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A Bookseller’s Wish, and Mine Too!

December 20, 2010 in art, bookstore, gifts, recommended reading by Kim | No comments

Not to be left out of the bookstore holiday video series, Diesel, a bookstore, asked its booksellers to describe a book on each of their gift lists.  I chose to highlight the book Cameron would like to receive if he was only to be given one book (a horrifying thought in and of itself) – In Giacometti’s Studio by Michael Peppiatt-because that book is high on my own gift list.  I really love Giacometti’s artwork.

When I see sculpture, I fight the urge to touch it.  I really think that part of the sculptural experience is feeling it, alas, that isn’t allowed.  I’ve asked curators if they touch the art when no one is around, if that’s a perk of the job.  They look at me a little uncomfortably and don’t answer my question, which I’ve chosen to interpret as “yes” rather than “I think you’re a little nutty.”  Many years ago, it was different at some museums in Europe.

Between taking the California bar and chaining ourselves to a law firm desk, Keith and I traveled to Italy.  Walking through the garden at the Guggenheim in Venice, I noticed a Giacometti and said “Keith, we can touch it!”  Really, it screams to be touched.  If you have seen a Giacometti, you would think it’s heavy.  Wrong.  We reached out and, I guess, pressed too hard.  It wobbled.  We grabbed it, steadied it and broke out into a cold sweat.  Three years later, seated at my law firm desk, I was flipping through a valuation and a statute similar to the one we wobbled was valued at millions of dollars.  Back came the cold sweat.  Every time I see a Giacometti, I’m reminded of those moments.  It’s a testament to my love of Giacometti’s art that I love to look at it despite my emotional response.  In honor of our near catastrophe, I think Keith should get me the book.

Here’s why Cameron at Diesel wants it more than any other book on his holiday wish list:

Check out the Diesel website to see what other books the booksellers are wishing for and talking about.

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A Literary Question For The Gift Giving Season

December 3, 2010 in gifts by Kim | 3 comments

If you give a person a book, what are your expectations about the person reading it?

I have a couple of gift-giving guidelines:  Don’t give me anything from Bed, Bath and Beyond regardless of a stack of 20% off or $5 off coupons.  Never, ever, give me anything alive.  Please don’t give me Chinese themed clothes/items just because Chinese Studies was my husband’s major in college.  My most important gift giving advice-a book is the best gift of all.  I give my family books every year and at least once every Christmas morning, when they unwrap one of them, I ask “what’s the best gift?”  The victim dutifully answers “a book.”  Now that my kids are teenagers, I look away immediately to give them the freedom to roll their eyes.

I already have a list of books I want for Christmas.  As soon as I check it twice to make sure which ones are worthy and which ones are nice, I’ll e-mail it to my husband and my kids.  My husband has survived enough cold Christmases (like the one where he was so excited about the frying pans he gave me that he forgot to give me the coat I had been pining over until the night of the 26th, see the first rule above) to appreciate all the help he can get.  Plus, he and the sales clerk at diesel bookstore become best friends over the phone every December and each book comes beautifully wrapped, by diesel.  My daughter is iffy, she appreciates the help and loves book but has some particular ideas about what I should be wearing, especially now that we can share clothes.

My book list is comprised of books I usually wouldn’t buy for myself.  If there is a book I’d devour in an afternoon or a book I need to read for a discussion or author talk, I’ll buy it.  But there are lots of books I want to have to someday be able to pick up and peruse.  I want to know they’re there for a quiet afternoon or to delve in a topic.  I usually start reading them while we’re still away on Christmas vacation but when I get back home and the list of what has to be read gets longer, these books find cozy locations on my shelves.  They’re not forgotten, in fact they are friends.  Probably 15 years ago at Christmas, my husband gave me When Nietzsche Wept.  I still haven’t read it.  I want to read it, I intend to read it, but haven’t yet.  But every time I see it on the shelves, I feel a warm glow remembering that Christmas morning when he told me how he described me to the bookseller and she suggested he give me this book.

Two years ago, my son gave me four books.  I’ve read one of them.  He asked me over and over when I was going to read the others.  Finally, about August of that year, he said he wouldn’t give me any more books until I read the ones he already gave me.  I reminded him that I read a lot of All Art is Propaganda, a volume of Orwell essays, and that the second volume would be out for Christmas.  He gave me the second volume, Facing Unpleasant Facts, last year at Christmas.  I’ve read much of it.  I know when I mention my list of wanted books, he’ll remind me, by name, of the three I haven’t read yet.

When I give a book it is with the hopes that the recipient will enjoy it.  But, I wonder if part of giving a book is the interchange about it afterward, especially if the giver has read the book and wants to discuss it.  Maybe I should be more diligent about reading books I’m given.  I would love to hear other perspectives.  When you give someone a book (because it is the best gift), do you have expectations about when the recipient should read it?

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The Perfect Mother to Daughter Gift

November 17, 2010 in book review, gifts by Kim | 5 comments

My girlfriend Maria described opening up a cookbook her mother gave her years ago and reading the inscription.  Her mother suffers from dementia.  She said through sudden tears, ‘it had her voice.’  She hadn’t heard her mother’s true voice in many years, and won’t again.  I remembered that moment when I read a blurb about Prudent Advice – lessons for my baby daughter (a life list for every woman) by Jaime Morrison Curtis.  I believe the project started as a blog that Jaime wrote when her daughter was an infant, a list of what she wanted her to know written down as Jaime thought of it.  At first glance, the book is the type that I generally find by the bookstore cash register and might pick up as an impulse buy, then I had a flash of inspiration.  What if I used it as a vehicle for my voice?

Kelsey’s most beautifully wrapped present under the tree this year will be Prudent Advice with my comments written through out.  Where I agree with Jaime, such as item #7 “Make time for the art museum in every city you visit” or #21 “Pay attention to politics” I’ve scribbled “Completely agree” or “this author is a genius” or added a line of exclamation points.  Other places Jaime and I diverge, for #4 “When given the opportunity, wear a costume,” I wrote “couldn’t disagree more, if it’s a costume party, RSVP no.”  For the advice about dogs, I added “a dog will always be happy when you come home, teenagers, not so much.”  For other entries I wrote about her attributes, that she’s a great hugger or what colors her eyes look best with.  There are some places where I admitted I fell short and she should do better than me (writing thank you notes was one example).  I weave in family history, that I sang “Jesus Loves Me” to her every night when she was a baby or a reference to the subway train she didn’t want to rush to.  The author includes a few recipes, I’ll write in a couple of our family favorites on the back cover.

My daughter is 13 years old and I’m not sure how much more she really wants to hear my voice right now.  It occurs to me that this gift may be most valuable after I’m gone, but I’ve always been one who planned ahead.

It takes some time to complete this gift, I’m not through the book but I should make it for Christmas, or her birthday, or sweet sixteen, or graduation (middle school, high school or college).  There’s time.  For a picture of a section I’ve completed, click to the jump page. Read the rest of this entry »

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Start a New Halloween Tradition: All Hallow’s Read

October 30, 2010 in gifts, holiday by Kim | No comments

We’re jumping on Neil Gaiman’s bandwagon, this Halloween give a scary book.  This isn’t to replace trick-or-treating so don’t think you get to eat those bags of bite size Snicker bars all by yourself.  This new tradition is designed to enhance the holiday. All Hallow’s Read couldn’t come at a better time for me.  One child is too old for Halloween, another is going trick-or-treating with friends, and we don’t live on a block that attracts little candy devouring kids.  It looked like the holiday was over for me.  Now I have something plan and look forward to on October 31st, finding appropriately scary books for friends and family.

Need some ideas?  The Guardian asks Kate Mosse for her top 10 ghostly stories and How Stuff Works recommended their All Hallow’s Read picks.  Have some of your own ideas?  Share them with us.  For those of you who are reading this on October 31st at 5PM and are out of Halloween steam, check out Things That Go Boo, a website of scary stories and poems.  Print one out and slip it under a loved one’s pillow for a last minute Halloween treat.

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The Best Baby Shower Gift

July 2, 2010 in childrens, gifts, Uncategorized by Claire | 3 comments

I’m sadly past the age when most of my friends are having babies and it’s been a while since I’ve been invited to a baby shower, so I long ago stopped stocking up on cute little outfits and one-of-a-kind stuffed animals and that kind of thing.  So when my daughter was invited to a baby shower and I completely forgot about it until the last minute, I knew I had to come up with something quickly.

(You may wonder why a 12-year-old girl was invited to a baby shower.  It’s not a teen pregnancy thing.  It’s just that Annie’s social life is always busier and more interesting than mine.  I’ve stopped questioning it.)

So there I am, panicking a little, trying to think of what stores are nearby . . . and then I think, “Oh, wait.  The bookstore!”  I run over to my all-time favorite local Indie, Village Books in the Pacific Palisades, and I head to the back to the children’s corner.  Katie O’Laughlin, who owns the store, once told me that picture books are one of the few things that e-books can’t compete with, so it’s something small bookstores like to keep a good stock of.

I wanted this present to be special since it was coming from Annie, and then it hit me: I should pick out the picture books that meant something to her when she was little (which feels like a minute ago and an eternity ago), the ones that she and I read over and over together because they meant something to us, or just brought us both so much pleasure we never stopped enjoying them.

The second I spotted Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes, it was in my arms.  Both my daughter and I are natural worriers.  We don’t face any new situation without fretting about the various things that might go wrong, the people who might not be friendly, the parking spaces that might not materialize, the food that might not be good . . .  I love that book because it acknowledges that not all kids are carefree and lighthearted.  That was an easy one.

"Our" book

I was tempted to get one of Ian Falconer’s Olivia books because we loved those so much, especially the first one. The drawings and the text are just perfect.  But they’ve become so hugely popular that I worried a little she might already have gotten them.  While I was trying to decide, my son came up and handed me Ferdinand the Bull.  ”You have to give her this,” he said.  ”It’s our story.”  (Ferdinand, for those who don’t remember, is the bull who would rather pick daisies than act like the other bulls.  And, yes, it is our story,)

I also got Jules Feiffer’s I Lost My Bear which is maybe the most fun book to read out loud ever, because the narrator/protagonist is wildly over the top emotional as she searches for her lost teddy bear.  It’s a fun, fun book and I’ve always loved pretty much anything Feiffer’s ever done, for kids or adults.

My memory being what it is, I can’t remember for sure but I think I also got another Kevin Henkes, Sheila Rae the Brave, because that was a real favorite of Annie’s.  So was Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse and Julius the Baby of the World.  Basically you can’t go wrong with Kevin Henkes.

I couldn’t buy every favorite book because there wasn’t money, time or world enough, and I won’t bore you by listing them.  But if you’re a mom or a dad, the next time you need to get a great baby shower gift, think about picking out your own kid’s favorite picture books and writing a little note about why each one was special to him or her.  Even better, take your kid along and let him pick the books out and dictate or write the note himself.   I can’t think of anything more special or more likely to get used over and over again.

Plus it gives you an excuse to go to the bookstore.  And we all like to do that.

Great minds think alike: Kim just reminded me she’s written about her own favorite baby shower book choices.  Check out her top picks.

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