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Books |
| FAUSTO MONTANARI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL |
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We’ve done it again—asked our favorite contributors to compile fantastically useful guides to what to give this holiday season. Books of photography, art and design for those looking to create an impression. Books about history, science and nature for the incurably curious. Books about business, basketball, the British and the Beatles. Those guides are just the beginning. We have much more for you throughout this expanded newsletter. —C.C. Books Editor books@wsj.com |
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| | | Our First Civil War By H.W. Brands The Revolutionary War turned family members against one another, just as the Civil War would a century later. While Benjamin Franklin celebrated independence and negotiated the Treaty of Paris, his Loyalist son was thrown into an American jail. Read the review |
| Brothers in Arms By James Holland During World War II, Britain’s Sherwood Rangers, a “mechanized cavalry” unit, excelled in tank warfare and proved its mettle in North Africa. Its members then went on to D-Day and were the first British soldiers to enter Germany. Read the review |
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| François Kollar/Ministère de la Culture, Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine, RMN-Grand Palais |
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Gioia Diliberto twists open the tale of how Coco Chanel planned, crafted, marketed—and at one point disowned—her label’s signature scent. Read the review |
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Under the Tree: Unique collections of fairy tales, works by Roald Dahl and other eye-popping volumes designed to delight young readers. Read the article |
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| Through the Looking Glass |
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| Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Getty Images |
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Edward Kosner pages through a fascinating document of midcentury culture, musing on how Look magazine chronicled the age. Read the review |
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| | | A Light in the Dark By David Thomson A good film critic, like a good film director, can inspire you, infuriate you, and occasionally completely change the way you look at movies. Read the review |
| The Impossible Art By Matthew Aucoin A young composer writes an ode to opera, which builds worlds from music and demands excellence from performers, musicians and artisans. Read the review |
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| The Tweetest Things in Life |
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Christoph Irmscher on five lavishly illustrated books that take a closer look at birds. Read the review |
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That’s a Wrap: Christmas-themed mysteries, gifts for fans of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, how to write a mystery novel and much more. Read the article |
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| Starting Things With a Boom |
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John Gribbin peers back into the distant past with the help of an excellent account of how we learned about the Big Bang. Read the review |
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| | | Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order By Ray Dalio Ray Dalio takes the long view as an investor and as a prognosticator, looking back across centuries to study the history of the Dutch, British and American empires as he seeks to understand what the rise of China means for our contemporary world. Read the review |
| The Will to See By Bernard-Henri Lévy Bernard-Henri Lévy has written about crises all over the world for magazines and newspapers but his approach “is the inverse of the journalist’s: I never set out on a reporting trip without the firm intention of intervening in what I see and changing what I show.” Read the review |
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| Five Best: Melanie Kirkpatrick |
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The author, most recently, of “Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman.” Read the article |
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Mourt’s Relation By Edward Winslow (1622) American Cookery By Amelia Simmons (1796) Northwood By Sarah Josepha Hale (1827) Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647 By William Bradford (1856) Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen By O. Henry (1907) |
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