In my time owning a book and music shop in Perth, many of my favourite memories are from the holiday season. What still stands out in my memory, after all these years, is that most everyone who walked in the door was smiling and rosy-cheeked and happy. It didn’t matter if they had just stumbled in from a blustery snowstorm. When folks are thinking about finding a special gift that will be make their loved ones happy, their default is cheerful. They look lit from within by joy. And that joy is contagious. It’s a truly lovely thing.
Now, I’d say half those people knew exactly what they wanted to gift their loved ones. Roughly half, though, had only a vague idea, and they were never shy about asking me for help.
“My wife wants a good cookbook,” a gentleman would tell me. “Trendy or classic?” I’d ask. “Definitely classic.”
I’d lead him to Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Berthole and Simone Beck.
It is for people like this that I enjoy recommending books for the holidays — books I’ve enjoyed this year, books other writers can’t stop raving about, books with glowing reviews, books readers and critics alike seem to have thoroughly enjoyed, and even a few books not too many people are talking about (yet). So, here we go.
My top, absolutely no-doubt, five-star recommendation is In the Field, a superb collection of essays written by Kingston’s Poet Laureate Sadiqa de Meijer. De Meijer — who won the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction for her memoir, alfabet/alphabet — has recently been touring In the Field at festivals and bookshops across Ontario, and the one word I keep hearing to describe the book (from booksellers, writers, and audiences alike) is “brilliant.” And that it is.
In The New Quarterly, Pamela Mulloy observed that de Meijer’s essay After Etty is, as an act of curiosity and homage, “a philosophical pilgrimage.” It’s true that all nine essays in this collection are philosophical in nature. They are also gorgeously, poetically written, insightfully and intimately observed, compelling, and at times playful. Whatever the subject — losing a notebook; an enlightening, exhausting stint in medical school; a spiritual journey retracing the steps of a Dutch Jewish writer and Holocaust diarist — de Meijer’s inquisitiveness and sharp mind shine; throughout this exceptional collection she writes with warmth and skill, and we’re gifted views of the world through her keen eyes and empathetic voice. These are world-class essays by a writer with extraordinary powers. I found After Etty — de Meijer’s heartfelt essay about Esther Hillesum — so deeply powerful and moving, I immediately started looking for Hillesum’s diary and letters. Thankfully, they remain with us in Hillesum’s book: An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork.
You can buy In the Field online directly from its publisher, Palimpsest Press palimpsestpress.com. They currently have it on sale. The book happens to be 169 pages and smaller, as trade paperbacks go, so that it fits snugly into the back pocket of my carpenter jeans — that to say, it’s the perfect fit for a Christmas stocking!
Next up, I heartily recommend two fascinating memoirs by acclaimed writers: Cameron Crowe’s The Uncool and Susan Orlean’s Joyride. Crowe’s journey has been a remarkable one — from his teenage years, when he toured America with some of the most famous musicians of the ’70s and wrote for Rolling Stone (he was fifteen years old!), through to his career as a beloved Hollywood writer-director — and he very charmingly chronicles all that (and a lot more) in The Uncool. In a quirky, charming way, Crowe’s writing is masterful storytelling and — precisely because he’s not trying to be, I think — singularly cool.
Susan Orlean’s story is not unlike Cameron Crowe’s. Both got some lucky breaks along the way, and both worked very, very hard at something they loved and dearly wanted to do. They followed their creative callings, and at an early age they each found exhilarating success. Joyride gives us an intimate look at Orlean’s fortunate and sometimes tumultuous personal life and her storied career as an ambitious, unflinching, and masterful journalist. This memoir would be the perfect gift for the aspiring writer in your life. Like her previous best-selling books — The Orchid Thief among them — this one is filled with joy, fascinating people, and unforgettable stories as well.
I think the best novel I read this year was Lily King’s Heart the Lover. So when it comes to fiction, I certainly recommend it. The novel tells the story of three people caught in a love triangle. Essentially. And it begins as a campus novel that hooks you from the get-go with vivid, intimate writing. The middle part of the book takes place decades later, when “Jordan,” the narrator (Jordan is her nickname), is a successful writer with a family and gets a visit from one of her lovers from college days. That’s gripping as well. But it’s the third section of this superb novel that will have you sobbing and sobbing, breathless, even frightened. I’ll stop there. Heart the Lover is a masterpiece of raw emotion, intense storytelling, and all the beautiful and scary complications that come with love and life’s most difficult realities.
Poetry collections always make a fine gift, I think. Often people won’t buy them for themselves, but they appreciate them as meaningful gifts. I have two stellar collections to recommend, both by talented contemporary Canadian poets — We’re Somewhere Else Now by Robyn Sarah and Wellwater by Karen Solie. Both collections shimmer with insight and truth about the beauty, sorrow, and contradictions of the human experience.
Our congratulations, too, to local author Alyssa Delle Palme, as her 2023 novel Summer at Pine Lake has been named a finalist for the 2025 Canadian Book Club Awards, one of the country’s largest readers’ choice awards.
Whatever books you’re picking up as gifts this holiday season, may they be warmly received and thoroughly enjoyed. Happy reading, and happy holidays, everyone!