2004 Holiday Gift Guide / Holiday Book Quarterly

by Brian Howard

For Who? For What?

My parents, God bless 'em. They haven't been able to buy me a present without specific instructions since I was 14. It's not their fault. How would you shop for a petulant middle-school music snob/jerk with a vendetta against corporate America without a checklist of what's cool and what's not socially objectionable? But it's not just me who's hard to shop for. We've become a society of superspecific tastes and highly specialized niche target markets. Everyone's so deep into their thing—it makes picking out gifts for friends and loved ones a big, nasty crapshoot.

As a result, we've morphed into a nation of gift-certificate-giving, check-writing bores.

It's sad, really. So, unlike other gift-buying guides out there that just tell you what to give, City Paper's Gift Guide/Holiday Book Quarterly '04 tells you who to give it to.

• Are you flummoxed about what to buy that loveable club hopper? A.D. Amorosi puts together a gift package that'll have playas and fly girls begging for more.

• Hoping to light up the eyes of that Jack or Meg White wannabe in your life, but don't know your "Seven Nation Army" from a seven-layer burrito? No problem. Andrew Parks gives you the straight dope on what'll have Philadelphia's hipsterati flipping their pomaded lids this holiday season.

• Or maybe you're flat broke and the holiday shopping budget is whatever you can scrounge from the couch cushions. Our resident spendthrift/intern James Saul hooks you up with gift ideas so cheap, you'll have enough bankroll left over to treat yourself.

• Do you have a friend who never goes out? Copy editor Adrienne Saunders lets you in on presents to enhance a Friday movie night.

• Got a pal who's glued to the Food Channel, but you can't tell Brie from chevre? Angelina Sciolla lays out a spread of gourmandelic delights.

• Perhaps you've got parents or friends who've finally got the house all to themselves, but can't seem to make proper use of their newfound freedom? Check intern Tami Fertig's gifts for empty nesters

• Of course, the holidays are always a big time for fancy new DVDs, CD box sets, video games and gadgets — we give you the goods.

We've Got Books

In the second, but by no means secondary, portion of our holiday shopping guide, A&E editor Lori Hill has crafted CP's holiday book quarterly with care. In our regular roundup of readables, editor in chief/crime-writing aficionado Duane Swierczynski talks turkey with Charles Ardai, creator of the Hard Case Crime imprint which resuscitates old pulp novels and publishes up-and-coming crime novelists (p. 40). The aforementioned Angelina Sciolla and Gary M. Kramer review books that walk readers through Philadelphia's houses of worship and museums, respectively. The oft-mentioned A.D. Amorosi grabs a handful of the literary world's eye candy in his coffee-table books wrap-up. And we collect short fiction, nonfiction and children's book reviews, including Alex Richmond's take on Sylvie Simmons' Too Weird For Ziggy and Cindy Fuch's on Mark Bowden's Road Work.

We've compiled over 208 gift suggestions in all—for details on where to get a lot of this swag, check our "Where it's At" guide. So get reading, then get out there.