Retail stores are decking the halls, restaurants are booking
parties, and neighbours are balanced precariously on ladders, adorning their
homes with strings of lights. With the holiday season right around the corner,
it’s time for savvy shoppers to start compiling that all-important shopping
list, and instead of resorting to the boring old scarf or gift certificate for
your hard-to-buy-for brother or dad, why not offer up a literary gift: a book.
We’ve compiled a list of 12 good reads for 12 different people on your shopping
list, making two suggestions each week: husbands, wives, crazy uncles and
aunts, teenage boys and girls, tiny tots, the boss, your American (pro-Obama)
friend, the foodie, the family nature nut and local political junkie. Happy
reading!
For the Wife – One Fifth Avenue , by Candace Bushnell
Whether or not women admit it, the Sex and the City entourage — the book, the TV show, the movie, the other books by same author — all sit on most ladies’ list of Things You Would Never Mention If You Were Trying to Impress Someone But Yeah You Really Actually Enjoy.
One Fifth Avenue , Candace Bushnell’s fifth book about the lives of New York’s social elite, falls right back into that category.
This time around, Bushnell’s characters have traded in their purses for apartments as the ultimate status symbol. Most are married, middle-aged, or even old. There is the high-strung magazine editor, the over-40 movie star trying to figure out her place in show biz, and the lawyer who renounced her successful career to become a trophy wife.
But — like Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte — the characters in One Fifth Avenue are still desperately trying to climb the social ladder armed with all the money, power or connections they can land their paws on.
As one gentleman in the novel says on the opening pages: “New York never changes. The characters are different but the play remains the same.”
In case you did not guess it from the title, the novel takes place inside an exclusive building located along stylish Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. Characters lean over terraces in the art deco building, trim prize-winning roses or take their well-bred terriers for walks along the “commoner” streets outside. (It probably does not need to be said, but this is not a book any man would ever, ever, ever want to read).
The plot is loose: The very rich, very ancient grand dame living in the coveted penthouse suit dies, and the characters scramble to claim her spot. Sprinkled on top is a love triangle.
Like her other books, Bushnell’s focus is on the behaviours of the rich and the “fabulous”. She goes heavy on apartment descriptions, giving each living quarter a human-like quality. And, nice surprise, the bestselling author also takes a tough look at the ironies of the big money lifestyle.
I am not someone’s wife — and I am definitely not a husband at 6 p.m. on Dec. 24 — but Bushnell’s latest on New York society would appeal to a wide range of female significant others.
Even if the Wife is more into Burton and Kona than Coco Chanel, Prada and Manolo Blahnik.
– Claire Piech
For the Crazy Aunt – The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
Welcome to the underbelly of India, 21 st Century-style.
Told straight from the desk of narrator — and murderer — Balram Halawi, The White Tiger takes an intense look at the injustices within Indian society. Expect no saffron smells in these saris. This is a place of Microsoft call centre workers, corrupt politicians, and over-worked rickshaw drivers.
First-time author Aravind Adiga tells Halawi’s story through a series of seven letters addressed to “His Excellency Wen Jiabao”, a premier from China who is planning a trip to India.
As the novel progresses, Halawi explains to the premier how he went from being a “small belly” taxi driver to being a self-employed “big belly” businessman by killing his employer.
“When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and became one of its most successful (though probably least know) businessmen, you will know everything there is to know about how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious twenty-first century of man,” writes Halawi from a hole in the wall office in Bangalore.
“The century, more specifically, of the yellow and the brown man. You and me.”
Adiga’s writing is awkward, in the best sense of the world awkward. Grammar takes a back seat to expression, and the narrator Halawi admits to having never finished school. As a result, you can almost hear Halawi speaking off the page as he dissects the world he lives in.
The White Tiger
has
received high acclaim since being released this year, and Adiga took home the
esteemed 2008 Man Booker Prize. Before writing
the novel, Adiga worked as a
Time Magazine
correspondent. He also made a name for himself as a
financial journalist and has published pieces in
The Financial Times,
Money,
and
Wall Street Journal.
Buying for your “Crazy Aunt,” or even your normal aunt, can be tough. But Adiga’s novel — packed with themes, culture and offbeat writing — is an easy present for any fervent reader, falling along the lines of Eat, Pray, Love ; Life of Pi ; or The Kite Runner .
At the very least, the Aunt can bring it up at her next book club meeting.
– Claire Piech
