. For me, nothing brings the year more sharply into view than preparing our holiday gift guide, which is composed of 20 books in 10 different categories. At this point you may be thinking, “aren’t you a bit of an ass, Kenny, to do all that work, selecting titles and writing blurbs? Why not just use a regional gift guide like a sensible bookseller?”
\nI actually don’t know the answer to that. You may be right, but I’ve done it this way for more years than there are books in the catalog. Here is my not entirely spurious reasoning. I provide the book section to two local newspaper gift guides, 10 for each paper, so it gets big circulation to the community at no cost to me. Most importantly, though, I consider it the core of our handselling strategy for the season, and the singular embodiment of both core missions of every bookseller. We are here to promote what we love, and also to provide what the community is interested in. Many times those are two separate categories. For the Holiday 20, though, I strive to pick books which we are completely behind and love, yet which will also make highly successful holiday gifts.
\n
\n<\/a>Every year some sections are a bit of stretch in terms of meeting that standard, I wasn’t entirely happy with humor, for example. Still, you can’t have a Crap Taxidermy<\/em> every year. At the same time, middle grade and YA were overrun with stellar choices this year. Other sections were easy because two store favorites stood out from among their peers in stark fashion, like Fiction. Other sections, like Non-Fiction, were more of a challenge, in that my favorite books were a little out of the norm in the holiday cheer department. Nonetheless, Killers of the Flower Moon<\/em> is such a potent reading experience that I still think it makes a great gift even though you would be hard pressed to find a bleaker account of human behavior. Rabbit<\/em>, too, is an unusual book. It stretches the reader in unexpected ways, sustaining humor and humanity across a heartrending personal landscape with an iron clarity and a lack of sentimentality. It’s ridiculously funny and challenges the reader to understand how Ms. Pat is pulling that off exactly. If you don’t love the book you are not paying attention, is my feeling.
\nAs with any holiday guide, regionalism rears its self-involved head, but I think books such as Enduring Heights<\/em> and Lost Kitchen<\/em> have real interest for people “from away” as we say in Maine. In any case here are my Holiday 20 picks.
\nCookbooks:<\/strong>
\n<\/a>The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine<\/strong>
\nby Erin French (Clarkson Potter)<\/em>
\nThe Moosewood Restaurant Table: 250 Brand-New Recipes from the Natural Foods Restaurant That Revolutionized Eating in America<\/strong>
\nby the Moosewood Collective ( St. Martin’s Griffin)<\/em>
\nFiction:<\/strong>
\nThe City of Brass
\n<\/strong>by S.A. Chakraborty (Voyager)<\/em>
\nThe Resurrection of Joan Ashby<\/strong>
\nby Cherise Wolas (Flatiron)<\/em>
\nNon-Fiction:<\/strong>
\nKillers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI<\/strong>
\nby David Grann (Doubleday)<\/em>
\n<\/a>Rabbit: the Autobiography of Ms. Pat<\/strong>
\nby Patricia Williams (HarperCollins<\/em>)
\nMaine Interest:<\/strong>
\nThe Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit<\/strong>
\nby Michael Finkel (Knopf)<\/em>
\nEnduring Heights: The High Peaks of Maine<\/strong>
\nby John and Cynthia Orcutt (Schoolhouse Gallery)<\/em>
\nHoliday Books:<\/strong>
\nThe 12 Sleighs of Christmas<\/strong>
\nby Sherri Duskey Rinker, illus. by Jake Parker <\/em>(Chronicle)
\nEmmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas<\/strong>
\nby Russell Hoban, illus. by Lillian Hoban (Doubleday)<\/em>
\nGift Books:<\/strong>
\n<\/a>The Naturalist’s Notebook: An Observation Guide and 5-Year Calendar-Journal for Tracking Changes in the Natural World Around You<\/strong>
\nby Nathaniel T. Wheelwright, Bernd Heinrich (Storey Publishing)<\/em>
\nCoffee Table Books:<\/strong>
\nNational Geographic the Photo Ark: One Man’s Quest to Document the World’s Animals<\/strong>
\nby Joel Sartore, (National Geographic Society)<\/em>
\nHumor:<\/strong>
\nVacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches<\/strong>
\nby John Hodgman (Viking)<\/em>
\nBless This Mother-Effing Home: Sweet Stitches for Snarky Bitches<\/strong>
\nby Katie Kutthroat (Sourcebooks)<\/em>
\nYoung Adult:<\/strong>
\n<\/a>Warcross<\/strong>
\nby Marie Lu (Putnam)<\/em>
\nThis Is Not the End<\/strong>
\nby Chandler Baker (Disney-Hyperion)<\/em>
\nMiddle Grade:<\/strong>
\nThe Apprentice Witch<\/strong>
\nby James Nicol (Scholastic\/Chicken House)<\/em>
\nNevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow<\/strong>
\nby Jessica Townsend (Little, Brown)<\/em>
\nPicture Books:<\/strong>
\nNibbles the Book Monster<\/strong>
\nby Emma Yarlett (Kane Miller)<\/em>
\nThe Legend of Rock Paper Scissors<\/strong>
\nby Drew Daywalt, illus. by Adam Rex (HarperTeen\/Balzer + Bray)<\/em>
\nIf you are interested in seeing my blurbs for these books, they are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"