John's Book Giving Guide for the Holidays!

2015-12-01 · review / recommendation · John · 3:47 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Advice & reviews · tags: timely hook

John argues that books make the best holiday gifts because they last, and recommends books by category, led by his favorite of the year, Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Books make the best gifts because they last; the Tom Sawyer copy from his mom

★★ John, admitting bias, says books make the best gifts because they last, in the mind and physically: he still has the Tom Sawyer copy his mom gave him at ten. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · Sydney Green

00:00:18 — Recommended to everyone: Between the World and Me; The White Boy Shuffle

★★★ John's favorite book of the year is Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, a short, relentless and brilliant meditation on race and history in the United States. — 00:00:18 · United States
★★ John recommends Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle to everyone: almost 20 years old, still hilarious and heartbreaking; it should be a classic and everyone he has recommended it to loved it. — 00:00:26

00:00:39 — Classics for classic-haters; graphic novels (Are You My Mother?, City of Clowns); the Beauty From Ashes flask gag

★★ For readers who think they hate classics, John recommends Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop and Alice Walker's The Color Purple as captivating and moving despite being taught in schools. — 00:00:39
★★ For graphic-novel fans John jokingly calls Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? the perfect gift for your mother, provided you have a very, very dysfunctional relationship. (playful) — 00:00:52
★★ John also recommends City of Clowns, written by Daniel Alarcón and illustrated by Sheila Alvarado, calling it a brilliant story about a young journalist in Peru grieving his father. — 00:01:00
★★ John says Daniel Alarcón beat him in their high school creative writing contest in 1994 and has gone on to greater things. (playful) — 00:01:03
★ John jokingly recommends Eugenia Price's Beauty From Ashes because it is where he stores his whiskey flask. (joke) — 00:01:14

00:01:20 — Literary fiction: Yanagihara, A Little Life, Gilead, A Brief History of Seven Killings

★★ For literary-fiction readers John recommends Hanya Yanagihara: her strange first novel is excellent, but A Little Life is better, and sadder than The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:01:20 · The Fault in Our Stars
★★ John recommends Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, both an excellent novel and a religious one, a combination he finds very rare. — 00:01:38
★★ John recommends Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings, an oral-history-format novel revolving around the 1976 shooting of Bob Marley in Jamaica. — 00:01:46

00:01:56 — Science fiction, art, religion, history and poetry picks

★★ For science-fiction fans John recommends Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber, set in a world colonized by Caribbean people; he has just started her story collection Falling in Love with Hominids. — 00:01:56
★★ On art and being an artist, John and Sarah both love Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers and Patti Smith's Just Kids. — 00:02:09 · Sarah Urist Green
★ John cannot find his copies of Just Kids and SPQR because his home library has been poorly catalogued since the move. (playful) — 00:02:16
★★ For understanding Islamic history and contemporary Islamic thought, John recommends Reza Aslan's No god but God, his favorite of the dozens of introductions he has read and reviewed. — 00:02:20
★★ For history John recommends Mary Beard's recent SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. — 00:02:31
★★ For poetry John recommends Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings and Louise Glück's Faithful and Virtuous Night (unsure how to say her name): precise, profound, never pretentious. — 00:02:38

00:02:52 — Young adult: two recent books and four older ones for a new generation of readers

★★ Admitting he read little YA this year (2015), John recommends Emma Mills's (elmify) First and Then and Jason Reynolds's The Boy in the Black Suit. — 00:02:52
★★ For a new generation of YA readers John recommends four books over ten years old: Valiant, Ball Don't Lie, The Truth About Forever and Speak, and likes bundling different kinds of books as gifts. — 00:03:05

00:03:29 — Books for 10-14 year olds and Henry's favorite picture books; links in the doobly-doo; Hank getting some for Christmas; sign-off

★★ For kids aged 10 to 14 John recommends Jacqueline Woodson's Miracle's Boys. — 00:03:29
★★ John's son's two favorite books this year (2015) were Last Stop on Market Street (Christian Robinson and Matt de la Peña) and Marla Frazee's Boot and Shoe. — 00:03:32 · Henry Green
★ John says links to all the books are in the description and tells Hank he is getting some of them for Christmas. (playful) — 00:03:41 · doobly-doo, Christmas

In the description and comments

★★ John's book list names the Hanya Yanagihara first novel he praises as The People in the Trees. — video description

Mentioned

Central: Between the World and Me

Also: People: Bob Marley · Daniel Alarcón · Eugenia Price · Hanya Yanagihara · Henry Green · Sarah Urist Green · Sydney Green

Works: A Brief History of Seven Killings · A Little Life · A Thousand Mornings · Are You My Mother? · Ball Don't Lie · Beauty From Ashes · Boot and Shoe · City of Clowns · Death Comes for the Archbishop · Faithful and Virtuous Night · Falling in Love with Hominids · First and Then · Gilead · Just Kids · Last Stop on Market Street · Midnight Robber · Miracle's Boys · No god but God · Speak · SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome · The Adventures of Tom Sawyer · The Boy in the Black Suit · The Color Purple · The Fault in Our Stars · The Flamethrowers · The Truth About Forever · The White Boy Shuffle · Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: Islam · science fiction · young adult literature

Places: Jamaica · Peru · United States

Events: Christmas

Only in the description or credits: Alice Walker · Alison Bechdel · Christian Robinson · Elmify · Holly Black · Jacqueline Woodson · Jason Reynolds · Laurie Halse Anderson · Louise Glück · Marilynne Robinson · Marla Frazee · Marlon James · Mary Beard · Mary Oliver · Matt de la Peña · Nalo Hopkinson · Patti Smith · Paul Beatty · Rachel Kushner · Reza Aslan · Sarah Dessen · Sheila Alvarado · Ta-Nehisi Coates · The People in the Trees · Willa Cather

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