For everyone on your list


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For swingers

REVIEW BY FRED HARRISON

Quit the nine-to-five job, cash in the IRA, buy an Airstream, and set out to conquer the best public golf courses in the country. Golf Magazine's Top 100 Courses You Can Play by Brian McCallen grows out of articles in Golf Magazine, highlighting the best 100 golf courses that are public and therefore accessible to the reader, regardless of handicap or country club credentials. But these are not the publinx of old where yeoman folk in tank tops walked ragged fairways pulling their bags on carts. These are golf courses almost biblical in their creation -- deserts have bloomed; swamps, marshes, and prairies have flourished with manicured fairways and sculptured greens. Lavishly photographed, the book encompasses all regions of the country and presents the layout and local lore of each of the courses in loving detail. Recognizing that comfortable accommodations, fine food and drink, and entertainment must sustain the golfer's daily labors, the author describes hotels, resorts, and restaurants that are located near each course. Also, the author branches out and describes other courses in the area that may deserve a try. From #1 at Pebble Beach to #100 at Cordillera, Colorado, and every place in between, you need only an adventuresome spirit and a high credit card limit to enjoy the riches spread before you in Top 100 Courses You Can Play.


For new moms and dads

REVIEW BY SHARON GALLIGAR CHANCE

It would take a very cold heart indeed to not at some time have been touched, amused, or fascinated by the precious, highly creative baby portraits of famed photographer Anne Geddes. Her unique art can be seen on greeting cards and novelty items everywhere, and is beloved the world over.

To the delight of her many fans and admirers, Geddes has hand-selected a sizable new collection of some of her favorite shots from 1991 to 1997 and compiled them into a large volume entitled Until Now.

In addition to over 100 enchanting color and black-and-white photographs, Geddes includes short explanations on how each photo was taken, the circumstances surrounding the photo session, and, in some cases, how the children have grown up since the shoot.

Until Now is guaranteed to bring a sentimental tear to the eye of even the most teenager-jaded parent.


For Star Trek fans

REVIEW BY ROYSTON HARDING

Attention all Trekkies and those who know and love them: The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future has landed. If you have a Star Trek fan on your list, this is the book. This edition, compiled by some enterprising folk, boasts 128 new pages to reflect the ever- expanding Star Trek universe and includes almost as many entries and illustrations as the Milky Way has stars. It is the most comprehensive Star Trek reference available, a mothership of a guide that no hard-core fan will want to be without.


For laughs

REVIEW BY ROYSTON HARDING

You know them, you love them. You send them to friends. Chances are, you have at least one on your refrigerator at this very moment. We are, of course, talking about New Yorker cartoons. What sheer delight it is to browse through

The New Yorker 75th Anniversary Cartoon Collection, edited and with a foreword by New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff. No Andy Capp or Snuffy Smith here, just the biggest, funniest, most insightful bunch of cartoons ever assembled. The collection spans nearly the entire 20th century and includes works by William Steig, Mary Petty, Peter Arno, and others. They are, as you would expect, cartoons that get right to the heart of the matter, and in the process tell us a little more about the world in which we live and laugh.


For inspiration

REVIEW BY SHARON GALLIGAR CHANCE

Michael Walker was eight on the Christmas Day he lost his brother David. For Michael, the meaning of Christmas changed forever. Thirty years later Michael is the neighborhood Grinch. He scowls at his neighbors' fervent holiday traditions and at his own children's innocent love of Christmas. But when another holiday disaster strikes, and his own cherished young son loses his will to live, Michael searches deep within himself to root out the anger, fear, and pain of the past. Can he bear remembering what happened that tragic Christmas day? Will he make peace with this past for the sake of his own children?

When Angels Sing, by Turk Pipkin, is an inspiring tale of Christmas spirit lost and found. This small, unassuming little book is one of the precious few guaranteed to wring a tear from even the Grinch himself. It is spectacular.


For art lovers

REVIEW BY ALAN BIRD

The latest in Phaidon's series of gorgeous oversized books is The American Art Book. In alphabetical order from Berenice Abbott's 1930s gelatin silver print of Manhattan at night to William Zorach's primitive-looking 1951 stone sculpture of a sleeping woman, there are 500 artists and works in this book. The breadth permits an impressive panorama of the artistic urge in America, from the continental days to the end of the millennium. Every time you turn a page, you find something wonderful -- photorealistic painters Ralph Goings and Richard Estes, photographers Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman, landscape painters Frederick Church and Thomas Cole. The book is worth the price just for Horace Pippin's classic 1946 oil "Man on a Bench." You'll also find a helpful glossary and a directory of museums and galleries.


REVIEW BY MICHAEL A. ROSE

There is always a sensuous thrill of recognition when the format of a book matches its subject. This compendium of 19th-century British painting is of a piece with so many of the art works it contains: gorgeous, oversized, singularly committed to detail, rich in scope, endlessly fascinating, and almost exhausting to ponder for any length of time.

With its stunning color reproductions and Lionel Lambourne's brilliantly orchestrated textual accompaniment, Victorian Painting is a study in generosity: Here we experience how art history at its best gives back to us the immediacy and wholeness of art in its fugitive time and place.


REVIEW BY CHRIS WYRICK

Forever the kooky uncle of New York City Museums, the Whitney Museum of American Art has undertaken to present, in two installments, an exhibit entitled "The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000." Fortunately for us, there's also The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-1950, a book that provides a fantastic vicarious experience of the first part of this wide-ranging exhibition.

The curtain opens with an array of elegant women immortalized in the dashing society portraits of John Singer Sargent and the gleaming bronzes of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The final section begins with Norman Rockwell's legendary "Freedom from Want" depicting mom delivering the turkey to a field of light-filled grins.

Curator Barbara Haskell's expansive running discourse on the cultural context of these works is augmented by critical examinations of important paintings and books, creating the effect of a guided tour through this ambitious and luscious survey.


REVIEW BY CAROLYN CATES

Art, like music and literature, is valuable to humankind because it portrays life's pathos as well as life's joy and tells us that we are all connected, facing life together, not alone. In Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces: Sister Wendy Beckett's Selection of the Greatest Paintings in Western Art, this well-known art historian offers us a magnificent collection of Western Art. From the stark religious subject matter of the 15th century to the free, flowing brushstrokes of the impressionists, Sister Wendy manages to capture in one paragraph the essence of each painting. She offers both their historical significance and her own unique interpretations and insights. Most importantly, Sister Wendy understands that basic human need to feel a part of something greater, and she encourages us to experience that sentiment through art.

    Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces:
    Sister Wendy Beckett's Selection of the Greatest Paintings in Western Art
    By Sister Wendy Beckett
    DK, $40
    ISBN 0789446030

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