Locally sourced and sold books for the holidays. Find the next great adventure read, go-to cookbook, new hobby, family-friendly bedtime story for the kids, or refresh on some ancient history this gift-giving season with our hand-selected holiday gift books.
CAN IT!: THE PERILS AND PLEASURES OF PRESERVING FOODS
Gary Allen
Reaktion Books Ltd., 2016, $27
Before hipsters discovered mason jars, they were used to can and process food. This book offers a chance to learn the history behind and recipes for a variety of pickled, dried, fermented, smoked, condensed, salted, or freeze-dried foods. From chutney to glyko, Gary Allen gives readers a worldwide study on processing preserved food. Vintage magazine advertisements and other colored illustrations complement the 200-plus pages.
CONVERSATIONS IN THE SPIRIT: LEX HIXON'S "IN THE SPIRIT" INTERVIEWS: A CHRONICLE OF THE SEVENTIES SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
Edited by Sheila Hixon
Monkfish Book Publishing, 2016, $20
Lex Hixon's "In the Spirit" interviews on WBAI were essential in forming America's spiritual exploration in the1970s. Many of the spiritual concepts talked about on the show have grown to societal familiarity today, like Zen Buddhism, yoga, and meditation. For the first time, 33 of Hixon's original interviews, spanning from the 1970s to the early 80s, have been collected and edited into text format. Read Hixon's interviews with icons: St. Teresa of Calcutta, Allen Ginsberg, Zen Mountain Monastery abbot John Daido Loori, and influential Indian monk and scholar Swami Nikhilananda.
THEY ALL SAW A CAT
Brendan Wenzel
Chronicle Books, 2016, $16.99
This book's full-page illustrations make it a perfect bedtime story for the youngest of readers. Coxsackie-based author and illustrator Brendan Wenzel's collage and array of styles shift as the different characters in the book encounter the cat. The bee sees small colorful dots to make up the cat's shape, the skunk sees a large figure in shades of black and white. These images teach children the importance of perspective, as well as recognizing different points of view. A page shows the creatures capitalized and named alphabetically, a way to warm-up to practicing reading comprehension.
MICKEY MANTLE: INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE LINES
Tom Molito
Black Rose Writing, 2016, $15.95
Tom Molito's collection of stories is a refreshing hit within the baseball genre. Written in a Peekskill coffee shop, this sports memoir is part story of the player and part of its author. Molito's lifelong friendship with Mickey Mantle informs these new narratives on Mantle's career and personal life, a testament to the player's presence on and off the field. County-great Charlie Daniels writes a foreword in honor of Oklahoma's switch-hitting legend, and baseball historian Harold "Doc" Friend provides input.
THE CROWN MAPLE GUIDE TO MAPLE SYRUP: HOW TO TAP AND COOK WITH NATURE'S ORIGINAL SWEETENER
Robb Turner, Jessica Carbone, photographs by Tina Rupp
Abrams Books, 2016, $29.95
A sweet guide to maple syrup, served straight from Dutchess County. Crown Maple co-founder Robb Turner and culinary historian Jessica Carbone team up for this expansive book, beginning with the trade and colonial history of maple syrup. Chapters link together to form a how to guide from tap, yielding, filtration, and then, the table. Over 65 syrup-based recipes like roasted squash soufflé with maple streusel and maple crème sandwich cookies are included.
GABE AND GOON
Iza Trapani
Charlesbridge Press, 2016, $16.95
Hudson Valley children's writer and illustrator Iza Trapani, known for her renderings of Baa Baa Black Sheep and Old King Cole, returns with this frighteningly cute bedtime story. Purple and plush monster Goon lives inside Gabe's closet. Gabe isn't afraid of monsters, but Goon is afraid of kids: a switch of the classic monster tale. The two tackle their fears and become the best of friends. This illustrated story is as endearing as it is humorous.
WILDLINGS
Mary Ann Mclean
Cornell University Press, 2016, $29.95
This Rhinebeck-based naturalist writer and explorer's work is subdued yet stunning. Watercolor illustrations of fields, woods, and watery places intertwine with handwritten poems, offering readers a glimpse into a whimsically colorful world. These pages are a bright splash, a chance to see nature's bounty even as the skies darken and turn steely gray.
THE AGE OF CAESAR: FIVE ROMAN LIVES
Plutarch, Edited by James Romm, Translation by Pamela Mensch
W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, $35
Revisit Plutarch's biographical history of Rome's great political leaders, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, and Antony. War. Love. Betrayal. Tragedy. Empire. This classic BCE text profiling the Roman Empire's famed and fallen leaders get a 21st-century update. Bard College classical studies professor James Romm writes a background-illuminating preface of Plutarch and his subjects, and provides insightful notes throughout the text.
THE MONSTER NEXT DOOR
David Soman
Penguin Random House Press, 2016, $17.99
The Rosendale-based best-selling author and illustrator who helped create The Ladybug Girl series is back. His latest subject: a little boy with a monster of a friend. The boy and monster are treehouse neighbors who communicate through a clothesline rope. After a music-related disagreement and water-balloon fight (illustrated with a comic-bubble styled full page spread and vibrant colors), the boy begins to see the monster's point of view through his anger. Recommended for ages 3 to 5, this charming story teaches children empathy and working through disagreements to maintain healthy friendships.
RUNNING THE LONG PATH: A 350-MILE JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY IN NEW YORK'S HUDSON VALLEY
Kenneth A. Posner
SUNY Press, 2016, $19.95
Nine days. A 350-mile long stretch of trail from New York City to Albany. Inspired by Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," Kenneth Posner took the open road afoot and light-hearted. He scrambles up and around paths that take him through difficult terrain—the Shawangunks, Catskills, Schoharie Reservoir, and Endless Mountains, facing hunger, the elements, swollen feet, and the overall will to finish. Posner pairs his internal experience with the outside beauty of the Hudson Valley's trails and history, channeling voices that protected them: Walt Whitman, John Burroughs, Teddy Roosevelt, and Raymond Torrey.
Chronogram asked independent bookstore owners from across the Hudson Valley to choose their favorite new releases for this year's Holiday Gift Guide. These local stores are the perfect spots to visit in person for scoping out the new go-to read for your gift list. While you're there, check out their event calendars: they also host author readings, workshops, community events, and more that will continue well into the New Year. Here are some of their selections to get you started:
OUR TIME AT FOXHOLLOW FARM
David Byars
Excelsior Editions, 2016, $50
Deputy Managing Editor of Vogue David Byars has collected the history of the Hudson Valley's Dows family through stories and photographs in this stunning book. The Dows estate, Foxhollow Farm, was built in Rhinebeck in the early 1900s with architecture by Stanford White protegee Harrie T. Lindeberg and landscaping by the Olmsted Brothers. Covering the history of the Dows family from 1903-1930, Our Time at Foxhollow Farm is the perfect gift for anyone who can't get enough of local high society history.
Recommended by Suzanna Hermans of Oblong Books & Music, Millerton and Rhinebeck.
THE LYRICS: 1961-2012
Bob Dylan
Simon & Schuster, 2016, $60
Right after the historic announcement that this year's Nobel Prize for Literature went to a "musician," this collection of Dylan's lyrics was published in a handsome volume worthy of any coffee table. A perfect gift for all true music lovers, this should also be considered for any literary loyalist as it makes the case for Dylan to be included in the company of revolutionary wordsmiths like Dickinson or Whitman. As Salman Rushdie argued, Dylan is "the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition."
Recommended by James Conrad of The Golden Notebook, Woodstock.
Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees
Beth Moon
Abbeville publishing, 2016, $37
The perfect gift for anyone who appreciates the beauty of nature. Moon photographs some of the oldest and most revered trees on earth. The fact that they are all shot at night is the book's most enthralling element as Moon illuminates features of the nighttime sky often undetected by the naked eye. These brilliant astronomical panoramas provide gorgeous frames for the majestic subjects below. Among the writing that accompanies the photos, local author on spirituality and religion Clark Strand contributes a heart-opening essay on photography as pilgrimage and the spiritual qualities intrinsic to trees.
Recommended by Jeff Cuiule of Mirabai of Woodstock.
HEX
Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Tor, 2016, $25.99
One of the coolest local books to come out this year is Heuvelt's terrifying yet witty and reasonable novel set in a fictional Hudson Valley town, translated from the Dutch original. I projected Rosendale as I read it and you can do the same for your town. The central horror—an old witch with sewn-shut eyes who likes to stand at the end of your bed—is leavened (or worsened?) by the social media realism of modern life.
Recommended by Jesse Post of Postmark Books, Rosendale.
