| Ever since Seinfeld’s Kramer invented a coffee-table book that turned into a coffee table, I’ve been waiting for a publisher to seize on the idea and really try it. No one has yet, as far as I’m aware, but some of the heavy tomes that have landed with a thud on my desk in my seven months as Fast Forward’s book editor could certainly qualify as pieces of furniture – if not as coffee tables, then as footstools and doorstops at the very least.
Especially big and beautiful is The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson (Firefly Books, $85), which reproduces 400 works by Canada’s legendary landscape artists, accompanied by commentary from art historian David P. Silcox. (For more on this book, see next week’s issue.) Encountering such gorgeous volumes makes you immediately think "gift" – indeed, substantial gift.
For anyone who has an abiding love of ancient mythology, Mythologica: A Treasury of World Myths and Legends (Raincoast Books, $95) makes for a colossal Christmas present. A 528-page survey of the world’s myths, from the classical Greco-Roman through European, Middle Eastern, Asian, African and American mythologies, it contains lucid narratives by 20 scholars and experts and is copiously illustrated with samplings from the centuries of mythology-inspired artwork. A work of entertainment as well as reference, it should make for hours of enjoyable reading. It’s also the size of a laptop computer and comes in its own carrying case.
Speaking of artists interpreting myths, Mythology: The D.C. Comics Art of Alex Ross (Random House, $53) is a comic book lover’s wet dream. This is a glossy celebration of Ross’s Rockwell-like paintings of the D.C. pantheon, coupled with the work of earlier D.C. artists going back to the Silver and Golden ages (i.e. the 1960s and the 1940s, respectively). Ross’s realistic renderingsof Superman, Batman, Aquaman, The Flash et al., gleaming with personality, make some of those original comics look like cave drawings in comparison.
A more anarchic interpreter is the brilliant British cartoonist Ralph Steadman, whose wild, ink-spattered drawings have been most famously paired with the gonzo ravings of Hunter S. Thompson. Back in 1967, however, Steadman turned his hand to re-imagining the mad world of another satirist, Lewis Carroll, with an edition of Alice in Wonderland. Out of print for many years, his version has finally been republished in a handsome new hardcover edition by Firefly Books ($29.95). Steadman’s art for Alice is deliciously macabre and clearly inspired as much by 1960s England as the Victorian one so drolly lampooned by Carroll. A bracing antidote to Disney and those other kiddie treatments of Alice that belong in a treacle-well.
Firefly has also jumped on the zany how-to bandwagon with How to Handle a Crocodile ($19.95). In the style of the Worst Case Scenario series, this gift book by Britain’s Diagram Group is a willy-nilly series of instructions for everything from the practical (how to crack a coconut, cure insect stings) to the unlikely (how to become a saint – well, unlikely for most of us). Should you ever have to feed a panda, tell the speed of the wind at sea or bottle a whole pear, this is the book for you.
An old favourite in the trivia department is the Guinness World Records. The 2004 hardback edition ($35.95) is out, complete with a cool 3-D mirrored cover and the latest plethora of extremes both engrossing and plain gross (I really didn’t want to see the world’s largest tumour, thank you). According to itself, Guinness World Records is the world’s all-time best-selling copyrighted book, so we needn’t devote any more ink to it.
More seriously, Inspiring Women: A Celebration of Herstory (Coteau Books, $29.95) is a valuable corrective to all those patriarchal Canadian history books, providing short profiles of more than 300 women who have helped shape Canada from the 17th century to the present day. The familiar are here (Laura Secord, Pauline Johnson, Nellie McClung) but, most informatively, so are many lesser-known figures, such as Mikak, an 18th-century Inuk woman who became a kind of Inuit Pocahontas, matriarch Mattie Mayes, one of Saskatchewan’s first black homesteaders, and controversial dancer Maude Allan, who thrilled Edwardian London. Editors Mona Holmlund and the late Gail Youngberg gleaned this information-packed volume from the Saskatoon Herstory collective’s series of historical calendars, which have been appearing since 1974.
Another group effort deserving a spot under the Christmas tree is Bighorn Wildland, published by the Alberta Wilderness Association ($29.95). AWA past president and Bighorn expert Vivian Pharis leads a team of 14 writers who document the unspoiled beauty of this sprawl of wilderness that lies northwest of Calgary between the Banff and Jasper national parks. The AWA is fighting to have it protected from off-road vehicle recreation and the oil and gas industry, hence this high-quality softcover, which is filled with colour photographs of the Big Horn’s flora, fauna and breathtaking landscape. Pages and Owl’s Nest are carrying it, or it can be purchased at the AWA’s office or ordered online at www.AlbertaWilderness.ca. |
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