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PrintBooks to give for the holidays
This year’s list is eclectic in subject and appeal. May you find the perfect match.
Angie Jackson
If you haven’t read humorist Sedaris of New Yorker and PBS fame, you are in the minority and surely know someone who does. Sedaris appeared in Tulsa last October, his fourth visit here. He reads his acerbic essays and his large following roars with recognition and laughter. |  |
| “My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize” by Jeff Martin (Soft Skull Press, $12.95) Our home-grown humorist (and TulsaPeople columnist) Martin has created a very short memoir with illustrations. His adventuresome 30 years on earth, as written, is a pack of lies — lies you wish you had thought of. This text is sized to stuff in a stocking. |  |
“Mexico/USA,” Nimrod International Journal (The University of Tulsa, $10) Nimrod has been suggested before in this Christmas column, and for very good reasons. Literary journals are rare and luxurious extravagances that every serious reader craves. In one volume, you can test drive 58 aspiring writers judged to be future legends of prose and poetry. Tulsa is lucky to be home to this long-standing, prestigious publication. |  |
| “To Indy and Beyond, The Life of Racing Legend Jack Zink” by Dr. Bob Blackburn (Cottonwood Publications, $34.95) If you have ever driven south down Peoria Avenue, been a Boy Scout, hiked Zink Ranch Preserve, raced cars, worked in the oil business, followed local politics, asked for a charitable donation — in short, if you have spent any time at all in Tulsa, you know the name Jack Zink. Blackburn, Oklahoma Historical Society director, has compiled a handsome coffee-table book of memories loaded with photos. |  |
| “The Indian Tribes of Oklahoma, A Guide” by Blue Clark (University of Tulsa Press, $29.95) Long overdue, Clark has updated and enriched Wright’s 50-year-old source book. “Oklahoma is home to nearly 40 tribes and is the state with the largest Native population.” Can you name them? Did you remember Kialegee? Modoc? Thlopthlocco? This is a must-reference for students of Oklahoma history. |  |
| “Capitol Offense” by William Bernhardt (Ballantine Books, $26) Bernhardt is a Tulsa institution, along with his antagonist, Ben Kincaid, attorney extraordinaire. You just can’t go wrong if your reader likes detective intrigue in a local backdrop. |  |
“Marked By Fire” by Joyce Carol Thomas (Hyperion, $7.99) This 1982 book for teens is noted not because it is as current as the rest but because the author was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame this year for her body of work. The Ponca City native lives in Berkeley, Calif., and writes about Oklahoma. “Marked By Fire” won the National Book Award. Thomas has said she writes about horrible happenings (rape in this case) to tell young people there is darkness in the world, but also hope and redemption. |  |
Happy holidays and happy reading. All these books are available at Steve’s Sundry Books and Magazines.
