Time Out scours bookshops for this year's best Christmas books, from speciality titles to those odd volumes that only appear as solutions to present-buying conundrums
STOCKING WINNER
‘Eagle Annual: The Best of the 1950s Comic’
(Orion, £12.99)
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Beautifully
published collection of greatest hits from the classic comic – not just
the strips, but readers’ letters, car cross-sections, sports pages and
adverts: ‘Spangles: the modern way to buy sweets.’
‘The Answers’ by Lucy Kellaway
(Profile, £8.99)
*****
…to office questions such as ‘What do I write in colleagues’ leaving cards?’ and ‘Should I tell my boss what I think of him?’ Full of wit and wisdom, though it’s not always clear which is which.
‘Cooler, Faster, More Expensive: The Return of the Sloane Ranger’ by Peter York and Olivia Stewart-Liberty
(Atlantic, £19.99)
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Clunkily written update of early ’80s snobfest which attempts to shoehorn vaguely Sloaney celebs into spurious ‘modern’ categories (‘chav Sloane’, etc).
‘The Wrong Kind of Snow’ by Antony Woodward and Robert Penn
(Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99)
******
Smart and well-researched almanac – each day has appropriate quotes, often from writers’ diaries, and weather-based trivia. Did you know that skating was invented on December 11?
‘This May Help You Understand the World’ by Lawrence Potter
(Marion Boyars, £7.99)
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A current-affairs primer with a simple aim: to ensure you’ll never again struggle at dinner parties when someone asks you for your views on Palestine. A bit too vague to be really useful.
‘A Pig with Six Legs and Other Clouds’ edited by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
(Sceptre, £10)
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Photos of odd-shaped clouds curated by Cloud Appreciation Society founder Pretor-Pinney. ‘A mermaid swimming under a giant frog’ is quite good.
‘What Britain Has Done 1939-1945’
(Atlantic, £9.99)
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Dry, colourless book of facts and figures, published in 1945 by the Ministry of Information to tell the British public what had been done in their name during the war. Lacks the human qualities and comedy value of facsimile reissues like the bestselling ‘Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942’.
‘Who Writes This Crap?’ by Joel Stickley and Luke Wright
(Hamish Hamilton, £12.99)
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Subtext-exposing parodies of all the bad writing you come across in the course of a single day – ads, menus, supermarket labels, etc. Sometimes inspired, occasionally a bit obvious.
‘How to Fossilise Your Hamster’ by Mick O’Hare
(Profile, £7.99)
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‘Experiments for the armchair scientist’, such as how to measure the speed of light using chocolate and a microwave. People love this stuff, don’t they? Why?
‘Once More With Feeling’ edited by Rupert Christiansen
(Short Books, £12.99)
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Classic hymns and carols with history, anecdotage and analysis from opera critic Christiansen. Great for grandparents.
‘The Onion’s Our Dumb World Atlas of the Planet Earth’
(Orion, £16.99)
******
Direly unfunny mock atlas, apparently written by a bunch of bored interns. A sad instance of chronic brand over-extension.
‘Nothing to Write Home About’
(Friday Books, £9.99)
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Colourised, hyperreal Hinde postcards complete with original scrawled messages, mostly from the 1970s. Funny and sad – Couplandesque, in fact.
‘The Complete Peanuts’ by Schulz
(Canongate, £15 each)
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The first two volumes (1950-2 and 1953-4) are out now. Clear some space on your shelves for the rest, which will be published at the rate of two a year.
‘The Girls’ Empire’
(Short Books, £9.99)
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Forerunner of ‘The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls’ from 1903. Includes useful advice on getting the most out of your pet carrier pigeon.
‘The Perils of the Pushy Parents’ by Boris Johnson
(HarperPress, £10)
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Spikily satirical narrative poem with retro illustrations by the author. Best couplet: ‘So with the zeal of ancient Sparta/He drilled them for “La Traviata”.’
‘A Boy Called Jesus’ by PopJustice
(Friday Books, £4.99)
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Irreverent PopJustice retelling of The Greatest Story Ever Told.
‘How to Worry Friends and Inconvenience People’ by Leila Johnston
(Snowbooks, £9.99)
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Sardonic mottos from the founder of www.worryfriends.com. ‘If you miss the bin men, it’s sometimes okay to just leave your rubbish bags outside charity shops.’
‘TV Cream Toys’ by Steve Berry
(Friday Books, £12.99)
******
Brilliant, if distressingly thorough, compendium of all the toys you wanted when you were ten which your parents wouldn’t buy you. Let’s hear it for: Crossfire, Buckaroo!, Big Trak, Simon…
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