After putting my hopes and wishes out there last Saturday, this week it’s the books that I think would make good gifts for people in my life. Although it should be noted that I actually have already bought the Christmas books for some of these people and they may or may not be books from this list, so if any of who who I buy for are reading this and are surprised because you thought you were getting something different, don’t panic!
First up, the stuff for my sister, who has been reading mommy blogs for twenty years and by extension content about Christianity in its many forms in America. First up The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon. McCammon is an NPR correspondent who grew up in an evangelical family in the Mid West and then went on to cover the Trump presidential campaign. It’s described as part memoir, part investigative journalism looking at the post-evangelical movement. In a similar/adjacent sort of area is This American Ex-Wife by Liz Lenz about the reality of marriage and divorce in America for women, written after Lenz’s own marriage broke up. Incidentally her first book, God Land about the competing forces of faith and politics after the 2016 election is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment.
I think True Story: What Reality TV says about Us by Danielle J Lindemann might be a pretty good gift for some of my friends. This is about American reality tv series, but we’re all people who have watched and dissected reality TV in its many forms over about two decades so I think an analysis of what it tells us about race, class and gender would give us plenty to talk about next time we hang out.
I know there are loads of people who love Parks and Recreation, so I think Welcome to Pawnee by Jim O’Heir aka Jerry/Garry/Larry would be a great gift. It’s a behind the scenes look at the show, with contributions from some of the other stars as well as the showrunners. And it gives me a great excuse to drop a Parks and Rec clip in this post! There’s also another book from the team behind Ghosts – this time it’s Ghosts: Brought to Life with a lot of behind the scenes details of how the show was made and stories from the show. It also means I can put this 10 Questions with Ghosts clip here and it gives me an excuse to watch it again and watch them crack each other up.
There’s a pretty good crop of big name memoirs this year – from the first part of Cher’s (tangent: the audiobook is partly read by Stephanie J Block of Kiss Me, Kate fame, who played Cher on Broadway!), to Al Pacino’s Sonny Boy, the Lisa Marie Presley which I’ve already mentioned and would quite like myself (just not as much as the books I mentioned last week!), Michael Caine’s Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over, a new volume of Michael Palin’s Diaries and Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in One Year.
I always find fiction a bit harder for gifts, but I’ve flagged a bunch of new releases over the last few weeks that I think would make good gifts – from the new Richard Osman We Solve Murders and The Author’s Guide to Murder for mystery readers, The Bells of Westminster for the historical fiction, or the new Matt Haig or a couple of new translated fiction novels which might appeal too.
I’m pretty sure there’s a whole load of books I’ve forgotten, but if they come back to me, there’s enough time for me to write another post I’m running so early! Have a great weekend everyone.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 