Words and images in visually stunning books make for fun holiday gift ideas

Words and images in visually stunning books make for fun holiday gift ideas

Everyone’s got at least one tough-to-buy-for person on their annual holiday shopping list.

Rather than opt for a tie, a pair of socks or a (helpful, but slightly boring) gift card, surprise that special someone with a book that will look great on a coffee or side table, combining stellar storytelling with visual components that are sure to impress.

Here are some intriguing options — including selections with local connections — that are sure to please even the most fickle of friend or family member.

The Art of Ectoplasm: Encounters with Winnipeg’s Ghost Photographers

Edited by Serena Keshavjee

University of Manitoba Press, 328 pages, $35

Husband-and-wife couple T.G. and Lillian Hamilton spent the years following the First World War conducting séances in their Henderson Highway home, purporting to be exploring the potential of life after death and documenting the results in dramatic photographs. The hundreds of images in the Hamilton Family Fonds, housed at the University of Manitoba and now digitized, appear to show paranormal phenomena, including the appearance of ectoplasm around subjects’ faces and bodies.

This collection offers fascinating photos from the collection as well as a range of essays about the meetings, notes and images from the encounters and ruminations on the ways in which the work continues to capture the imagination today.

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I Must Be Dreaming

By Roz Chast

Bloomsbury, 128 pages, $37

If you’ve ever wondered what makes a cartoonist tick, this graphic narrative might be for you. Talking about dreaming with someone is usually a topic worth avoiding, but Chast, a cartoonist for the New Yorker, puts her illustrative skills to good use, drawing scenes that have flashed through her mind while sleeping. In turns funny, creepy and touching, Chast’s dreams don’t make much sense, but they’re charmingly drawn and entertaining to peruse.

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The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island, Vols. One and Two

By Kent Monkman and Gisèle Gordon

McClelland & Stewart, 264 pages each, $48 (Vol. One) and $44 (Vol. Two)

Manitoba-born, Toronto-based artist Kent Monkman and longtime collaborator, artist and writer Gisèle Gordon, team up for this two-volume collection art and stories (both fact and fiction) that offer the story of Monkman’s gender-fluid quasi alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, who appears in many of his works.

The first volume explores the time from the universe’s creation to confederation; Volume Two picks up the story from there, taking it to the present day. Breathtaking art and words (both in English and Cree) combine to offer a riveting, provocative and at times heartbreaking account of the shape-shifting Miss Chief and the effects of colonialization on Indigenous culture.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Picturing the Game: An Illustrated Story of Hockey

By Don Weekes

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 408 pages, $50

A Montreal-based author of a number of hockey books (mostly trivia and such), Weekes here brings together editorial and sports cartoons (as well as some photos, paintings and other visual media) in chronicling how Canada’s game has been depicted by the media over the years.

Throughout, Weekes tells the story of various sports pages/publications, the perception of hockey over the last century and some of the subjects of cartoonists and illustrators through the years. An ideal gift for your favourite hockey fan.

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On the Road to Abandoned Manitoba: Taking the scenic route through historic places

By Gordon Goldsborough

Great Plains Press, 264 pages, $35

Manitoba author and historian Gordon Goldsborough follows his bestselling Abandoned Manitoba and award-winning More Abandoned Manitoba with a volume that ventures beyond buildings and also includes bridges, ships, towers and more that are disappearing (or have disappeared) from our provincial landscape.

Goldsborough’s insightful text is accentuated by maps, diagrams, charts, old advertisements and photos — some taken by the author in his fact-finding travels — and is a fine accompaniment to his other volumes, although is just as enjoyable on its own.

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Pacific Voyages: The Story of Sail in the Great Ocean

By Gordon Miller

Douglas & McIntyre, 264 pages, $60

Vancouver artist and historian Gordon Miller pays tribute to the relatively small wooden ships that explored the Pacific Ocean from earliest times through to the early 20th century in his paintings and accompanying text. Ships are painted with vivid, energetic strokes, while descriptions of the often-arduous expeditions, world-weary crew and those they encountered in their travels are chronicled.

Nautical buffs will enjoy the stories and paintings as well as an in-depth appendix featuring measurements, illustrations and other details about a number of the types of ships used in the journeys.

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Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity

By Gerald McMaster and Nina Vincent

Goose Lane Editions, 256 pages, $60

Created in partnership with the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge, this unique collection connects Indigenous communities in disparate but similarly climate-affected regions in the far north as well as south of the equator.

McMaster and Vincent offer their own perspectives on both communities while making plenty of room for artists, knowledge keepers and more from both communities to reflect on their worlds and share their visually stunning creations.

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Pictures on the Wall: Building a Canadian Art Collection

By Michael Audain

Douglas & McIntyre, 208 pages, $60

Vancouver businessman, philanthropist and fervent art collector Michael Audain explores his personal art collection — pieces he has on hand, as well as those he contributed to Whistler’s Audain Art Museum — in this handsome tome. Most interestingly, Audain also describes his connection to each piece, offering the story of how it came to be in his collection (much of which has been loaned or donated to museums and cultural centres).

Audain’s fondness for particular styles of art — including work by Emily Carr, Jean Paul Riopelle, Mexican modernists and a number of Indigenous artists — is beautifully captured here.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

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