Elizabeth Loupas

It’s Christmas Eve at last, and this wonderful book is a celebration of the charming 19th-century poem we all learn as children:

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

First published anonymously in the Troy, New York, Sentinel on December 23, 1823, “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” (more commonly known from its first line, as “The Night Before Christmas”) is credited with pretty much single-handedly (or single-footedly—a little poetry humor there) creating the American conception of Santa Claus. It was much reprinted and, as we would say today, “went viral.” Some years later, in 1844, Clement Clarke Moore, a Bible scholar and professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College, modestly took credit for writing it. This has recently been disputed by Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar College and a scholar of authorial attribution, with some very interesting bits of literary forensics.

But it doesn’t really matter who wrote the text. This gorgeous pop-up book is a perfectly delightful way to re-read it every year, and introduce it to tiny young readers. Robert Sabuda is a master of intricate paper engineering, and as Paul Hughes writes in the Amazon.com review:

“Santa pops in and out of the chimney, beds fold out, a window shade rises and falls, and, in a clever nod to Moore’s not-a-creature-was-stirring text, it’s a family of mice who are receiving Santa’s nighttime visit. A pull-out tab even lets readers interact, when Santa’s sleigh glides out on the clouds and over an intricately realized village. It’s hard to pick a favorite scene here, but you can bet that kids will love the book’s pop de résistance, in which Santa’s lead reindeer nearly fly right up your nose (if they don’t knock you out of your chair first).”

The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clark Moore and Robert Sabuda is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. You may not have it in time for tonight, but it will be a wonderful addition to all your nights-before-Christmas to come.

[Here’s another guest post for another fabulous book to pre-order, this time from my friend and crit partner Lisa Brackmann. Book pre-orders do make great last-minute gifts, you know.]

Howdy! I’m thrilled to be Elizabeth’s latest guest for her Twenty-Four Days of Christmas Book Shopping Marathon blog series! Before we get into my book, can I just say I’ve read The Second Duchess, and it is awesome? I’d tell you all to pre-order it too, but I think it’s still too soon. So, just, pre-pre-order it! You’re in for a treat. [Thanks, Lisa! And may I just add that as one of your crit partners I’ve also read Rock Paper Tiger, and it’s absorbing, suspenseful, and simply crammed with fascinating time-and-place atmosphere.]

Okay, back to me. My debut novel Rock Paper Tiger is coming from Soho Press in June 2010. Which is a ways off, but that means your recipient will have a nice, shiny new book just in time for summer vacation.

Rock Paper Tiger is mainly set in China, a country where I’ve spent a considerable amount of time (in fact, I just got back and am trying to write this post while slightly jet-lagged). One of the reasons I wrote the book was that I felt today’s China was underrepresented as a setting in contemporary fiction. I’m not sure why, because if ever there were a place with the sorts of complexities, contradictions and global importance that make for a rich and relevant setting, that would be China. If I’ve managed to capture a tiny fraction of any of that, I’ll feel like I’ve done my job.

Your guide through this territory is one Ellie Cooper, an American and former National Guard medic who has plenty of reasons to get lost on the other side of the planet from her native country. Estranged from her husband, she’s tending bar in a Beijing dive and hanging out with video gamers and performance artists – one artist in particular, Lao Zhang, who has a few secrets of his own. When a chance encounter with a Uighur fugitive drops her down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, Ellie must decide who to trust among the artists, dealers, collectors and operatives claiming to be on her side – in particular, a mysterious organization operating within a popular online game.

Rock Paper Tiger has some suspense and thriller elements, but for me it is more of a journey story and a meditation on global communities, in both the positive and negative sense. What does it mean to live in a surveillance society? How do we live creative and free lives in a world that is dominated by huge, impersonal organizations that are largely indifferent to “ordinary” people’s individual concerns? What will Ellie do when she runs out of the Percocet she uses to self-medicate, and will her failure to forward her mother’s prayer chain emails to ten people she wants to bless really result in disastrous consequences?

You can find out more about Rock Paper Tiger at my website, and in the Spring 2010 Soho Catalog (hey, that’s my book on the cover!). Rock Paper Tiger is available for pre-order at Amazon.com, Borders, and IndieBound. (Hey, Barnes and Noble! Where’s the pre-order? Get with the program already!).

[Again today I welcome a guest blogger—this time with a suggestion for new twist on book-giving: the pre-order! So many wonderful books are coming out early in 2010, and it’s so easy to pre-order, print off the page and tuck it in a pretty card to put in your loved one’s stocking. They’ll thank you when a beautiful book appears to brighten the doldrums of February!]

Hello! I’m Katharine Beutner. First of all, many thanks to Elizabeth for kindly inviting me to write a guest post for her holiday book-shopping series about my forthcoming book! [You’re very welcome! –Elizabeth.]

Like Elizabeth’s The Second Duchess, my debut novel Alcestis gives voice to a fabled female character who lived a remarkable life. Alcestis retells the story of a Mycenaean queen who chooses to go to the underworld in her husband’s place. In Alcestis’ world, the gods are not abstractions—they’re her relatives. Her grandfather Poseidon might drop in to visit at any time, and might not be very pleasant when he does. The novel follows Alcestis from her childhood through her marriage to her cousin Admetus, the young king of Pherae, then shadows her into the underworld. She’s one of few female characters in Greek mythology to make this journey, but the myth of her life is not widely known.

My inspiration for the novel came from two sources. The first is the beautiful Rilke poem about Alcestis, which I read as a teenager. (I highly recommend Stephen Mitchell’s translations of Rilke.) I studied classics in college, and finally read Euripides’ Alcestis after graduating. I love Euripides, but I was stunned by the ending of the play, in which Alcestis is rescued from the underworld by the hero Heracles, a friend of her husband’s, and brought back to life as if nothing had happened. Essentially, she’s treated like a prize, while men who venture into the underworld—Odysseus, Orpheus, and later Aeneas—get their own epic poems. I wanted to write a version of Alcestis’ story that would not only cover the three days she spent in the underworld, but would allow readers to experience life in a world peopled by capricious gods.

Alcestis will be published on February 1, 2010—it’s currently available for pre-order at Amazon (in Kindle format, too!), Borders, Barnes & Noble, Powells, and IndieBound.

[Elizabeth again. I can’t wait for my own pre-ordered copy of Alcestis to arrive, and an “IOU” of Alcestis to come would make a wonderful gift for anyone who loves historical fiction, Greek mythology, or simply strong tales of remarkable women.]

[I invited our beautiful eldest granddaughter Bella K. to guest-blog about a YA book she’d give as a gift. Here’s the delightful result.]

Hello, granddaughter of the Broadcasting Legend™ and the Time Traveler here to tell you about a fairytale first written by Grimm but twisted by one of my favorite Newbery-Honor-winning authors, Shannon Hale.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love fairy tales; I have princess dresses of every size from all ages. As my dress size got larger I started to see the unjustifiable bias against the fairer sex. The guys always got to be the heroes in fairy tales so I began to wonder… What would happen if the girls got to be the heroes? I was elated to discover the realm of twisted fairy tales where girls stepped forth as adventurers. Regrettably, the boys became… how shall I say it… less than Mr. Darcy. [LOL! —Elizabeth] Finally, I stumbled upon Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl. At last, a story void of a single weak character! A daring princess, murderers, an unyielding prince, betrayers, evil impostors, heroic animal keepers, rescuers, and just a tad of romance. It blew my mind!

Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee was born Crown Princess of Kildenree but after the death of her father, life takes a desperately wrong turn. First, her brother usurps her place of succession, becoming Crown Prince as she is sent away to marry the prince of the neighboring country, Bayern. Unfortunately, her lady-in-waiting Selia is not content to be a lady-in-waiting, and soon there is an evil revolt among the camp. In an instant, life is changed for Isi (as her true friends call her). She must hide her beautiful blonde hair to disguise herself from Selia’s evil guards in the dark-haired land of Bayern, while her impostor threatens the throne. When she is designated caretaker of the Bayern king’s geese, she is welcomed into an unpretentious world she never knew. Isi must learn who to trust and who to forgive if she is going to save the Kildenree from a deadly danger that could wipe out the entire country.

This small summary has just scratched the surface of what this book has to offer. Shannon Hale doesn’t just create a story, she creates a world that swallows you up and you never want to leave. The characters become your friends and you are genuinely worried about where their predicaments will lead them.

No matter how many times I’ve read Shannon Hale’s books, I always find myself in a place where I just can’t stop reading. The Goose Girl is only the first of what I hope will be a long series called the Books of Bayern, followed by Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Shannon’s newest creation Forest Born. These books are good for anyone on your list, big or small. Nothing beats a well-written book with fabulous characters and a plot so complex even I couldn’t guess the ending.

Find The Goose Girl and all Shannon Hale’s books at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. Buy in person at your favorite brick-and-mortar bookstore to have your books in time for Christmas!

Ross Poldark by Winston Graham is back, in new trade-sized reprints with gorgeous new covers. I have crumbling mass-market paperbacks (which were originally issued as tie-ins with the BBC television series, I think) and I think it’s time to update. If you—or someone on your gift list, of course—haven’t met Ross Poldark you have an unforgettable experience ahead of you with the saga of the Poldarks of Nampara, played out over twelve novels.

As an aside, I always envy the people who haven’t yet read the books I love. Gone with the Wind. The whole Angélique series by Sergeanne Golon. The Crawford of Lymond novels by the incomparable Dorothy Dunnett. Spangle and The Journeyer by Gary Jennings. The early Saint-Germain novels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Shogun by James Clavell. Oh, I could go on and on. I re-read them, and re-reading is a wonderful thing, but it’s not quite the same as that breathless first reading.

Anyway. Back to Ross Poldark. Ross is an Englishman, a soldier on the losing side of the war in America, come home in 1783 to a derelict estate in copper-mining Cornwall. He finds the woman he’s loved with peculiar intensity all through the years of war and separation preparing to marry to his cousin. And from there the story rockets on. There’s a teeming, colorful cast of characters, sharply drawn (I love whiskery old Aunt Agatha and the crop-tailed mongrel dog of “unimaginable parentage,” Garrick), from which eventually emerges the grubby, spitfire urchin Demelza Carne, first Ross’s kitchenmaid, ultimately his wife in the teeth of society’s disapproval.

There are various printings of the Poldark books—the one shown here is simply the newest in a long line. They’re well worth collecting, whether the covers match or not. (And for that matter, whether they’re new or not.) Search for “Ross Poldark” at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and of course at your favorite independent bookstore. In these last few days before Christmas shop a nearby brick-and-mortar bookstore to avoid expedited shipping charges.

Once again I’m returning to one of my own favorite childhood books as a gift idea for the young readers on your list—Marguerite Henry’s beloved Misty of Chincoteague. Winner of the Newbery Honor in 1948 yet just as heartwarming and gripping today, Misty tells a tale of the wild ponies of Assateague Island (perhaps descended from survivors of a wrecked Spanish galleon in the 1600s—once again there is that touch of romantic history), of a mysterious and magical mare called The Phantom with a white map of the United States over her withers, and of the Phantom’s foal Misty, named because “she came up out of the sea.”

Young readers will read Misty for themselves, and even younger ones will delight in having the exciting story read to them. Will the plucky Paul and Maureen Beebe earn enough money to buy the Phantom and Misty? For me it never, never tires. And even today I thrill to the moment when the Phantom flies to meet the Pied Piper at the end. (I think I always loved the Phantom almost more than little Misty.)

The wonderful drawings of Wesley Dennis are as much a part of Misty as the story. He and Marguerite Henry had a fruitful partnership through the years, and I collected and treasured many of their books—not only Misty but Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague, King of the Wind, and Album of Horses.

Misty of Chincoteague is available from Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. In these last few days before Christmas shop a nearby brick-and-mortar bookstore to avoid expedited shipping charges.

New Classic Family Dinners by Mark Peel jumped into my shopping cart for the cover photo alone—just look at that delectable little chicken pot pie! The most comforting of comfort foods, yet executed with elegance and restraint. And gorgeously photographed.

Mark Peel is the chef/owner of Campanile, an award-winning restaurant in Los Angeles. In this book he takes traditional, best-loved family dishes (meat loaf, barbecued ribs, hamburgers, pork chops, macaroni and cheese, tuna noodle casserole, chocolate pudding) and realizes them in a beautifully polished style—not so much “re-imagined” with a bunch of fancy additions, as made into the most perfect, most refined version of the simple original dish. That’s what makes this book a fabulous gift for plain home cooks (like me) as well as more ambitious foodies.

Peel’s voice is friendly and accessible and the photographs are simply stunning—this is not only a book to cook from but a book to curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon. For example, when he’s writing about his chocolate pudding he says “If Jell-O Pudding could fantasize about becoming something great, this would be it. Lighter and less intense than pots de crème, the creamy, comforting pudding with a whisper of mint added to the chocolate is very popular at the restaurant. We serve it in whiskey glasses. Note how little peppermint extract is needed here. You have to use this ingredient with caution. Mint is delicious right up to the point where it turns awful.” Heh. Now that is my kind of chef.

New Classic Family Dinners by Mark Peel, with contributions by Martha Rose Schulman and photographs by Lucy Schaeffer, is available at Borders, Books-a-Million, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. For these last few days before Christmas, shop in a brick-and-mortar bookstore to save expedited shipping charges.

Hello, the Broadcasting Legend™ here, weighing in on book gift ideas for guys.

I like thrillers and I’ve enjoyed Clive Cussler since I read Raise the Titanic back in whenever. This guy can tell a story and that’s what I like—I read on airplanes and a book like this sure helps me forget the hassles and indignities of air travel today. Anyway.

In Arctic Drift, Cussler and his son (I can’t believe he actually named him “Dirk,” but that’s another story) collaborate on a yarn set in the near future, with the U.S. and Canada all set to go to war over global warming and the price of gas. Well, sometimes I feel like I’m ready to go to war over global warming and the price of gas, but still, Canada? It does sound weird but Cussler père et fils make it work. Suspension of disbelief, people. Add in an artificial photosynthesis process that could eliminate the threat of global warming (and hopefully bring down the price of gas), a couple of spooky Victorian ships (appropriately named the Erebus and the Terror) wrecked during an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage and frozen into Arctic ice [Note from Elizabeth: a nifty touch for history-lovers], a rare element called ruthenium (which I thought was made up because it sounds like it’s named after somebody’s maiden aunt, but which turns out to be real) and something called the Devil’s Breath, which supposedly according to Haisla of British Columbia is “a cold white breath of death that [kills a man] and everything around him.” I researched this a little and although the Haisla are real, I think the Cusslers made up the Devil’s Breath. More power to them—it’s still pretty cool. No pun intended.

I liked this book. I think other guys would like this book. And with that, I’ll turn the blog back over to Elizabeth to add the cover image and the links.

Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler is available from Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. For these last few days before Christmas, shop in a brick-and-mortar bookstore to save expedited shipping charges!

This is one of those serendipitous books. You know how it happens—you’re browsing for one thing, and you happen across something else so intriguing you must have it now. Here it is—Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner.

In Roman and medieval times people believed spices came from Paradise, that misty garden of Adam and Eve somewhere far away to the east, and that is part of what made the flavors and scents of spices so precious, costly and mysterious. No, they weren’t really used to make rancid meat edible—fresh meat was less expensive and more readily available than spices were. But they were used with meats (and every other possible kind of foodstuff) to show off one’s wealth and social position. They were also mixed with wine, incorporated into magical potions, and used in sumptuous perfumes and unguents.

Let me just quote a bit from Publisher’s Weekly: “Turner’s lively and wide-ranging account begins with the voyages of discovery, but demonstrates that, even in ancient times, spices from distant India and Indonesia made their way west and fueled the European imagination. Romans and medieval Europeans alike used Asian pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace to liven their palates, treat their maladies, enhance their sex lives and mediate between the human and the divine.”

Spice is based on painstaking research and scholarship, but it’s shot through with such fascinating anecdotes and written with such wit and style that even casual readers will find it to their, well, taste. Find Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner joined my towering to-be-read pile because Juana of Castile, the last queen of the title (she was the last monarch of the house of Trastámara) was my own Barbara of Austria’s grandmother. Who would not be curious about this intriguing woman, sister of the better-known Catherine of Aragon, wife of Philip the Fair of Austria (who could ever trust a man who is called “Philip the Fair,” anyway?), and ultimately in her own right Juana I of Castile, Juana la Loca, Joanna the Mad?

We enter into Juana’s life when she is just thirteen, an exquisite child at a Spanish court which for her lifetime has been little more than a series of military camps while her parents, Fernando and Isabel, drove the Moors out of Spain and created a united nation. She is married off to the Habsburg archduke Philip sight unseen, for political advantage—the usual fate of princesses at the time—but falls passionately and jealously in love with him. Poor Juana. Philip proves to be a philanderer, which is bad enough. (Supposedly Juana attacked one of his mistresses with a pair of scissors, slashing her face and cutting her hair.) Worse, he wants her throne for himself. Gortner’s Juana is proud, willful, high-hearted, and trapped—not so much mad as understandably driven to extremes of love and hate.

Royal secrets, opulent intrigue (the best kind), passions and poisons, love and death—this is my favorite sort of book. The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner is available at Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, Amazon, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

Today I’m going to recommend something a little different—not necessarily Wild Strawberries (although it’s a striking cover, which is why I chose it, and a very good book in its own right) but any one (or two or three or a dozen) of the Barsetshire novels you can find by Angela Thirkell.

Not all of them are in print—you may have to try used book stores or sites to find some of them. (Here’s a complete list from the Angela Thirkell Society in North America.) But oh, do they repay the effort! In brief, Thirkell takes the English county of Barsetshire originally created by Anthony Trollope (dear Anthony Trollope! He is my hero when it comes to productivity) and updates it to the England of the thirties, forties and fifties. She peoples it with amusing and colorful characters (some of whom are descendants of Trollope’s original Barsetshireans), and with a deliciously light, wry, self-deprecating touch she sends up village ways, aristocratic follies, and (horrors!) middle-class aspirations.

Thirkell is one of my personal writing sages, and whenever I am blue or overwhelmed by the complexity of modern-day life I retreat to Barsetshire, to Winter Overcotes and Worsted, Pomfret Hall and Little Misfit, Gatherum Castle (home, of course, to the Duke of Omnium) and Pooker’s Piece.

Search for “Angela Thirkell” and choose whatever strikes your fancy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, Abebooks, Alibris, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

Do you have a writer on your Christmas list? A musician, a painter, a sculptor, a dancer, an actor, a weaver or embroiderer, any kind of creative artist? Give that person this wonderful book. Do you have a businessperson, a teacher, a homemaker, a parent, a medical services provider? Those are creative professions as well. Give those people this wonderful book, too. Oh, heck, just give it to everybody! In case you haven’t already guessed, I love this book.

Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life is an honest, plain-spoken handbook to a creative life, from what Tharp calls “scratching” for ideas, through finding the “spine” of the idea you choose and getting into the “groove” of productivity. She’s blunt about the need for good old-fashioned virtues like preparation, routine, discipline and perseverance. Whether you’re choreographing a dance, writing a novel, designing a dress, creating a PowerPoint presentation of the last quarter’s sales figures, or whipping up a soufflé à la vanille (mmmm! And of course you always use good vanilla), Tharp’s brisk and engaging philosophy of the creative life will get you on the right track and keep you there. She even includes exercises to get your imaginative blood flowing and your artistic muscles limbered up.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life is available at Books-a-Million, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and of course your favorite independent bookseller.

I love Fancy Nancy (despite the fact that I am a bit older than four) and follow all her adventures faithfully. Here is a delicious new Fancy Nancy book, just in time for the holidays—and of course it is called Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas. What better opportunity for fancyness, after all, than Christmas?

Here’s the alluring copy from the book jacket: “Presents with elegant wrapping paper, festive decorations, Christmas cookies with sprinkles—and who could forget the tree? After all, there is no such thing as too much tinsel. Ooh la la! This year, Nancy is especially excited about decorating the Christmas tree. She bought a brand-new sparkly tree topper with her own money and has been waiting for Christmas to come. But when things don’t turn out the way Nancy planned, will Christmas still be splendiferous?”

Sprinkles! I have a special affinity for sprinkles myself, and that just makes this book all the more scrumptious to me. The illustration of Nancy and her sister putting sprinkles on the cookies is wonderful. (Well, actually all the illustrations are wonderful.) This book is a splendiferous choice for children four to eight, and I know any number of fanciful adults who would be charmed by it as well.

Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas by Jane O’Connor with illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser is available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, Amazon, and of course from your favorite independent bookstore.

Because I’ve been working out an original system of floromancy for The Silver Casket’s main character Rinette, I’ve been collecting books on the folklore, mythology and literature of flowers. This one is so gorgeous! I could stare at the cover for hours (it’s a detail from a painting called In the Bey’s Garden by John Frederick Lewis) before even opening the book up to savor the pleasures within.

And such pleasures! A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward traces the flowering history of the natural world, from the everyday to the mystical, as expressed in literature, myth and folklore. Quotations from poems, myths, novels, and plays from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century are used illustrate the literary history of eighty garden plants. Ward also incorporates each plant’s mythological and religious contexts, symbolism in the arts, and traditional medicinal uses, and unusual uses of flowers as food.

Gardeners, history-lovers, literature-lovers, will all open this beautiful book with delight.

A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward is available from Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Timber Press, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

For day ten of our holiday book-shopping adventure, I’m going back to my own favorite, historical fiction, in this case with a twist of historical mystery. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin is the first of three books featuring Adelia Aguilar, trained in the medical school of Salerno, a foundling raised by two Salernitan doctors, one a Jewish man, one a Christian woman. Both her background and her education as a doctor to the dead—a mistress of the art of death—make her an exotic curiosity in twelfth-century England—a Ruth, as she puts it, among the alien corn.

Sent to England by the King of Sicily, at the request of Henry II (Henry actually asked for a “master of the art of death,” so imagine his surprise at receiving a mistress), Adelia’s task is to find out the truth behind a series of grisly child murders in medieval Cambridge. The details are not for the faint of heart, although Adelia’s brusque but heartfelt sympathy as she pursues the truth mitigate some of the horror. As the Washington Post says, Mistress of the Art of Death is “a historical mystery that succeeds brilliantly as both historical fiction and crime-thriller.”

The two subsequent books in this series are The Serpent’s Tale (featuring Rosamund Clifford, the “fair Rosamund” of the legendary labyrinthine bower—I am a complete sucker for any tale of fair Rosamund) and Grave Goods (set in the holy town of Glastonbury and centered upon Adelia’s examination of the putative bones of Arthur and Guinevere). But I always like to read series of books like this in order, so I urge you to start with Mistress of the Art of Death. And I do envy you the pleasures you have in store.

All of Ariana Franklin’s Mistress of the Art of Death books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

What holiday book-shopping list is complete without a few fabulous cookbooks? The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper is one of my own favorites—I’ve scanned the well-worn jacket, with its frayed stickers proclaiming the book to be a James Beard Award winner and the Julia Child Cookbook Awards Book of the Year. It was originally published in 1992 and is still going strong. My copy is a first edition and was purchased long before I had any inkling I was going to write The Second Duchess—but I must have had a moment of prescience because this book is focused on the Emilia-Romagna and simply crammed with tidbits (in all senses of the world) about cooking in the sixteenth century in Ferrara. I turned to it again and again as I imagined the sumptuous banquets and intimate suppers my Barbara and Alfonso enjoyed.

If you like Italian food, you simply must have this gorgeous book in your collection. Not only does it offer recipes—and what recipes!—it is full of historical notes, sketches, mini-biographies, folklore (did you know that hollow maccheroni like penne were served to celebrate the birth of a male child?) and whole sections on the historical background and making of northern Italian specialties like Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Proscuito di Parma, and of course the queen of vinegars, Modena’s famous aceto balsamico. There’s a slew of beautiful color plates, but I have to confess I like the line drawings and reproductions of Renaissance engravings and woodcuts better. How I pored over the chapter entitled “The Sweet Pastas of the Renaissance”! Barbara and Alfonso enjoy a few of the treats from this chapter, particularly the Torta di Tagliarini Ferrarese, or Sweet Tagliarini Tart of Ferrara. Legend holds this dish was created by court cooks of Ferrara for the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia to Ercole II d’Este, as an homage to Lucrezia’s glorious golden hair. (Lucrezia was my Alfonso’s grandmother.)

The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food, by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, is available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Books-a-Million, and of course from your favorite independent bookseller.

I just love this book’s cover. I’d pick it up for the cover alone. And then when I’d leaf through the pages and see the wonderful illustrations and discover the story featuring a plucky ten-year-old boy whose “family business” is mapmaking and beastology, I’d really be hooked.

I have a seven-year-old boy on my own holiday gift list who may be a wee skosh young for this, but I know he’ll love the story and the sketches and the beasts (particularly the beasts) and he has a wonderful teacher mom who will help him through this first book. I think he’ll quickly grow into the rest of the series.

The Flight of the Phoenix (Nathanial Fludd: Beastologist, Book One) is a Junior Literary Guild Selection. School Library Journal calls it “a quick and enriching read” and notes “children who love fantasy, myth, exotic settings, and even a little dose of history will relate to Nate as he discovers his inner hero and carries on the Fludd family tradition. The characters are strongly developed and the period illustrations done in line, including some of Nate’s own sketches, enhance the tale.”

The author R.L. LaFevers will send a personalized bookplate to anyone who purchases this book in December, as a way to give your gift that special touch. Yay, Robin! Just go to her website and click the “Contact” tab for her email address.

The Flight of the Phoenix (Nathanial Fludd: Beastologist, Book One) by R.L. LaFevers is available at Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, Amazon, and of course from your favorite independent bookstore.

I love mysteries. All kinds of mysteries. Historical mysteries, of course. Contemporary mysteries, from cozy to noir. I love the classics—Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham—and I also love the edgy and quirky books of today. And speaking of quirky, here’s a book-gift idea for the mystery fan on your list.

Dana Fredsti’s Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon is, of course, a riff on The Maltese Falcon. (Oh, Dashiell Hammett! The Thin Man is another huge favorite.) The story centers on Murder for Hire, Inc., a theatrical troupe which has “pastiched, parodied and lampooned everything from gothics to Sherlock Holmes.” Unfortunately, when MFH is hired to perform at a weekend festival celebrating the life and works of a legendary mystery writer, real murder muscles its way in. MFH impresario (impresaria?) Connie Garrett finds herself knee-deep in fictional detectives, real detectives, and dead bodies. Will one of them be her own? Will the show go on?

This is a delightful tale, twisty and funny, crammed with an insider’s knowledge of acting and the entertainment industry. A perfect stocking stuffer for your favorite mystery fan.

Order Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, Yellowback Mysteries, or your favorite independent bookstore.

Because I live my alternative life in the sixteenth century, I love reproductions of fabulous books of hours. Whether or not one takes the content to heart, the sheer glory of the artwork and minuscule magnificence of the illuminations and borders are enough to touch anyone’s heart.

This book, The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, is just such a beautiful art object. The Belles Heures is not the same as the more famous Très Riches Heures, although it was painted by the same artists, the three Limbourg brothers, Paul, Hermann and Jean. Perhaps the “Beautiful Hours” was for everyday, and the “Very Rich Hours” was for high holidays! Out of curiosity I traced the relationship between Jean, Duc de Berry, and Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara—my Alfonso. It turns out Alfonso is doubly related to Jean—Jean is his fourth great uncle through his father Ercole II d’Este, and his fifth great uncle through his mother, Renée of France. As I keep finding out, medieval and Renaissance Europe was very much a family affair.

A sumptuous gift for anyone interested in Renaissance art, the particular art of illumination, the French royal family, or the collection of books of hours.

The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Borders, Books-a-Million, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (check the home page for a discount code good for 20% off, effective through December 13th), and of course your favorite independent bookseller.

I’ve invited the Broadcasting Legend™ to suggest a holiday gift book that might appeal to the man on your list. He came up with A Genius for Deception: How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars, by Nicholas Rankin. Need I add that the Broadcasting Legend™ is a great fan of the History Channel, the Military Channel, and pretty much anything to do with war?

But this, according to Michael Bywater of the Daily Telegraph, “is a book of marvellous yarns, which will appeal to a far wider readership than the sombre consumers of standard military history.” “It is all here,” writes Simon Winchester, author of The Man Who Loved China and A Crack in the Edge of the World, “colonels in drag, midget submarines, corpses with stashed secrets, a black radio station called Aspidistra and more inventions than James Bond’s Q could ever conceive—and is endlessly fascinating in consequence. No better book about the mad arcana of belligerence has ever been written.” Now who could resist that?

This is definitely going to be in the Broadcasting Legend™’s stocking come Christmas morning. He may have to fight me for it.

A Genius for Deception: How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars by Nicholas Rankin is available from Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Amazon, and your favorite independent bookstore.

This book looks like a novel but it’s actually a biography, and a very good one at that. I gobbled it up because its subject Isabella de’ Medici was an older sister of my Lucrezia, and my fictionalized vision of Isabella actually plays a key peripheral (albeit offstage) role in The Second Duchess.

Isabella was Duke Cosimo de’ Medici’s third child and second daughter, and a great favorite of her ambitious, powerful, and sometimes violent father. Caroline P. Murphy uses painstaking research and the extensive extant correspondence by and about the Medici to characterize Isabella, her family, her friends, and the courtiers that surrounded her. Much of the focus is on women and women’s lives, on delicious details about food, clothing, art, music, sport, daily living, the roles of servants, and the dazzling spectacles and entertainments a girl like Isabella took as a matter of course.

Most readers won’t really like Isabella—she was a woman of her time and place and position, cruel, arrogant, self-centered and sensual. But in her context—as a Renaissance princess, a patron of the arts, fluent in five languages—she is certainly fascinating. I won’t spoil the suspense with all the lurid details of her death, but I will say her beautiful ghost supposedly appears periodically in the Medici mansion where she was murdered, and at Castello Orsini Odescalchi in Bracciano, where she supposedly entertained many of her lovers.

Murder of a Medici Princess would be a wonderful gift for anyone interested in the Renaissance or women’s history. I think it would also appeal to readers of mysteries and thrillers.

Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and your favorite independent bookstore. Hardcover and paperback editions are available.

Find the Constellations is a treasured book from my own childhood, and it’s been consistently in print ever since, with updated editions from time to time. This most recent edition (2008) is freshened up yet again, even addressing the de-planet-ization of poor little Pluto.

H.A. Rey’s connect-the-dot diagrams for the major constellations are unique and memorable. At the time the book was first published, they were startlingly different—even I had been taught to visualize the constellation Gemini as a sort of set of giant legs with long feet, and I was amazed and charmed to see the same stars re-connected to create an actual pair of twins. Since this book, and its more young-adult companion The Stars: A New Way to See Them, came out, Rey’s constellation diagrams have become much more commonly used.

If you have grade-school children on your holiday shopping list, Find the Constellations is a gift idea that could spark a lifelong love of stargazing. It certainly worked for me!

Find the Constellations is available at Borders, Books-a-Million, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and of course from your favorite independent bookseller. Hardcover and paperback editions are available.

For everyone on your list who loves historical fiction, C.S. Harris has been thoughtful enough to provide What Remains of Heaven, a new Sebastian St. Cyr novel, just in time for the holidays. Full disclosure: I haven’t read it yet, but a) I loved the previous books in the series, b) the reviews are stellar and c) I’m saving it so I have something to say when the Broadcasting Legend™ asks me (usually on Christmas Eve), “What do you want for Christmas?”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Long-festering family secrets, treachery and worse threaten Sebastian St. Cyr in Harris’s addictive fifth Regency-era mystery starring the dashing soldier-turned-sleuth.” From Romantic Times: “From dissolute and disillusioned to insightful and probing, Sebastian St. Cyr … has evolved into a fascinating and effective detective as he moves stealthily among the ton to investigate murders in London’s upper echelon.” From Library Journal (a starred review): “Harris combines all the qualities of a solid Regency in the tradition of Georgette Heyer by pairing two strong characters trying to ignore their mutual attraction while solving a crime together.”

Can I hold out until Christmas Day? Or will I succumb to temptation and buy this book for myself? (Offstage cries from the Broadcasting Legend™: “Nooooooooo!”) Only time will tell…

What Remains of Heaven is available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, and your favorite independent bookseller.

I’m going to devote the month of December to featuring some wonderful books that are on my own Christmas gift lists (some to give, some to receive, some both). Maybe you’ll get some ideas as well.

Leading off, Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, the catalogue of the magnificent exhibition organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. I saw this when it was in Fort Worth and it leaves me at a loss for words—it was simply extraordinary. This gorgeous book is a worthy companion to the exhibition—it’s crammed with illustrations of paintings and artifacts connected with love and marriage in the Renaissance—vases, books, jewelry, panels, glass vessels, musical instruments, and much more. The scholarly and fascinating essays accompanying the illustrations include snippets of historical documents—letters, lists of dowry items, marriage negotiations—and wonderful, insightful (and occasionally deliciously bawdy) discussion. Anyone interested in history, art or love (isn’t everyone interested in love?) will be delighted to receive this beautiful book. A paperback edition is also available.

Art and Love in Renaissance Italy is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Kimbell Art Museum, and your favorite independent bookseller.

Seems like everyone is reading Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen, a novel about Elizabeth Woodville, who married (or didn’t, depending on who you believe) Edward IV of England. This made me think of another book I read long ago, and sent me digging through dusty old boxes of books that won’t fit on the six (!) bookcases in my office.

Here it is. The Summer Queen, by Alice Walworth Graham. “The swirling drama of a beautiful commoner who dared marry a king… Luminous and fascinating!” And it is. Long out of print, of course, but worth pursuing at used-book stores and sites. Alice Walworth Graham was (and still is) one of my favorite authors—her Vows of the Peacock is, if anything, even better than The Summer Queen.

My paperbacks are may be crumbling and yellowed (and as you can see from the $1.25 price point on the scan, really really old), but Graham’s crisp, literate style and richly romantic storytelling will never grow old.