How to Build an Igloo
by Norbert E. Yankielun (Norton, $18)
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The Complete Book of Aunts
by Rupert Christiansen with Beth Brophy (Twelve, $20)
The British edition of this quirky compendium would have pleased many an aunt on your gift list, said Alexander Waugh in The Wall Street Journal. This American rewrite is “delightful” in its own way, though tarted up with odes to Spider-Man’s Aunt May, Mayberry’s Aunt Bee, and even a Web-savvy dominatrix who calls herself Aunt Vicki. For aunts allergic to crass pandering, you might want to track down the original edition online.
The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming
by Lemony Snicket (McSweeney’s, $10)
This “funny fable” about the short but rewarding life of a potato pancake isn’t just a book to remember for Hanukkah 2008, said USA Today. Lemony Snicket’s charmingly deadpan tale will entertain most readers all season long, and might even “trigger family discussions about religious differences.”
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
by Leszek Kolakowski (Basic, $20)
“If your New Year’s resolution is to become a better, wiser person,” said William Grimes in The New York Times, keep this miniature hardcover for yourself. Starting with Socrates’ teachings about why humans do evil, philosopher Leszek Kolakowski taps one great thinker after another to address 23 enduring questions. This is intellectual history that fits in your pocket, executed with “admirable clarity and brevity.”
Geary’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Aphorists
by James Geary (Bloomsbury, $20)
Journalist James Geary’s collection of “epigrammatic observations” isn’t the best on the market, said Michael Dirda in The Washington Post. But it is “a wonderful breviary of wisdom, insight, and cynicism.” Especially helpful are Geary’s brief biographies of the figures behind the famous sayings, including the form’s “greatest master,” French courtier François de La Rochefoucauld. His statement that “we are never as unhappy as we think, nor as happy as we had hoped,” encapsulates decades of lessons in love and war.