GIFT BOOKS

By Bonnie Stanard

 

I don’t give as many books as gifts as I should. After all, it reminds my friends and family that in this age of instant entertainment, there’s still a place for books, or in other words, solitary introspection. Given the impact of Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc., today’s youngsters may grow to fear being alone.

 

All of which makes gifting books a good idea. A person, especially a child, can tolerate and even enjoy being alone when they’re with a book they enjoy.

 

Our inclination is to make presents of books we like, but that’s not always a good idea, especially if you’re unsure of the giftee’s taste. My husband likes mysteries, which I don’t read. Unless I go for nonfiction, my book selection for him is like a shot in the dark. So how do you make a choice?

 

One way is to think of movies they like. Often the book is better than the movie. Script writers who hew a novel’s text down to fit a 90 or 120 minute-movie leave out concepts, feelings, and those abstract things that make us human.

 

If your giftee liked the movie “The Life of Pi,” give them the book. Author Yann Martel offers more to think about than the movie. Here is a sampling of other titles that were popular movies and are well worth revisiting as books.

 

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Series)

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Roots by Alex Haley (Series)

Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

(BTW the Swedish movie with Noomi Rapace is better than Hollywood’s rip-off)

 

Here are examples of mundane movies which were made from good books, so if a person liked these movies, they may LOVE the book.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Series)

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Series)

 

My family often asks me for gift suggestions, and though I like to get books, I’m reluctant to name titles. I enjoy knowing their choice of a book. Invariably it tells me something about them.

 

As we indulge in this season’s craze of sparkle and shine, let’s not forget the quiet value of books.

 

 

Confiscating Others’ Experiences

By Sharon May

During last year’s Halloween frenzy, Peggy repeated her story about being required to collect money for UNICEF while politely refusing her neighbors’ sugary treats as commanded by her parents and teachers. Not the Halloween her seven-year-old mind had envisioned, particularly given that she had received candy in previous years.

I’ve heard the story often in our 17 years together, but this time I felt her resentment and connected it to mother-daughter stories she had also told me over the years. When I say Peggy is resentful about being robbed of her Halloween fun, I don’t mean that she remembers being resentful, but that she experiences the same deep emotion she did at seven. With that realization, I began envisioning a short story about deprivation.

I began working on my it, and realized I had drafted a similar plot some 30 years ago that was now languishing in a file drawer after meeting an early death due to my inexperience with life and a lack of craft. I dusted off a draft and read it. The basic premise is that a college professor takes her fiancé home to meet the family she had willingly learned to live without. Her conflict with her mother and their confrontation over old resentments drive the story. Sounds a lot like what I had in mind with Peggy’s story.

So, maybe I didn’t have a new idea, but a resurfacing of an idea I was too young to write about. I guess the idea was being seasoned till the right moment, when I can understand how a 66-year-old slight can endure and shape a person. Had I tried to write it previously, I would have had a confrontation with a 30-year-old woman and 50-year-old mom. I envision the exchanges will be more complex if the women are older. There is something more humorous, as well as sad, if both mom and daughter have to hash out old memories that have been smoldering for years.

No matter how the story turns out, I will always think of it as Peggy’s story as it will have bits and pieces of Peggy in it. The daughter in the story she is a college-educated woman who taught at a small rural, liberal arts college as Peggy did. They are also both from small towns they desperately wanted to, and did happily, escape to make a better life for themselves. Both had troubled relationships with their mothers, though for different reasons and outcomes. Peggy never had a chance to discuss with her mother her experiences or feelings about them, as her mother died young when Peggy was in graduate school.

But there will be lots in the story not based on Peggy because characters come to life on the page and tend to do and say what they want, surprising the author as much as the audience.