This is our favorite time of year. The store is filled with new and tempting books, the giftwrappers are ready to work their magic, and we are able to spend time with Seattle's community of readers. That is truly the best part of the season. We sell books all year but the holidays are special. This is the time when people who love books meet with people who love books to find presents for people who love books. We savor this blessing, this mitzvah, this state of grace that comes at the end of the year. We're grateful that our city gives us this joyful season when readers and books are brought together at the Elliott Bay Book Company. Thank you from all of us. Happy Holidays!

Nonfiction

Scarecrow Video Movie Guide
by the staff and friends of Scarecrow Video (Sasquatch)

I've often heard people say that a trip to Seattle's Scarecrow Video, with its labyrinthine rooms, can be an overwhelming and intimidating experience. Now this Shangri-la for film geeks can be navigated with its own handy guide. The good people of Scarecrow Video have compiled 4000 reviews organized by categories and genres, from John Cassavetes to Takashi Miike and all stops in between. Forget the rest; this is the best. -Matt

The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker
edited by Robert Mankoff (Black Dog and Leventhal)

Finally gathered together into one place are all 68,647 cartoons ever published by the New Yorker. This wonderful compilation is on two CDs that can be searched by cartoon subject, artist or date, with short biographies of many of the contributors. The book which they accompany is an impressive volume with a generous selection of the magazine's 80 year history of cartoons, and is sure to tickle the funny bone of anyone who opens it. -Rich

Spain in the Age of Exploration
edited by Chiyo Ishikawa

Published in conjunction with the exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, this sumptuous book includes 120 beautifully reproduced paintings almost exclusively loaned by Madrid's Patrimonio Nacional. Goya, Velazquez and other masters are represented as well as lesser-known artists. However, the essays are the strength of this book. They place the art in the context of New World exploration and the transition to the age of enlightenment when art and science became unified. -Anne Conway

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury)

Anthony Bourdain is back, that opinionated, obnoxious food aficionado we've grown to know and love and hate. Featuring his beloved restaurant, Les Halles, this cookbook is as passionate as anything he's ever written, and is the most informative, resourceful guide to classic French bistro cooking that I've read.

Bourdain understands that the passion to make good food has to come from the gut. As he says, "You have to yearn for things." -Tamra

Roaming
by Todd Hido (Nazraeli Press)

Roaming brings to print the desolate American landscape as seen from inside Todd Hido's car. His photographs convey a poetic ambivalence that is at once inviting and alienating, intimate and personal while cold and distant. The horizons are skewed, vistas blurred by a rain-streaked windshield, and the colors are subdued. Overall, there is a transcendental quality that compels us to look again and again -Anne Conway

The Future Dictionary of America
edited by Jonathan Safran Foer (McSweeney's Books)

What will the future bring? If the writers of this slim volume of definitions, aphorisms, and observations have anything to say, and they do, it will be a future without division and discord. Thanks are owed to Dave Eggars, Jonathan Safran Foer and all the folks at McSweeney's for giving us this book to put some perspective on the last four years of pessimism. Oh yeah, it also comes with a killer CD featuring the Flaming Lips, REM, and others. -Matt

A Field Guide to Produce: How to Identify, Select and Prepare Virtually Every Fruit and Vegetable in the Market
by Aliza Green (Quirk Books)

Farmers' market enthusiasts and produce-challenged shoppers alike will appreciate this cross-referenced, fully illustrated introduction to the fresh and edible. If you've ever wondered how to spot a ripe casaba, how to cook kohlrabi, or who first cultivated carrots, don't miss this guide. -Karen

Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany
by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury)

Exquisitely jumbled, infuriatingly clever, Schott's follow-up to his Schott's Original Miscellany is as delicious as his predecessor. Both volumes are maddeningly charming, smartly designed, and riddled with bits of fascinating detritus culled from the motley heaps of world knowledge, all arranged in delightful, often hysterical, juxtaposition. Ben Schott! You ingenious devil, you! Bury me with my Miscellany please. -Matthew

The Gourmet Cookbook
edited by Ruth Reichl (Houghton Miffllin)

My mom (the only mom in my junior high to take a wok cooking class) had a subscription to Gourmet magazine during all my years at home. When I think "comfort," I think of her mac & cheese. When I think "timeless classic for company," it's chicken Kiev. And the best dessert I have still ever tasted is coconut custard pie. So take this book home and make something from it—like memories. -Holly

America the Beautiful
by Robert Sabuda (Little Simon)

Robert Sabuda is the master of paper manipulation. This latest engineering masterpiece interprets all the stanzas of Katherine Bates's poem America the Beautiful with spectacular results. From the boats cruising under the Golden Gate Bridge, to the rippling water in front of the Lincoln Memorial and the curve of the Capitol, Sabuda's detailed creations will awe and delight readers of every age. -Holly

So, You Want to Be Canadian
by Kerry Colburn and Rob Sorenson (Chronicle)

Colburn and Sorenson may not be Wayne and Schuster but they have written an amusing and informative guide to being Canadian. Perhaps you're considering immigration, or want to disguise the fact that you're a U.S. citizen when traveling abroad. All the basic essentials are provided in this little primer and I'm grateful. (Even though Canada is not my native land, I would be more than happy to call it home.) -Greg

Nabokov's Butterfly
by Rick Gekoski (Carroll and Graff)

As an initiation into book collecting, Nabokov's Butterfly allows for fortuitous accidents. An unprepossessing set of Dickens marks the beginning of Gekoski's acquisitive tales which illuminate the prototypical passion for rare books, welcoming the delicate original as template for future visibility. Information, Gekoski reminds us, is prevalent rather than inherent, and often scarce. There's enough in this wonderfully gossipy book to render its fabulous and informative contents incendiary. -Kay

Chronicles, Volume One
by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster)

Dylan's writing, beautifully decadent but not self-indulgent, is capable of cosmic philosophical insight and equally sober observation. His colorfully descriptive prose and exciting travel writing are refreshing and unexpected. Dylan captures the sensuous reverence and awe that Walt Whitman held for the monumental experience of America. Then there is the music. Whether it is background to a specific passage or the comfort of late night radio or just inspiration, there is always the power of music. -Tim B.

The Devil in the Details
by Jennifer Traig (Little, Brown)

Jennifer Traig's autobiography of her own personal hell of OCD is written with the most marvelous, unflinchingly cruel wit. It is the perfect gift for the likes of my dark-hearted friend Julie with her unquenchable taste for black humor, whose first words of greeting every time she sees me are "Has Sedaris written anything new yet?" -Holly

The Travel Book
by Lonely Planet (Lonely Planet)

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The Travel Book has the world covered. Every country you've ever dreamed of, plus one or two you may never have heard of, are presented with tantalizing photos and enticing facts. Discover the best time to visit your dream destination, the best things to eat, drink and see when there, and learn a key phrase to use the minute that you arrive. Yol bolsin, as they say in Uzbekistan, may your travels be problem free. -Janet

The United States of Europe
by T.R. Reid (Penguin Press)

It was a quiet revolution when Europe put aside old hatreds and xenophobia to become a unified economic and political power that may dominate the twenty-first century.

A man who, with his family, has lived in the European Union, T.R. Reid has an informed and personal perspective on this dramatic reshaping of the world. Showing that the United States of America has much to gain from sharing the role of global superpower with Europe, with much to learn as well, his book is essential, and fascinating reading. -Janet

Fiction

The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin)

What if Charles A. Lindbergh won the 1940 U.S. Presidential election? Philip Roth poses this question in his latest novel, a blend of historical fact and speculative fiction told from the point of view of a young Jewish boy living in Newark. Roth brilliantly takes on isolationist, anti-Semitic, assimilationist America while still recognizing the capacity of ordinary, sometimes deluded people to act heroically. -Karen

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote
by Truman Capote (Random House)

Being from the deep South, I am aware that sometimes we have a very odd, yet endearing, (albeit somewhat skewed) view of how the world works. Southerners are painfully aware of human frailty, and usually couldn't be more oblivious to our own shortcomings. Truman Capote creates heartbreaking passages, bitterly and breathtakingly humorous, whether critiquing his crumbling, gothic South or creating snapshots of socially inept urbanites, the type who swallowed him whole. -Clayton

Runaway
by Alice Munro (Knopf)

Collections that satisfy our story lust are praised as Chekhovian—but don't ask Anton about the lives of girls and women. For that there's Alice Munro.

Runaway tracks the interior terrain of women raised in pre-feminist Canada. The novelistic stories, told in simple language, will leave fans and first-timers feeling rewarded—and wondering if Runaway is a description or an imperative? -Betsy

The Honored Guest
by Joy Williams (Knopf)

This may be just the book to reacquaint yourself with winter's season of solitude and reflection. Using a bizarre set of characters, Williams takes on the less wholesome side of humanity with a dark elegance. Her collection of stories reminds us that death, illness, loss, suicide, and sorrow all go into creating this absurd and beautiful world we inhabit together. -Irene

Palomar: the Heartbreak Soup Stories
by Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics)

Written over a period of twenty years, Palomar follows the lives of small town residents through all their loves, dreams, failures, heartbreaks, and (sometimes) redemptions. Every person in this book is perfectly human, as flawed as each of us. The more we learn about them the more we see them reflected in ourselves and our loved ones. Life's as big and often as heavy as this book, but don't let that stop you from enjoying it. -Tim L.

Hannah Coulter
by Wendell Berry (Shoemaker and Hoard)

Wendell Berry is a remarkable talent. His prose has an elemental power to protract an unmistakable elation from the reader that remains firmly embedded in both mind and heart. His latest work of fiction, a continuation of a series surrounding the citizens of Port William, Kentucky, reminds us that though life deals us distinct and unavoidable losses, the fact that we continue to breathe outweighs all that we are bitterly handed. -Clayton

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
by Yann Martel (Harcourt)

Yann Martel, born storyteller, is back, with a reissued collection of stories originally published before Life of Pi. Like Life of Pi, this work consists of somewhat implausible situations, framed as stories within stories. Martel likes to play with his readers, and does this well, but his fiction stands out for the humanity, grace, and compassion he manages to fuse into almost every line of every story. -Meghan

Soul City
by Touré (Little, Brown)

Imagine a fantasy utopia that personifies the stereotypes of African American culture. Soul City, driven by music, is just such a place, and Cadillac Jackson is determined to catch the town's essence in a book that could become his masterpiece. Touré brings this city to life with "jukebox mobiles," biscuits made from heavenly butter, and a mayoral race determined by musical taste.

This book is rich with witty social commentary and raw with Touré's vivid tales. -Chance

Going Postal
by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)

Con man Moist Van Lipwig is sentenced to death by hanging for crimes he has committed. Instead the ruler of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, makes him the postmaster of his realm, which creates an intriguing question. Which is worse, death or working for the post office, especially one staffed with some very old postmen and piled high with undelivered mail? Once again, Terry Pratchett has written a snappy, funny and entertaining novel. -Greg

The Stupidest Angel
by Christopher Moore (HarperCollins)

Moore shapes an irreverent Christmas tale set in the snowless coastal California town of Pine Cove. Seven-year-old Josh Barker witnesses the murder of a fat guy who looks a lot like Santa Claus. Josh desperately wishes Santa back to life—he wants his presents. Archangel Raziel, not the brightest bulb on the tree, grants his wish. The trouble is he raises the rest of the dead. Look out, here come the Yuletide zombies... -Greg

Children's & Young Adult

The Golem's Eye: Part two of the Bartimaeus Trilogy
by Jonathan Stroud (Miramax/Hyperion)

Bartimaeus, everyone's favorite djinni, is summoned once more to do the dirty work in the Machiavellian schemes of London's magical government and the ambitious young magician, Nathaniel. Two years have passed since The Amulet of Samarkand and Nathaniel has finally been given the power he has thirsted for. However, a mysterious monster shrouded in darkness begins to wreak havoc on the city, and both magician and djinni are pulled into the twisted schemes of an ancient magic which is being put to nefarious use. -Rich

Nutshell Library
by Maurice Sendak (HarperCollins)

Often overlooked by zealous fans of Where the Wild Things Are, The Nutshell Library is a favorite of mine. These four tiny books were read and reread in our house, first aloud to me by Grannyma, then to myself with a bit of memorization, then to anyone who'd listen. Simple, brilliant rhymes and delicate illustrations make this small collection essential to any home harboring young readers. -Jenny

Your Favorite Seuss
by Dr. Seuss (Random House)

Hunting material for the bedtime story
Can give any parent a fret or a worry.
Fear not—
This baker's dozen will do more than suit—
There's Horton, the Cat, green eggs and the Grinch,
Yertle, some Whos
And the Sneetches to boot!
Here's a book for all seasons, ensured quality time,
the Dr. is in with his wit and his rhyme. -Holly

The Boy Who Cried Fabulous
by Leslea Newman
illus. by Peter Ferguson (Tricycle)

One quick read and you'll be hooked on this picture book. The beautiful story centers around a magical boy and his habit of always being late. He's too preoccupied with the wonderful world around him! It's a splendid story about appreciating the world and its people. The drawings are brilliant and the words rhyme, so it must be read aloud. This book is, in a word, fabulous! -Anthony

What Does Peace Feel Like
by Vladimir Radunsky (Atheneum)

The children of Ambrit International School ask a good question: what does peace feel like, smell like, sound like? Acclaimed illustrator Vladimir Radunsky illustrates the children's simple yet profound sentiments with his characteristic, unstructured forms and bright colors. It is the simplicity of the idea of this very sophisticated picture book that makes the message so provocative. The publisher will donate a portion of its net proceeds to CARE, a leader in the fight against world poverty. -Holly

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish
by Neil Gaiman
illus. by Dave McKean (HarperCollins)

I know grown-ups claim Neil Gaiman as a favorite of theirs, but they're going to have to share him with the kids from now on. This book is simply beautiful, cleverly told and skillfully drawn. The brother and sister seem very personally real to me. They're my brother and me, right down to the mud in the sister's neck and the moment when she calls her brother an idiot. Kids of all ages will love this book. -Jenny

Jenny and the Cat Club
by Esther Averill (New York Review Children's Collection)

The New York Review of Books has brilliantly brought back a number of lost or overlooked children's classics in beautiful cloth editions with the original illustrations. One of my favorite in the series is Jenny and the Cat Club. This collection of stories is about a cute little black cat, who overcomes her shyness to join the neighborhood cat club in their nightly adventures through the streets of Greenwich Village. -Leah

Mistress Masham's Repose
by T.H. White (New York Review Children's Collection)

T.H. White knows that all children yearn to be orphans in the English countryside, lonely in an enormous mansion on a vast, overgrown estate. An evil governess and a friendly, eccentric old professor should be present. And, of course, one day while exploring the mysterious grounds, there must be a trip to a small island in the middle of a lake. This island, called Mistress Masham's Repose, is inhabited by Lilliputians, and the adventure begins. -Leah