A Book for Christmas: Love, Style, Life

 

A ‘lifestyle manual’ sort of book that is actually positive and inclusive seems to me a very rare thing. They so often feel like they’re just a marketing exercise in telling you to buy a Mulberry bag or a pair of stupidly expensive shoes in a very cunning side-eye quasi-inclusive way. But not this one. This particular one is a total joy; beautiful photographs of interesting-looking woman who all do interesting things, and beautiful and honest writing which is very funny.

The author’s blog has been going for years and has always excelled in its witty, light-worn awareness of the slight absurdity of the idea of blogging, and its potential to project a completely unreal version of a perfect life and cause untold angst in others. I had high expectations for the book, and I wasn’t disappointed. Reading it is like going for a drink with your most proper friends who lift you up and make you feel perky, no matter what else is going on. I’m buying it for my teenage cousins who are just getting really into clothes and make up and discovering BOYS, as well as my girlfriends.

 

 

A Book for Christmas: The Hungover Cookbook

I’m very sorry that there wasn’t one of these yesterday, but I was in the depths of the most acute hangover, thanks to a very serious party for Vintage’s 25th birthday. Today’s recommendation is rather led by yesterday’s debilitating pain, which was solved only by wear my hair in bunches (I truly believe that there’s some magic acupuncture-y pressure thing that happens. Try it. You’ll see) and cooking the shakshuka from this book for supper.

I have a massive fondness for THE HUNGOVER COOKBOOK, and believe it to be the perfect present for students and impossible-to-buy-for teenagers. It is gloriously witty in a sort of Wodehousian way which is always exactly what I want when hungover, and more than that, the recipes really really work. They’re short, simple, cater to all tastes and I’m not ashamed to admit that whilst at uni it was the only thing I ever managed to cook from. I was given it along with a Bloody Mary kit the morning after my 21st birthday party and have never looked back since, a present combination that I highly recommend for its immensely pleasing ‘this feels so very grown up’ properties. What are you waiting for?

A Book for Christmas: Spool of Blue Thread

I’m lucky in many things, and especially in Christmas. It is great in lots of way as far as I am concerned: days of hanging with my family who I never see enough of, endless food, booze, family games of Scrabble and Snatch (BETTER THAN SCRABBLE. LOOK IT UP), a hockey match between 6 families on Boxing Day that I pretend to hate but actually love. One of the absolute best things about Christmas is the fact that everyone else has stopped working too. Now that I am in love with a corporate lawyer I know that this isn’t necessarily true for all professions (sigh), but publishing is great for it. There’s a lovely proper pause between Christmas and New Year, and you can hibernate somewhere and read all the books you meant to read over the year.

Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread is one of the ones you probably meant to read this year, whether you worked in publishing or not. If you haven’t meant to read it, may I politely suggest that you really ought to, and pick up her whole backlist whilst you’re at it. She is a wonderful writer, brilliant (in Spool, particularly) on cracks running down and down through generations. But not significant tragic cracks, necessarily — just the small fissures of every day life that make every family slightly bumpy and entirely their own. It is beautifully observed, cleverly written and the perfect novel for curling up by the fireside. If you don’t fall in love with one of the Whitshanks (the family in the book) then I shall worry a bit for your heart. There’s three generations to choose from, and the novel unspools (arf arf) back, revealing the truth behind the stories passed down through the family. I’m not normally a fan of unlinear narrative, but I am a big fan of this, because it makes you think about your own family, see your own long-gone relatives as people who had relationships, made mistakes, did all the stuff you do too.

Plus it is now in paperback, so available from all good bookshops at an eminently reasonable price. Like you need a better reason, but here is one anyway. It was shortlisted for both the Baileys and the Booker this year, which is kind of a big deal. Kablam and pow, one might say.

A Book for Christmas: The Fox and the Star

My beloved father has very sweetly kept every one of my birthday and Christmas lists, a habit I developed aged 3 and have yet to grow out of. There have been two constants over the years: a pony (ages 4-12, when I got one, which was the best day ever) and books of all sorts (still going strong aged 28, though the request for War and Peace for my 10th birthday stands out). Ever since I’ve worked in publishing, I’ve found myself asked ‘What book should I get so-and-so for Christmas?’ The inevitable conclusion of these two seemingly unrelated facts is this: that it might be nice to relieve my constant material desire for more books by writing about what people might like for Christmas here. So, every day until Christmas, that’s what I’ll be doing. A book, a day, with a bit of writing about why I think they’re worth the money.

Today’s inaugural book for Christmas is THE Christmas book this year. It isn’t just me who thinks this — Waterstones have just named it their Book of the Year, and they really know books, I guess.

It is a beautiful fairytale of sorts with the most astonishingly vivid illustrations, by a very talented Penguin designer. It’s charming, it’s touching, and if you don’t believe ME, then please observe my highly scientific findings as follows. So far I’ve given it to an 8 year old (‘A FOX THE FOX IS SO ORANGE’), a 54 year old (‘Oh, it’s got a bit of Angela Carter in it. How beautiful. I didn’t realise people were bothering with books like this’) and there’s one that sits on our big tea chest in our sitting room, which I might have to move because people keep asking if it is ‘one of mine’ (new readers: I’m an editor of non-fiction and cookery) and I feel twinge-y with envy whenever I have to confess that it isn’t. Conclusion? It is a book for everyone. What’s more, it is a real bookshop book: there’s no way, if you pick it up and just open it to any one of the amazing pages, that you won’t then find yourself poddling up to the till and buying it for a very reasonable £14.99. And what’s nicer than unwrapping something entirely beautiful and unexpected under a tree? Nothing, that’s what.  Go and buy one now before everyone else does. In fact, buy two, because you’re going to want to keep one all for yourself.