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2014 Holiday Gift Guide

Style, Beauty & Grooming

Despite the countless e-commerce and brick-and-mortar options, holiday shopping just doesn’t seem to get easier. Some would even say the options are overwhelming. In the spirit of benevolence, we’ve carefully selected a range of items aimed at (but not limited to) various personalities: the luxury savant; the trendy millennial; the lady who brunches; the dapper gent; the rustic minimalist; and the lip balm and ponytail gal. From fringe leather gloves to portable speakers that work on Bluetooth, make shopping for your loved ones time well-spent for all of you.

The Lip Balm and Ponytail Gal

Book Title Sweatshirt

Out of Print Clothing

$42 outofprintclothing.com

A little something special for the ever-nostalgic and literary-minded: In a vast selection of sweatshirts, tees and totes, Out of Print Clothing celebrates iconic and often out-of-print book covers. Bonus: For each product sold, one book is donated to a community through its partner, Books for Africa. – Simone Oliver

Falconwright Card Pouch

Zady

$28 zady.com

This whimsical interpretation of the professional’s must-have is a thoughtful match for the artistic and daring. – Simone Oliver

Skincare Idols and Skincare VIPs

Fresh

$58, $70 fresh.com

Pick up one of these sets, which include a soy face cleanser, seaberry face oil and a lip treatment, for those who want smooth supple skin, minimal fuss and gentle products. – Valeriya Safronova

Cynthia Rowley Flask Bangle

The Cools

$225 cools.com

This piece of wrist hardware can hold its own or be layered with other trimmings. But the discerning eye (and a thirsty throat) will appreciate its functionality. Fit for the chicest clubgoer or jet-setter, Cynthia Rowley’s flask bangle holds up to three ounces and will get past a bouncer. – Simone Oliver

Portable Speakers

The Cools

$140 cools.com

Because a party could commence at any moment, treat a social butterfly with Otis & Eleanor’s lightweight portable speakers controlled through Bluetooth. They’ll play for eight hours before needing a recharge. – Simone Oliver

Rejuvenating Bath and Shower Gel

Marianella

$28 marianellasoap.com

Made with a slew of oils (coconut, olive, argan, rice bran and others), this shower gel cleans and moisturizes, making it luxurious and easy. – Valeriya Safronova

Gold Vape Pen

The Crystal Cult

$45 thecrystalcult.com

There’s no need to brave the cold for a smoke. Svelte enough to fit into a clutch or pocket, this vaporizer may steal attention from the user’s holiday outfit. – Simone Oliver

Cheers to FAB Skin

First Aid Beauty

$48 sephora.com

For the holidays, this go-to brand for those with sensitive skin offers a thorough set of restorative products, including cleanser, exfoliating pads and eye cream. – Valeriya Safronova

The Rustic Minimalist

Sweat Hoody Bathrobe

The Ace Hotel

$160 acehotel.com

When it comes to lounging around, do you choose a hoodie or a robe? The Ace Hotel has married the two in a hooded bathrobe made from French terry. Consider giving two, though; it’s the kind of item significant others end up arguing over. – Simone Oliver

OPS Swim Camera Goggles

Neiman Marcus

$120 neimanmarcus.com

No underwater adventure will go undocumented with these OPS swim camera goggles. Using a camera affixed to the side, capture photo and video through a 1 UV-protected lens. – Simone Oliver

Tattoo

Musée du Quai Branly

$60 artbook.com

Inspirational and noteworthy ink has found a home on the pages of Pinterest and Instagram. “Tattoo" reminds us that there’s still something seductive about pouring over actual pages of tattoos. The book explores tattoos’ social, religious and cultural histories, includes a section that celebrates new school artists, and ends with a photo essay on today’s tattoo trends. – Simone Oliver

Exfoliating Body Bar

Baxter of California

$16 baxterofcalifornia.com

A combination of pumice, jojoba meal and crushed olive seed delivers on this bar’s promise to exfoliate, and the oak moss- and cedarwood-infused scent satisfies the cabin-in-a-forest fantasy of the urban man. – Valeriya Safronova

Daily Defense Kit

Buckler’s

$65 themotley.com

Not many are immune to the skin-destroying effects of winter’s bluster, not even those who claim disinterest toward grooming products. For those deniers, there is this no-nonsense kit, made up of a chapped skin remedy, repairing lotion and shine-free lip balm. – Valeriya Safronova

Farmers’ Balm

Farmers’ for Ace Hotel

$21 acehotel.com

A utilitarian solution to skin irritation or dryness, this balm is compact, easy to transport and made with ingredients like sandalwood, antibacterial olive leaf and green tea extracts. – Valeriya Safronova

Winter Essentials Trio

Harry's

$20 harrys.com

From the company that offers a subscription service for German-engineered razors comes a product line that includes affordable sets like this one, with lotion, shaving gel and lip balm. – Valeriya Safronova

Daily Essentials Travel Kit

Port Products

$28 themotley.com

One, two, three, done: This straightforward set of cleanser, shaving cream and moisturizer is handy for the traveling minimalist. – Valeriya Safronova

The Trendy Millennial

Printed Sneakers

Sawa

$173 sawashoes.com

Designed and constructed in Ethiopia, these Sawa sneakers are not essentials, but they are a treat. The riot of paint on the jaguar on the sneakers only adds to their fierceness. Choose a pair for the person who lives in black but likes to go playful from the ankle down. – Simone Oliver

Smokey Eye Kit

Topshop

$44 topshop.com

This handy set, which includes mascara, kohl and an eye-shadow palette, contains all the elements a party-going millennial needs to create her “face” for a night out. – Valeriya Safronova

Waterproof/Solar-powered Watch

Q&Q SmileSolar Series

$40 store.smile-qq.com

With its jovial colors and long-lasting power, this waterproof and solar-powered watch will delight the wearer. – Simone Oliver

Fur Slap Wrist Bracelet

Mordekai by Ken Borochov

$195 mordekai.com

Ken Borochov, the designer behind the New York accessories label Mordekai, transformed a frivolous yet iconic 1990s toy, the slap wrist bracelet, into a luxury item with a sense of humor. – Simone Oliver

Assorted Funky Nail Wraps

Jamberry

$15 per sheet jamberry.com

Easily applicable, these decorative nail wraps last up to two weeks and are ideal for a young relative with a fast-changing personality and a desire for colorful designs. – Valeriya Safronova

Nirvana Rollerball and Lip Gloss Set

Elizabeth and James

$29 sephora.com

From the brainchild brand of the stylish twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen comes a miniature pairing of scent and shine. Available in Nirvana Black or Nirvana White, each set includes a roll-on version of the brand’s signature perfume and a nonsticky nude lip gloss. – Valeriya Safronova

Shupette Has-It-All Eye and Lip Palette

Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura

$89 shuuemura-usa.com

Inspired by Karl Lagerfeld’s feline companion, Choupette, this palette of eye and lip color is packaged in a furry white makeup bag that begs to be stroked. The bag may not inspire an army of admirers, but it’ll add something special to a quotidian beauty routine. – Valeriya Safronova

Kiss Pop Collector’s Edition

Marc Jacobs Beauty

$300 marcjacobs.com

For lips that crave a little luxury, this set offers nine demi-matte colors, like berry sangria and electric rose, presented in a sleek lacquered box. – Valeriya Safronova

The Dapper Gent

Bosco Quilted Shirt Jacket

Swords-Smith

$250 swords-smith.com

Quilting is trending this season, but any gent will happily settle into this easygoing Lucio Castro jacket that moonlights as a shirt. Lucio Castro started his eco-conscious line in Brooklyn in 2011, and the label is becoming known for using Japanese or organic fabrics. The clothes are produced only in small quantities, so your gift recipient won’t see his look-alike on every street corner. – Simone Oliver

Leather Care Set

Shinola

$95 shinola.com

Shinola, the Detroit-based company dedicated to producing American-made products, knows a bit about putting mileage on a shoe. For those who take pride in giving their leather some TLC, this leather-care kit comes with a large polish brush, a polish dauber and cloth, along with black and brown polish. – Simone Oliver

Noir Shaving Set

Art of Shaving

$850 theartofshaving.com

An engraved handle, silvertip badger hair, hand assembly and nickel plating over brass: This ode to grooming luxury is for the man who has moved well beyond plastic handles and electric-blue shaving cream. – Valeriya Safronova

Needlepoint belt

Ralph Lauren

$72 ralphlauren.com

The right details can give any wardrobe a face-lift. Ralph Lauren’s fatigue-print belt is a charming acknowledgment of a dandy’s style. – Simone Oliver

Made to Measure Gift Set

Gucci

$71 ulta.com

A classic gift for men, this set includes an eau de toilette spray, after-shave balm and shaving gel, all with a fragrance that blends anise, bergamot and lavender. – Valeriya Safronova

The Luxury Savant

Fringe Leather Gloves

Coach

$195 coach.com

Fringe has found its way onto almost everything this season, and gloves are no exception. Coach’s are all drama and make talking with your hands more fun. – Simone Oliver

Fit Bit necklace

Tory Burch

$175 toryburch.com

There’s wearable technology and there’s wearing your technology. The Fret pendant necklace, a result of a collaboration between Tory Burch and Fitbit, is just the gift for those who already live in a Fitbit device, and now do it with a little pizazz. (A Fitbit Flex does is not included with purchase.) – Simone Oliver

American Fashion

Assouline

$65 assouline.com

This coffee-table book highlights more than 80 years of the work of some 100 designers. Written by Charlie Scheips, it is a visual journey of all American fashion has to be proud of. – Simone Oliver

Liquid Gold: Beauty Brush and Travel Wrap

Alexis Bittar for Sephora

$58 sephora.com

Swarovski crystals and 24-karat gold plating are prettily arranged on this eye-catching brush, which can be transported in the black suede pouch that accompanies it. – Valeriya Safronova

B. Balenciaga

Balenciaga

$145 bloomingdales.com

Alexander Wang’s first fragrance has arrived. Green, fresh and woody, the scent comes in a bottle that mimics the marble tiling of the original Balenciaga salon in Paris. – Valeriya Safronova

Elixir Ultime Holiday Gift Set

Kérastase

$103 kerastase-usa.com

Inside a festive golden box, this set includes paraben-free shampoo, a reviving hair mask and nourishing oil, a three-step process for silky tresses. – Valeriya Safronova

Filipa Felt Hat

Need Supply

$42 needsupply.com

Infuse glamour into someone’s wardrobe with one of the season’s accessories du jour. The Filipa felt hat can transform jeans and sneakers into a brunch party-worthy ensemble. – Simone Oliver

The Lady Who Brunches

Slouchy Cashmere Tunic

Everlane

$155 everlane.com

Sophisticated ladies long for a go-to that can be taken from office to dinner with just a quick change of accessories and shoes. This cashmere tunic is also cozy enough to advance from season to season. – Simone Oliver

Miyabi Golden Glow Beauty Set

Tatcha

$195 tatcha.com

With 24-karat-gold-infused lip balm and beauty oil, this set reeks of indulgence. It’s just right for the sybarite who loves long, candlelit bubble baths accompanied by a glass of wine. – Valeriya Safronova

Beauty Case and Mini Lip and Eye Palette

Bobbi Brown

$135, $30 bobbibrowncosmetics.com

With faux crocodile skin on the outside and suedelike material inside, the case is an elegant and convenient option for itinerant beauty mavens. Toss in the palette, which includes three shadows and three lip colors, for a sweet surprise. – Valeriya Safronova

Knot Eau de Parfum

Bottega Veneta

$160 bottegaveneta.com

Packaged in a sculptural bottle inspired by Venetian glass and the brand’s Knot clutch, Bottega’s new fragrance captures scents of the Italian Riviera: lush peonies, saltwater breeze and clementine trees. – Valeriya Safronova

Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+

By Andrea Q. Robinson

$24 tossthegloss.com

Andrea Q. Robinson, the author of “Toss the Gloss” and a former chief marketing officer for Estée Lauder, offers beauty ideas for women of a certain age and an insider’s perspective on her industry. – Valeriya Safronova

Frosted Cherry and Clove Deluxe Candle

Jo Malone

$195 jomalone.com

This is the gift that will keep on burning, evoking holiday memories in its owner’s home even as December turns to January and the gray chill of winter settles in. – Valeriya Safronova

Food, Drink & Cooking

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” Virginia Woolf said. We agree. Here are some gift ideas from the staff of The New York Times Food section to help those you love dine well this holiday season and beyond.

Fruit Lollipops

$2.50 each kikkerland.nyc

These lollipops, made with real fruits or herbs embedded in pellucid discs of candy, look like stained glass. Flavors include kiwi, blood orange, mandarin, strawberry, lavender and honey. Fill mugs or jars with clusters of them to put on a holiday table with dessert, or stuff into a stocking. – Florence Fabricant

Pulke Herb Infuser

$13.95 cb2.com

Tired of fishing around for that stray bay leaf or rosemary twig in your soups and stews? Nestle your herbs into a playful Pulke Herb Infuser and simmer away. Shaped like a drumstick (or pulke, in Yiddish) and made of silicone, this bouquet garni gadget is dishwasher-safe and BPA-free. – Joan Nathan

Le Creuset Braiser

$250 for 3-quart pan; $295 for 5-quart pan lecreuset.com

Le Creuset’s Dutch ovens have a well-earned cult following among cooks, but they aren’t ideal for every dish: too deep for braising, and short on cooking surface for browning. Enter the Le Creuset Braiser, a wider, shallow pan made of the same heat-grabbing material, but engineered for braises, one-pot dishes and stovetop-to-oven-to-table cooking. It also makes an ideal, and beautiful, casserole dish. – Julia Moskin

Liquid Intelligence

By Dave Arnold

$35 books.wwnorton.com

This book from Dave Arnold, the owner of the East Village cocktail bar Booker and Dax, is a deep dive for nerdy cocktailians and anyone else who wants to improve as a home bartender. “Think like a scientist and you will make better drinks,” he writes in the introduction, before proceeding to an exhaustive and engrossing look at the scientific principles at work behind the bar. – Sara Bonisteel

Tassel Stitch Table Runner

$298 anthropologie.com

You don’t have to spend $300 on a runner for your holiday table. But you could spend it on one for someone you love. It’s a beautiful grace note for the season and beyond, especially in the form of this nice Jenny Krauss design from Anthropologie: tassel-stitched, colorful and hippie-fringed. – Sam Sifton

Macaron Purse

$12.99 piqproducts.com

French macarons are the new cupcakes, and the craze is reaching its peak this holiday season. These trompe l’oeil purses make perfect stocking stuffers: charming, unexpected and calorie-free. Made of sherbet-colored silicone and scented with strawberry, orange, chocolate or mint, they’re designed to hold coins but are big enough for a mini makeup set or a stash of candy. – Julia Moskin

Coffee Bean Subscription

From $135 heartroasters.com

Heart Roasters is one of the most exciting small roasters in the country, a Portland outfit known for a light roast profile that brings out coffee’s more delicate, floral flavors. This is advanced stuff and not for every palate. The selection changes throughout the year. Subscribe, and you’ll find yourself exposed to coffees you might not try on your own. Packages available for delivery weekly, once every two weeks and once a month. – Oliver Strand

Magnum of Barolo

$199.99 astorwines.com

Few gifts are as imposing and generous as a magnum of good wine, twice the normal-size bottle. And this Barolo is superb, from a classic vintage and an excellent producer. If it’s too expensive, or will require too much aging, you can find magnums of all sorts of wine at every price range. – Eric Asimov

Truffle Shaver

$104 didriks.com

This is the tool you’ll want to give to the cook who can afford to buy a truffle or two. With a sleek wood handle and an adjustable blade, it’s for shaving white truffles over pasta in style, and making thin rounds of black truffle for consommé or fancy salads. – David Tanis

Adopt an Olive Grove

From $77 nudoadopt.com

In an age of individualization, who wouldn’t want to help raise their own olive tree? Nudo Italia has trees in Liguria, Le Marche and Sicily. Pick one based on the flavor profile of the oil and the season during which the olives will be harvested. The company sends you oil from that tree in attractive tins. A welcome packet arrives ahead of the oil so your giftees can register online and learn more about the tree they have adopted and even schedule a visit. – Kim Severson

Cinnamon from Vietnam

$85 donate.worldvision.org

Finely ground and highly aromatic Vietnamese cinnamon is actually cassia, from the bark of an evergreen closely related to true cinnamon, which comes from Sri Lanka. They can be used interchangeably, although cassia is a bit sweeter. Three ounces of the spice come in a box made from cassia and carved with a symbol for prosperity. Sales of this gift support families in Vietnam. – Florence Fabricant

Benton’s Ham from Tennessee

$65 bentonscountryhams2.com

Allan Benton knows the country’s best chefs by name, because they love the hams and bacon he smokes in North Madisonville, Tenn. He smokes pork shanks over hickory and then cures them for up to two years in a mixture of salt, two kinds of pepper and brown sugar. A gentler unsmoked version is available, too. Either way, the result is the porkiest, most delicious little slice of the South you can give. – Kim Severson

Whisk Necklace

$325, 14-karat gold; $66, sterling silver food52.com/provisions

There is no cook who has everything, because there is always something new to have: sumptuous wooden spoons, cookbooks dedicated to obscure ingredients, imported cinnamon. But the beauty of this elegant whisk necklace is that it marks the cook’s passion when she is not in the kitchen. The 14-karat gold is an indulgence; I will take mine in sterling silver, please. – Jennifer Steinhauer

Mawmaw Dot’s Sweet Pickles

$20 for a four-pack garnergirls.com

Pickles have become a clichéd mark of hipster culture. Why not go directly to the real thing? The Garner Girls, twin sisters from Mississippi, make Southern pickles and relishes in the style of their Mawmaw Dot. The sweet-hot habaneros, made with Southern cukes that retain a surprising crispness, are a standout. Order a four-pack, and their father will hand-make a little wooden box to hold them. – Kim Severson

Silicone Spatula

$15.95 productofgir.com

These colorful spatulas bring new life to an old reliable in the kitchen. Wood-handled spatulas tend to come apart when whipped through the paces, but this one won’t, thanks to its all-silicone one-piece design. They’re available in 12 colors, from minimalist black to cheerful yellow, so you’re bound to find just the right one (or two) to stuff into your favorite cook’s stocking. – Sara Bonisteel

Cascara Nut Bowl

$110 momastore.org

This clever stainless-steel nut bowl is designed to pile the nuts in the top section so the shells can disappear into the bowl below. Give it with a sack of the best pistachios or roasted peanuts. Use it for plump Cerignola olives, too. – Florence Fabricant

Chopstick Store

Prices vary yunhongchopsticks.com

This tiny jewel box of a store on Mott Street in Chinatown sells beautiful chopsticks for all manner of purposes and occasions, from the linked plastic training versions perfect for children to elegant mahogany sets inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Simply browsing the place is fun (its rudimentary website, less so), but the gifts are sublime. – Sam Sifton

Handmade Knives

$650 cutbrooklyn.com

Is there a better gift for the artisanal food-loving cook than an artisanally made knife? At Cut Brooklyn, Joel Bukiewicz painstakingly grinds each knife by hand, with an eye toward achieving balance between handle and blade. Guaranteed to last a lifetime, all of his knives are also visually stunning right down to the handmade mosaic pins on the handle. His Prospect 240, a nine-inch chef’s knife, would be the highly functional glory of any serious cook’s kitchen. – Melissa Clark

All the Odes

By Pablo Neruda; Edited by Ilan Stavans

$40 macmillan.com

Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet, had a passion for the simple things, and he honored them with a series of odes. Many happened to be about food: plums, onions, oranges, salt, artichokes, chestnuts, tomatoes, wine, French fries, eel chowder. Food lovers can find them in “All the Odes,” an expansive new collection. A lemon spills “a universe of gold,” Neruda wrote. So does this book. – Jeff Gordinier

Wine Glasses

$24.95 for a set of four wineenthusiast.com

A set of good wineglasses greatly enhances the experience of drinking any wine. You can spend a lot of money for works of goblet art, but you don’t have to. These all-around glasses are just right for everyday use. – Eric Asimov

Baking Steel

$79 bakingsteel.com

The argument in favor of replacing the stained, reliable pizza stone in your oven, that old friend alongside whom you developed a reliable home-pizza game, with a shiny new sheet of steel? The steel provides superior transfer of heat from cooking surface to pie, resulting in a better, crisper crust, more quickly cooked. We’re not going back. – Sam Sifton

Laguiole Barbecue Tools

$260 oakstreetman.com

This set of barbecue tools made by Laguiole, the French cutlery experts, will add panache to your grilling game. The tongs, two-prong fork and sharp knife all have long, satiny palissandre wood handles. The elegant set comes in a soft leather case. Limited availability. – Florence Fabricant

Heart Tea Towels

$16 etsy.com

These whimsical tea towels celebrate the fact that the kitchen is the heart of every home. Printed with an anatomically correct and labeled drawing of a heart, the unbleached cotton flour-sack cloths are educational, decorative and useful all at once. Even better, the more you use them, the better looking they get. – Melissa Clark

Wine Carrying Case

$229.99 vingardevalise.com

The wine lover who has everything except more wine would appreciate this rolling suitcase designed for transporting bottles, holding up to a full case snuggled securely in foam. Special inserts for Champagne bottles and magnums are available. Take it on a plane (it meets airline requirements) or other means of transport. – Florence Fabricant

Crepe Shop Kit

$58 ahalife.com

A necessary accessory for any play kitchen, this kit for the smallest chefs includes a chalkboard crepe griddle, a wooden trowel for spreading batter and fabric crepes. The crepes can be filled with fabric fruit, wrapped and secured with a ribbon or button and served in paper cones. – Ligaya Mishan

Salad Dressing Shaker

$39 yliving.com

To make and store homemade vinaigrette — an instant way to raise your salad game — an effective shaker is a necessity. This one also happens to be lightweight, curvaceous and elegant, with functional black rubber accents. The stopper creates an airtight seal, and the top pulls off to make a spout when it’s time to pour. – Julia Moskin

Julia, Child

By Kyo Maclear; Illustrated by Julie Morstad

$18 tundrabooks.com

This ebullient children’s book recasts Julia Child’s friendship with Simone Beck, a.k.a. Simca, as the tale of two girls (Julia on roller skates) who think that grown-ups do not “know how to have a marvellous time” and make it their mission to cure them with cheese soufflé and peach compote. – Ligaya Mishan

Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste

$11.95 chefscatalog.com

Here’s a stocking stuffer for bakers and pancake sharpies: a thickened version of vanilla extract that provides a serious punch of flavor without thinning the batter. It’s not a game-changer — you can still keep slicing open and scraping your vanilla pods when you want to — but it’s still a lovely addition to a morning waffle that shaves seconds off the preparation time. At 7 a.m., that can matter. – Sam Sifton

Precision Coffee Maker

$249.95 in black; $329.95 for aluminum williams-sonoma.com

Finally available in the United States, the Precision coffee maker matches good Scandinavian design (by the Norwegian manufacturer Wilfa) and impeccable pedigree (it’s a collaboration with the Oslo coffee hotshot Tim Wendelboe). It gets right what most home brewers get wrong: temperature stability, steep time and water distribution. It’s pricey, but you’re getting one of the best coffee makers to hit the market. – Oliver Strand

Art Books

Not Nothing: Selected Writings by Ray Johnson, 1954-1994

Edited by Elizabeth Zuba, essay by Kevin Killian

$45 sigliopress.com

The artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995) is best known for his collages, dense with images pulled from pop culture and personal obsessions. But his most radical work was his New York Correspondence School, devoted to the circulation of mail art — in the form of letters, postcards and drawings — through the postal system. Because much of the work in this epistolary mode isn’t visual art in the usual sense, we don’t see it much in exhibitions, and Siglio has come to the rescue with an extraordinary volume of Johnson’s letter-essay-poem-collages. Here he is at his witty, scary artist-poet best, and there is no one like him. – Holland Cotter

Topless Cellist: The Improbable Life of Charlotte Moorman

By Joan Rothfuss, foreword by Yoko Ono

$34.95 mitpress.mit.edu

Charlotte Moorman hit the headlines in 1967 when she was arrested for indecent exposure by New York police while playing her cello bare-breasted for a performance of Nam June Paik’s “Opera Sextronique.” But her career amounted to much more than a sensational single run-in with American morality. Born in Arkansas in 1933 and trained at Juilliard, she was a trailblazer in avant-garde performance art. To the composer Edgard Varèse, she was “the Jeanne d’Arc of new music.” To her native city, Little Rock, she was “Miss City Beautiful of 1952.” Complex and indomitable, she turned her death from cancer in 1991 into an anarchic event. Joan Rothfuss’s level-eyed critical biography captures it all. – Holland Cotter

World War 3 Illustrated 1979-2014

Edited by Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman, introduction by Bill Ayers

$29.95 pmpress.org

Founded in 1977 by Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman, World War 3 Illustrated is a collective of artist-activists working in the political comics mode, and this book amounts to what you trust will be a midcareer survey of its work thus far. More than a dozen fantastic artists, including Sue Coe, Eric Drooker and Sandy Jimenez, take us, in graphic sequences composed of shadow and light, from the 1980s culture wars to the war in Iraq, from the Reagan White House to Zuccotti Park and Tahrir Square. This is history recorded with a scathing precision. Morality meets hilarity. You find yourself shocked that you’re laughing. – Holland Cotter

Here and Elsewhere

Edited by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, Natalie Bell, Negar Azimi, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie and Sarah Stephenson

$55 newmuseumstore.org

The New Museum’s 2014 exhibition of contemporary art from the Arab world, “Here and Elsewhere,” gave us work by dozens of artists we barely know from Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. And the catalog, edited in collaboration with Bidoun magazine, delivers something equally vital: information, factual, critical and personal. Like most surveys of art from “elsewhere,” the show was open season for critical nit-picking about who was in and who was left out. The book, however, devoted to larger issues, is a solid, invaluable, full-to-the-brim sourcebook that future exhibitions will build on. – Holland Cotter

For A Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw

Edited by Nancy Marie Mithlo

$49.95 yalepress.yale.edu

Horace Poolaw (1906-1984) was one of the first Native American professional photographers. In Oklahoma, from the 1930s on, he took the multitribal community he lived in — he was Kiowa — as his subject. He documented it, at grass-roots level, changing as America changed — through a world war, industrialization, an urban explosion — but also trying to retain traditions and ethnic spirit. This book was published in conjunction with a Poolaw exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City (on view through Feb. 15), and includes, along with the pictures, powerful texts, among them interviews with the Poolaw family. Altogether a heartwarmer and a heartbreaker. – Holland Cotter

Waterweavers: A Chronicle of Rivers

Edited by José Roca and Alejandro Martín

$55 store.bgc.bard.edu

The exhibition “Waterweavers: A Chronicle of Rivers” at the Bard Graduate Center threaded together examples of contemporary art, craft and poetry from Colombia. It was one of the most poetic and atmospherically installed exhibitions of the season, and its catalog is every bit as distinctive in format and mood. Designed by the Dutch graphic artist Irma Boom, the book is thick and block-shaped, but small, light and pleasingly textured. It’s as much an artisanal object as the marvelous weavings and abstract ceramics illustrated within and has the bonus of holding a wealth of wonderful words. – Holland Cotter

Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and the Image of Non-Violence

Edited by Josef Helfenstein and Joseph N. Newland

$50 menil.org

On the cover of this book is a 1948 still life by an unknown photographer of the few possessions owned by Mohandas K. Gandhi at the time of his death from an assassin’s bullet: two pairs of sandals, two dinner bowls, a pair of eyeglasses, a prayer book and a few smaller items. A catalog for an exhibition at the Menil Collection in Houston (through Feb. 1), the book constitutes a still life on its own, composed of more than 100 peace-seeking images that embody the spirit of nonviolence, from a seventh-century Quran page, to a 15th-century Buddhist thangka, to stills from a film at the India-Pakistan border shot by the contemporary artist Amar Kanwar. The introduction by the curator, Josef Helfenstein, has the passion and grace of a personal testament. – Holland Cotter

Kimono: A Modern History

By Terry Satsuki Milhaupt

$29 press.uchicago.edu

This completely fascinating social history of a single type of garment over three centuries is also the story of a culture in the process of transformation. Worn by aristocrats, courtesans and shop girls alike, the kimono in the 17th and 18th centuries served as a canvas on which artists painted traditional seasonal subjects, and as a carrier of subtle social and personal messages. In the early 20th century, it advertised Westernized leanings with printed images of pop singers and athletes. Images of tanks and bombs had a vogue during World War II, turning attire into propaganda. Today, old kimonos are museum treasures, and snazzy new ones are on the runway and on the street, thanks to promotion via the Internet. Ms. Milhaupt died when the book was close to done; her husband, Curtis J. Milhaupt, completed it. It’s a beauty. – Holland Cotter

Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963-2010

Edited by Kathy Halbreich, with Mark Godfrey, Lanka Tattersall, and Magnus Schaefer

$75 momastore.org

This year’s Sigmar Polke retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, the first full-scale evaluative look at this German artist since his death in 2010, was one of the outstanding solo shows of the year. The catalog is fully up to the occasion, a fitting souvenir of an artist who, in our era of look-at-me objects and brand-name painting, stayed mercurial, slippery, self-mocking and signature-free. With the market being the luxe-item operation it is, you can easily imagine Polke’s recessive reputation going into temporary eclipse. So grab the book now. It’s a keeper. – Holland Cotter

Miguel Covarrubias: Drawing a Cosmopolitan Line

Edited by Carolyn Kastner

$55 utpress.utexas.edu

The irrepressible Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) of Mexico is best known for witty caricatures that sometimes graced the pages of The New Yorker. Which is why this smartly designed catalog — and its companion exhibition at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M. (through Jan. 18) — are such revelations. Both greatly expand his achievement to include paintings, graphic and exhibition designs and scholarly works on the indigenous arts of North and South America. To these he usually contributed illustrations that are true to their subjects but filled with Corvarrubian energy. – Roberta Smith

Charles James: Beyond Fashion

By Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder

$50 store.metmuseum.org

As might be expected, one of last season’s most stunning exhibitions in New York has a suitably handsome publication that captures much of the genius of its subject, the American haute couture designer Charles James (1906-1978), on its large, glossy pages. The brilliantly simple structure and sculptural forms of the evening dresses, coats and dinner suits James designed from the 1930s through the early ’60s are captured in vintage and contemporary photographs, while his strange, sad life is detailed in Jan Glier Reeder’s excellent chronology. – Roberta Smith

Gauguin: Metamorphoses

Edited by Starr Figura

$60 momastore.org

If you can have only one Gauguin book, the Museum of Modern Art’s catalog for its “Gauguin: Metamorphoses” exhibition last spring is a very strong candidate. It is distinguished by excellent essays by Starr Figura, who organized the show, as well as by Elizabeth Childs, Hal Foster and Erika Mosier. Moreover, its multimedia approach places new emphasis on the way motifs migrated among the artist’s woodcuts, transfer drawings, carved wood sculpture, paintings and ceramics. The result is a much expanded sense of Gauguin’s inventiveness, his working methods and how much he accomplished during his relatively brief maturity. – Roberta Smith

What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present

By Dan Nadel

$38 risdworks.com

This published companion to an exhibition of the same title at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art in Providence (through Jan. 4) connects some widely spaced dots. Starting with the figurative artists of the “Hairy Who” in Chicago and West Coast Funk artists and their assorted allies, it recontextualizes painters as various as William N. Copley, Elizabeth Murray and Gary Panter; encompasses the rogue artist/musicians of Destroy All Monsters; and concludes with the erstwhile Providence collective Forcefield. It may not make total sense, but it greatly broadens the view beyond the usual academic and market suspects. – Roberta Smith

My Grandfather's Gallery: A Family Memoir of Art and War

By Anne Sinclair, translated by Shaun Whiteside

$26 us.macmillan.com

If you are interested in modern French painting, the New York art world or buildings as time capsules, Anne Sinclair’s short memoir centering on the gallery of her grandfather, the art dealer Paul Rosenberg, is a must-read. Ms. Sinclair, the ex-wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, retraces the history of Rosenberg’s gallery, and thus of her family, from an elegant building on Rue La Boétie in Paris that was confiscated during the German occupation, to a townhouse on East 79th Street near Madison Avenue that has housed art galleries ever since. – Roberta Smith

The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky

By Gaylord Torrence

$65 museumstore.nelson-atkins.org

A landmark exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. (through Jan. 11) — coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in March — occasions this lavishly illustrated catalog. It reproduces more than 130 masterworks (with detailed entries) produced by the American Indians of the Great Plains, representing nations including the Osage, Omaha, Crow, Cheyenne and Kansa peoples. The material ranges from ancient to contemporary objects but concentrates on the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. It encompasses work from painted buffalo hides and beaded garments to war clubs and shields — all strikingly consistent in style and breathtakingly beautiful. – Roberta Smith

Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open

By Phoebe Hoban

$20 hmhco.com

Artists’ biographies can be discouragingly long, but at 160 pages, this one is a model of efficiency. Phoebe Hoban moves briskly through Lucian Freud’s childhood, precocious adolescence and changes in wives, lovers and painting styles, all the while making astute appraisals of the man and his work. She excels at weaving in quotations from published interviews with both the artist and his contemporaries, and was able to speak with several of his numerous children. The lack of pictures of paintings sometimes frustrates, but a sympathetic, cleareyed view of the person emerges. – Roberta Smith

Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

By Scott Rothkopf

$65 shopwhitney.org

The exhibition catalog as object reaches a dazzling yet weirdly banal level of exquisiteness in the one that Jeff Koons orchestrated for his recent retrospective at the Whitney. The embossed cover image of a vase of flowers — a polychrome wood sculpture in real life — pushes the embossing technique to a new level of intricacy and is irresistible to the touch. The creamy semigloss paper for the main essay by Scott Rothkopf makes the black sans serif type look great. In addition, this essay — and some of the shorter ones by other contributors — set a new standard in exhibition catalog readability. – Roberta Smith

Alexander Gardner: The Western Photographs, 1867-1868

By Jane L. Aspinwall

$60 museumstore.nelson-atkins.org

Equal in importance to the great photographs of the American West that Carleton Watkins and Timothy O’Sullivan took, starting in the 1860s, are Alexander Gardner’s shots of the Great Plains during the same decade. Commissioned by the Kansas Pacific Railroad to record its westward expansion, they also capture the region’s austere grandeur, newly arrived settlers and the indigenous Indian nations, soon to be displaced. As beautiful as they are tragic, these images have never been seen in such quantity as they are in this book and the exhibition it accompanies. Conceived as a companion to the Plains Indians exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, it stands magnificently on its own. – Roberta Smith

Matisse: The Cut-Outs

Edited by Karl Buchberg, Nicholas Cullinan and Jodi Hauptman

$60 momastore.org

The current MoMA exhibition of Matisse’s late cut-outs, all scintillating color against pristine walls, floats like a cloud on the museum’s top floor. It’s one of the season’s serious pleasures, and a major draw. If, on your gift list, you have an art-lover who won’t be able to see the show, or one who did and would cherish a souvenir, the catalog is the answer. It reads well; it captures the color-and white dynamic in miniature. Maybe most important, it makes for an intimate experience. At MoMA the show is mobbed; with the book it’s yours alone. – Holland Cotter

Graphic Novels

The often deplorable depiction of female characters and the reprehensible treatment of female fans and critics in comics and video games has been a hot topic of late. But comics can and should be inclusive. This selection of graphic novels includes a tale of horror, a trippy love story and a mystery in space, but it also spotlights women, whether as new superheroes (“Ms. Marvel”), spunky teenagers (“The Real Life”) or questioning 20-somethings (“The Shoplifter”). There’s also a mother protecting her family in “Saga,” a series that is no stranger to controversy, thanks to its 2012 cover image of breast-feeding, a variant of which graces the hardcover edition.

Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale

By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla

$17.99 archiecomics.stores.yahoo.net

This intense zombie tale pits Archie Andrews and his pals against dark forces and, at times, one another. The story is taut with suspense, and each moment, whether quiet or gruesome, is illustrated in a masterly way. – George Gene Gustines

The Bunker

By Joshua Hale Fialkov and Joe Infurnari

$19.99 onipress.com

Five friends burying a time capsule discover letters from the future that indicate that they are destined to destroy the world. Thus begins a gripping time-travel adventure in which every decision makes the characters wonder: Is this altering the future for the better or guaranteeing its doom? – George Gene Gustines

Shoplifter

By Michael Cho

$19.95 randomhouse.com

Corrina Park is single, dislikes her copywriting job, has a cat that hates her and is a casual shoplifter. Her ennui and the rut she is in make for engrossing reading, with smart dialogue and lush images in black, white and pink. – George Gene Gustines

In Real Life

By Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang

$17.99 firstsecondbooks.com

The immersion of Anda, an endearing American teenager, into an online role-playing game proves to be a confidence-building experience — until she meets a friend in China mired in the world of gold farming, in which poor laborers spend hours playing games to earn advantages for wealthy players. Anda is a refreshing and three-dimensional character whose mundane and fantasy worlds are fully realized. – George Gene Gustines

The Usagi Yojimbo Saga

By Stan Sakai

Softcover, $24.99; Hardcover, $79.99 darkhorse.com

This is my first exposure to the samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo, though his creator has been laboring on his adventures since 1984. Oh, what I’ve missed! These tales weave Japanese folklore, codes of honor and moments of whimsy. The cast is made up of animals, but their actions and desires are all too human. – George Gene Gustines

Ms. Marvel

By G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

$15.99 marvel.com

Kamala Khan is a Muslim girl who lives in Jersey City, juggling the demands of her traditional family, high school and, oh, yes, the onset of superpowers. Rich dialogue and ethereal images result in the delightful Kamala, for whom you can’t help but root. – George Gene Gustines

The Silver Age of Comic Book Art

By Arlen Schumer

$49.99 arlenschumer.com

This coffee table book is filled with meticulously researched factoids and kaleidoscopic images that celebrate some of the greatest comic-book artists of the 1960s. The dynamic layouts and large pages allow for a detailed appreciation of the art. – George Gene Gustines

Fear My Dear

By Dean Haspiel

$19.99 z2comics.com

I can’t get enough of Billy Dogma, a brute of a man desperate to find love and redemption with his partner, Jane Legit, whose exploits have been previously serialized online. The plots are cataclysmic, the dialogue is poetic (and sometimes blue), and the illustrations are mesmerizing (with some nudity) with thick, bold lines and striking use of color. More, please. – George Gene Gustines

Saga Book One

By Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

$49.99 imagecomics.com

It is easy to run out of accolades for this superb series about star-crossed lovers from warring planets; their child, Hazel; an extended family that includes a babysitting ghost; and everyone hunting them: journalists, mercenaries and the military. The dialogue is smart, arch and always rings true, and the visuals, rendered digitally, are alluring and inventive. The Stalk, an eight-eyed, eight-limbed female bounty hunter, remains a creepy favorite. – George Gene Gustines

Letter 44

By Charles Soule and Alberto Alburquerque

$19.99 onipress.com

The job of being president of the United States gets more complicated when the commander in chief learns that an alien presence, identified seven years before his term, has been kept secret. Political Intrigue + Space Mystery = Page Turner. – George Gene Gustines

Fiction & Nonfiction

My Struggle: Book Three: Boyhood

By Karl Ove Knausgaard

$27 archipelagobooks.org

Yes, you should read Volumes I and II of Karl Ove Knausgaard's "My Struggle" first, so it's time to wrap up and deliver to your loved one a set of all three. Mr. Knausgaard's somewhat autobiographical novels are mesmerizing; he is contemporary fiction's alchemist of the ordinary. He manages, seemingly without effort, to make the minutia of one man's life as involving and gravity-laden as another writer's account of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. – Dwight Garner

Love, Nina: A Nanny Writes Home

By Nina Stibbe

$25 hachettebookgroup.com

This charming epistolary memoir affords a glimpse into a rarefied social and literary milieu. Ms. Stibbe tells the story of how, in 1982, when she was 20, she became the live-in nanny to the two sons of Mary-Kay Wilmers, one of the founders of The London Review of Books. It’s a busy, genteel bohemian house (the boys were the product of Ms. Wilmers’s marriage to the director Stephen Frears), filled with art and artists who pop in, and Ms. Stibbe manages to be wide-eyed and observant at the same time. – Dwight Garner

Art in America 1945-1970: Writings From the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism

Edited by Jed Perl

$40 loa.org

This is a plump, unbuttoned and convivial book, streaked like bacon with both gossip and cogitation. Here’s the art writing that emerged during the era defined by the rise of the Abstract Expressionists, painters like Pollock and de Kooning. There are pieces by everyone from Jack Kerouac and Ralph Ellison to Susan Sontag and Truman Capote. It’s a party that spills out onto the lawn. – Dwight Garner

I'll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staples Singers, and the March Up Freedom’s Highway

By Greg Kot

$26 simonandschuster.com

Greg Kot is the longtime music critic for The Chicago Tribune, and in this warm and supple book he charts the long arc of the Staple Singers: their origins in gospel music, their gradual drift into folk, soul and pop; the reverberations of their songs during the civil rights era; and their later embrace by rock audiences. Duke Ellington described their music as “gospel in a blues key,” and that phrase comes close to describing the pleasures of this book as well. – Dwight Garner

Every Day is for the Thief

By Teju Cole

$23 randomhouse.com

Teju Cole is an American-born writer who grew up in Nigeria, and this novel — his first, although his second to be published in the United States — is a book of taut peregrinations. It’s about a young psychiatry student in New York City who returns home to Nigeria for a complicated visit. “Every Day Is for the Thief” is complex fiction, but also reads like (and is a sly commentary on) travel writing. – Dwight Garner

I'll Drink to That

By Betty Halbreich, with Rebecca Paley

$27.95 thepenguinpress.com

Betty Halbreich’s memoir about her long career as a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman is caustic, gossipy, name-droppy and, above all, smart. Ms. Halbreich did not acquire her reputation as shopper to the stars by fawning all over them. She did it by being just caustic enough to win their trust, and understanding enough to know that outlandish shopping is usually a substitute for some other need left unfulfilled. This kind of displacement is worth a fortune to her employer, she knows, but it is best used in moderation with a little self-knowledge. “That’s where I come in,” she writes, “with my Midwestern insistence on restraint in spending and my religion’s penchant for talk. Yes, when I close the fitting room door, the doctor is in.” Read “I’ll Drink to That” if you’d like to know how she earned her Ex.D. (doctor of extravagant dressing) thanks to her gumption and inventiveness. Those two are the bright ideas of the year. – Janet Maslin

The Age of Wonder

By Richard Holmes

$18.95 randomhouse.com

Michael Lewis’s “Flash Boys” is one piece of evidence that we live in times of huge technological upheaval and that fast, tremendous changes abound. Sometimes, as we saw about the late-18th and early-19th centuries in Richard Holmes’s landmark 2009 “The Age of Wonder,” it can take a century or two for the full effect of an age of invention to sink in. Mr. Holmes chronicles the symbiotic ways science and Romanticism shared that era’s advances in botany, astronomy and other avenues for opening up the physical and metaphysical worlds. If you possibly can, find this book in hardcover to appreciate its beautiful illustrations, heft and staying power. – Janet Maslin

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — and Helped Save an American Town

By Beth Macy

$28 hachettebookgroup

Beth Macy’s exemplary “Factory Man” is nonfiction that reads like a novel. And Ms. Macy didn’t have to do the dramatizing. All she had to do was find a backwoods Appalachian furniture company that, unlike most of its competition, refused to stop making furniture, even though cheaper, exact copies of its wares could be imported from China. The factory’s owner, John Bassett III, visited his Chinese competitor just long enough to decide that he’d rather fight that quit, and that is only the beginning of Ms. Macy’s wildly colorful story. The impetus behind this important book was Ms. Macy’s sense that offshoring’s effect on America’s working class had not yet been told. – Janet Maslin

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

By Michael Lewis

$27.95 books.wwnorton.com

Michael Lewis, who can always be counted on to come up with arcane, surprising material and explain it beautifully, really outdid himself with “Flash Boys.” The question: Exactly what happens in the fractions of a second after a stock transaction is initiated? Where does the buy or sell order go? How does it physically get there? Mr. Lewis found a group of white-hatted brainiacs — by his lights, the superheroes of the future — who made it their business to conduct experiments on market trading until they figured out how high-frequency traders could predict and exploit imminent stock movements. The white-hats, led by Brad Katsuyama, have since started what they say is a corruption-free stock market of their own. – Janet Maslin

Lucky Us

By Amy Bloom

$26 randomhouse.com

The adroit and ever-surprising Amy Bloom manages to tell the story of two half sisters who join forces to go to Hollywood in the 1940s and try their luck at ... whatever. Ms. Bloom throws surprise after surprise at them, giving their lives a startling improvisatory quality and making the reader work hard just to keep up. This is such a dynamic, involving book that there’s no way to tell where it’s headed until it gets there, but Ms. Bloom is expert at following one of Elmore Leonard’s best rules about writing: Leave out the dull parts. Her characters are all the more believable when life throws them so many curveballs — starting with the fact that neither knew her father had two families — and they adapt so nimbly to each one. – Janet Maslin

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

By Walter Isaacson

$35 books.simonandschuster.com

“The Innovators” resembles “The Age of Wonder,” even though it’s about science alone, not art. It takes on the daunting jobs of tracing the history not only of the computer but of computer programming as well, two separate stories. This book covers so much ground that it is necessarily a gloss, but it’s a very useful one. And its material on Alan Turing will be of special interest when the entertaining Turing biopic, “The Imitation Game,” becomes a shoo-in holiday hit. – Janet Maslin

Home

As usual, this year’s crop of design books is fixated on the perfection of the room — the meticulously appointed, improbably neat yet distinctly human environment. Our choices focus on English country-house drawing rooms, Frank Lloyd Wright orchestrations, residences recently highlighted on the pages of Elle Decor and a hundred handpicked wildly contemporary spaces. Other books linger over the stuff that furnishes a room: quilts, exotic ornaments, clever gadgets and vintage pieces desperate for love.

The Furniture Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Identify, Restore and Care for Furniture

By Christophe Pourny

$35 workman.com

Christophe Pourny, a French-born furniture restorer in Brooklyn, holds the unique title of “unofficial restorer to the City of New York.” Authority wafts from his handsome how-to book like the sweet smell of lemon oil. After a personal introduction in which he describes his childhood apprenticeship in his family’s antiques business (he was forced to strip off varnish with slivers of glass), he offers a zippy history of furniture from the fifth century to the present and a primer on wood species, joinery, hardware and other components. A chapter devoted to sourcing pieces contains some stern etiquette advice: “Don’t roll your eyes or say ‘Yikes!’ if the price is high.” Then it’s on to the hands-on stuff: neatly illustrated step-by-step techniques for stripping, filling, staining, waxing, oiling, polishing, gilding, patinating and much more. – Julie Lasky

Turquerie: An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy

By Haydn Williams

$65 thamesandhudsonusa.com

After Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Western Europeans were divided between fascination and terror of the “fierce” Turk and his richly ornamental culture. Especially in France, travel writers, artists and translators of books like “One Thousand and One Nights” nurtured a poetic idea of “turquerie” fanning it into an inspiration for Western design and fashion. “Turquerie represented a fanciful realm detached from both Europe and the Orient,” Haydn Williams writes in this lavish history. Here you’ll find an 18th-century toile fabric printed with camels and obelisks; a pair of 17th-century enameled hookah bowls on jade palm-tree mounts supported by more camels; and an 18th-century French perfume bottle in the form of an ivory (yes, you guessed it) camel. There are many turbans, too. – Julie Lasky

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Rooms

Photographs by Alan Weintraub; text by Margo Stipe

$75 rizzoliusa.com

Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for refusing to leave the decorating to others. His domestic interiors were symphonies for which he fashioned all of the instruments, the floorboards and brickwork, the moldings and chair backs, the lamp frames and stained-glass patterns. In the introduction to this inspiring, well-photographed monograph on his residential design, Margo Stipe writes that Wright “publicly chastised modern American citizens for the lack of any genuine interest in their spatial surroundings, cluttering their interior spaces with superficial decorative pieces and trying to make them fashionable, but caring little for the spiritual integrity of their environment.” This book makes clear that integrity, spiritual or not, is what he imposed. – Julie Lasky

The Drawing Room: English Country House Decoration

By Jeremy Musson

$60 rizzoliusa.com

Julian Fellowes wrote the foreword. Need we say more? – Julie Lasky

DesignPop

By Lisa S.Roberts

$35 rizzoliusa.com

“DesignPop,” which, in the spirit of its title, has a hot-magenta cover with a blast of chartreuse, seeks to identify “game-changing” designs from the last couple of decades. “It could be a product that pioneers the use of new materials or a new production process,” Lisa S. Roberts writes. “Or a new typology that alters our expectations about what something should look like.” In an earlier age, one may have used the word “revolutionary,” but Ms. Roberts, a collector of contemporary product design, is stressing the engaging nature of these objects, and there’s nothing bombastic in her claims for them. It’s an excellent way to approach works that are fun but frivolous, like Harry Allen’s piggy-bank cast with surprising fidelity from an actual pig (“it had already died of natural causes,” we are told), as well as those that have made a serious cultural impact, like the iPhone. Ultimately this book is not just a collection of game-changers but a guide to what design is: a crazily diverse world of objects created because someone, somewhere, had a burning need to try something new. – Julie Lasky

Room: Inside Contemporary Interiors

Phaidon

$79.95 phaidon.com

The latest expression of Phaidon’s formula (ask 10 art or design specialists to pick 10 examples in a particular genre and present the 100 selections in a generous, well-produced format) is this fascinating compendium of interior designs. Apart from the fact that the projects were completed in the last five years, there appear to be no criteria for their selection. You’ll find more stores, restaurants and offices than residences (it’s easier to drop in on cutting-edge design than to live with it). Commercial projects include the world’s most stunning orthodontist’s clinic, in Tokyo (designed by Contemporary Architecture Practice, it’s biomorphic white on white, with rhythmic lozenges of lawn), and an unimaginably inventive Starbucks, also in Tokyo (the work of Kengo Kuma & Associates, it’s like a nest built by a Brobdingnagian O.C.D. bird). Thanks to the inclusion of Miles Kemp, an interactive designer, as one of the 10 curators, there’s also a sampling of glowing installations, including E/B Office’s swooping fiber-optic sculpture at the Jackson Hole, Wyo., public library; it lights up in response to patrons’ catalog searches. – Julie Lasky

Four Centuries of Quilts: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection

By Linda Baumgarten and Kimberly Smith Ivey

$75 yalepress.yale.edu

Be prepared to cast off any assumptions about quilts when reading this vividly illustrated book with examples from the Colonial Williamsburg collection. Lest you think all notable quilters are women, know that some have been men, including Jewett Washington Curtis (1847-1927), a Civil War musician and career soldier in Alaska who stitched together thousands of pieces of heavy wool into diamond and star shapes. And yes, it’s possible to turn a quilted bedspread into a perfectly lovely Victorian maternity outfit. – Julie Lasky

The Height of Style: Inspiring Ideas From the World’s Chicest Rooms

By Michael Boodro and the editors of Elle Decor; text by Ingrid Abramovitch

$45 abramsbooks.com

Interior spaces to sigh for fill this compilation of the best projects featured in Elle Decor magazine over the last five years (at least in the eyes of its editors). The rooms are distributed among chapters that are no more than loose dividers: “Classical,” “Fanciful,” “Practical” and “Personal.” Guess in which you’ll find the Robert Couturier-designed Manhattan living room with 18th-century wall panels and shag-wool upholstered armchair. Or the Jean-Louis Deniot-designed rotunda in New Delhi with a patterned marble floor and multiple Venetian glass lanterns. Or Susan Hable Smith’s paisley pink Atlanta parlor. Or Costis Psychas’s cavelike living room in his home near Santorini, with wooden tables originally used to make flatbread. Does it matter? – Julie Lasky

History of the World in 1,000 Objects

DK Publishing

$50 us.dk.com

The conceit is beginning to get a little old, but it’s still fun. Dorling Kindersley consulted across the Smithsonian Institution’s diverse museums to put together this collection of artifacts reaching into every pocket of global culture. A random turn of the page produces a green face with yellow eyes and huge, hideous canine teeth — a Japanese Noh theater mask portraying the she-demon Hannya. Flip again to find a 19th-century Yoruba carving of a Christian missionary surrounded by his Muslim converts, and again for the sight of an ancient gold Etruscan necklace strung with tiny vase-shaped charms. You may soon discover that a thorough reading of this book is going on your list of the 1,000 things to do before you die. – Julie Lasky

The Gardener’s Garden

Introduction by Madison Cox

$79.95 phaidon.com

Phaidon departed from its trademark 10-curators-times-10-projects approach in showcasing contemporary gardens from around the world. Relying on a team of uncredited experts, its editors selected 250 public and private gardens from 45 countries; each is laid out neatly on single or double pages. The sequence, which is organized by continent, begins in Oceania, with the Alice Springs Desert Park in the Northern Territory of Australia (think red dirt paths and woolly oat grass) and ends in South America, with the architect Juan Grimm’s Jardín Los Vilos in Coquimbo, Chile (bare rocks, cactuses and bromeliads). The gardens in between include familiar patches, like Sisinghurst Castle Garden in England and Giverny in Normandy, France. But there are also less recognizable creations, like the five “viewing” gardens with azalea mounds and stands of black pine surrounding the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi City, Japan. Visitors can enjoy the gardens from a distance but are barred from entering all but one of them. As the text explains, “They are works of art to be contemplated.” – Julie Lasky

Gifts for Kids

The grownups of The New York Times selected these gifts, including a six-and-a-half-foot play tent and a sweet-sounding ukulele, which we hope will delight your children this holiday season.

Pocket Pouch

Tegu

$25 tegu.com

I have resorted to the following to keep my 1-year-old daughter entertained on planes and in homes where adults are the sole inhabitants: disposable coffee cup lids, Tupperware, spoons, the crinkling sound of magazines. This is barely amusing to her, tiring for me and probably not so charming to our hosts. On a recent flight, I brought along a remedy: The Tegu Pocket Pouch. The colorful wooden blocks are magnetic, making them easier to manipulate, more versatile and far less likely to spill everywhere than standard blocks. You could collect these pieces by the hundreds, but this pouch, containing just eight, is a great travel companion for any busy toddler. – EMILY BRENNAN

Anywhere Table Tennis

Wild Sports

$19.99 dickssportinggoods.com

If your kids are fans of Ping-Pong, but your home does not easily accommodate a nine-foot tennis table, this is the set for you. The expandable and retractable net transforms any surface — a dining table, a kitchen counter, a desk — into a court, and the mesh bag makes it easy to transport the rackets and balls to a friend’s house. – EMILY BRENNAN

Little Black Lamb

Hansa

$32.50 store.imaginechildhood.com

From its eco-friendly studio in the Philippines, Hansa, a California-based company, creates handcrafted, uncannily realistic stuffed animals, from Arctic hares to baby elephants. Each one comes with a tag that describes its habitat, lifestyle, care of young and eating habits. This cuddly lamb, the tag informs you, was born woolly and open-eyed after 21 weeks of gestation. – EMILY BRENNAN

Giant NYC Coloring Poster

Elvire Laurent & Marie-Cerise Lichtlé

$28 momastore.org

It’s rare to find a gift for the grade-school set that tempts a grown-up to drop everything and join in the fun, but I would happily procrastinate with this poster. Nearly six feet long and crammed with whimsical scenes of Lower Manhattan (and bits of Brooklyn and New Jersey), the poster begs people of all ages to fill in the blanks and bring the city to life. And what child needs encouragement to draw on the wall? I know I don’t. – JULIE LASKY

Cookbooks for Kids

“Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook”

“Fanny at Chez Panisse”

“Sweet: Our Best Cupcakes, Cookies, Candy, and More”

“Chop, Sizzle, Wow: The Silver Spoon Comic Cookbook”

$16.95 to $25

These days, my daughter is really into child-friendly cookbooks with lots of pictures. She loves the Seussian-themed “Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook” even more than the books they riff off of; the Yink’s juice-spiked “Pink Ink” is magenta-bright and tasty to boot. For budding gourmets, Alice Waters’s ode to her daughter, “Fanny at Chez Panisse,” tells the story of life at the restaurant Chez Panisse, through the eyes of the precocious Franny. It’s a lovely and beautifully illustrated book with recipes for all ages. Cakes, frosting, ice cream, food color and lots of sour candy belts are fashioned into giant hamburgers, wheels of cheese and even pencils in “Sweet: Our Best Cupcakes, Cookies, Candy, and More.” My daughter has marked off a dozen recipes for us to try. And the illustrations and cheery graphics in “Chop, Sizzle, Wow: The Silver Spoon Comic Cookbook” drew my daughter into this volume of classic Italian recipes. She insisted we make the garlic-laden pesto together, and now it’s her favorite recipe. – MELISSA CLARK

Boys Snowflake Cotton Sweater

Ralph Lauren

$145 ralphlauren.com

This patchwork sweater blazer for the pint-size prepster is a stylish upgrade to any tyke’s wardrobe. – SIMONE S. OLIVER

BBC’s Planet Earth: The Complete Series

$75.98 shop.bbc.com

On weekends, my 6-year-old son and I enjoy creature stalking with a knight through dramatic expanses of polar ice, forests and ocean depths. If you have tired of superhero duels and other whiz-bang television, “Planet Earth,” the original British box set of nature videos narrated by Sir David Attenborough, knighted in 1985, is an immersive delight. In his inimitable half-whisper, Attenborough embodies enthusiasm so sincere he can dramatize even a ho-hum caterpillar’s way of evading predators. For children on the older end of 4 to 11 years old, there are plenty of suspenseful chases with wolves splitting up the weakest of a caribou herd, and pumas night hunting. But much of the footage is quietly captivating, not gory, and provokes curiosity. My son asks questions about where scenes take place (Where’s the Borneo rain forest?) and why animals do what they do (Why can’t pumas live in Brooklyn?). Ninjago doesn’t stoke this kind of wonder. – CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS

Glow-in-the-Dark Pajama Set in Constellations

J. Crew

$52 jcrew.com

The days of being afraid of the dark are over with these glow-in-the-dark jammies, which eliminate the need for a night light and make middle-of-the-night bathroom visits a lot less scary. – SIMONE S. OLIVER

Prokofiev: Peter & the Wolf

Vanguard Classics

From $8.34 amazon.com

This is a great recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s musical fable “Peter and the Wolf,” narrated by Boris Karloff (best known for the not-so-child-friendly role of Frankenstein’s monster in the 1930s horror films). My mother played it for my sister and me and has now trotted it out for our children. If your kids are at all pliable you can get them to act out one of the roles; each character is identified by a particular instrument. After one listen, no one wants to be the duck. – DANIELLE MATTOON

Budsies

$69 budsies.com

Your child’s imaginary friend can come to life thanks to this company, which creates custom stuffed animals from children’s drawings. All parents have to do is email, text or upload to its site a photo of their children’s artwork, and a team of artists, designers and seamstresses will make it into a squeezable plush toy. The process takes a few weeks, so if you’d like your child’s creation to arrive in time for Christmas morning, submit your order by Nov. 30. – EMILY BRENNAN

Evolve Trike

YBike

$149.99 ybikeusa.com

The only things young children grow out of faster than shoes are bikes. Rather than buy multiple bikes and tinker with training wheels or pedal blocks, give your child an Evolve Trike. It starts as a tricycle, and as your child grows, its rear wheels can be slid together to make a sturdy two-wheeler. Once your child is ready, just remove one of the rear wheels to make it a classic balance bicycle. – EMILY BRENNAN

Talk About Giving Game

Central Carolina Community Foundation

$7.99 talkaboutgiving.org

So many attempts at making dinner table conversation begin with parental questions and end with monosyllabic answers from kids. But if you ask them the questions on the cards in this box, like “If we were to live on less money, what could we do without?” or “What is our family’s history of helping?,” it becomes much harder to avoid actual talking. Just one question every couple of meals can help change the way children look at the world and help them think more about what their family stands for — and should stand for. – RON LIEBER

White Tooth Fairy Pillow

$36 oeufnyc.com

For the child in your life with a smile that rivals that of an N.H.L. player. This petite pillow, made out of Alpaca wool, has a little pouch where kids can place their loose teeth and find a treasure from the Tooth Fairy the next morning. – EMILY BRENNAN

Makala Soprano Ukulele

Kala Brand Music Company

$43.99 austinbazaar.com

This ukulele is a perfect size for a child, but suitable for a professional, boasting a sweet sound that even Israel Kamakawiwoʻole would have approved of. It also comes in fun colors like yellow, pink and surf green (pictured) and sports quirky bridges in the shape of sharks or dolphins. – EMILY BRENNAN

Authentic Movie Night Popcorn Set

Whirley Pop

$32.99 whirleypopshop.com

Sure, there are cooler-looking electric popcorn makers, resembling old-timey carnival carts. But their results are mixed, and nothing’s worse than a present that’s broken before New Year’s. A better option is this stovetop popper, which consistently makes delicious, fluffy popcorn. And for novelty’s sake, it comes with theater-style cardboard boxes and buttery seasoning salt worthy of a matinee. – EMILY BRENNAN

Osmo

$79.99 playosmo.com

Do you fret over your child’s iPad addiction? This app and kit, dreamed up by Google alumni Pramod Sharma and Jerome Scholler, may soothe your worries. The reflective mirror snaps on top of the iPad’s camera, allowing it to see objects in front of it and turning it into an interactive partner in physical games. In “Tangram,” for example, children move colorful wooden puzzle pieces to match a picture on the screen. – EMILY BRENNAN

Camper Play Tent

Jetaire

$249 landofnod.com

If your rainy-day arsenal is a bit thin, you can give your children a change of scenery with this six-and-a-half-foot, sturdy canvas play tent. Its workable awning and curtains are just a few touches that make it feel like a real camper. Set up sleeping bags inside or outside the tent for a camping trip in your living room. – EMILY BRENNAN

Zutano Baby Clothing

Cozie Baby Elf Suit; Furry Baby Zipper Suit; Booties, Hat and Lined Mittens

$14.50 to $90 zutano.com

To keep an infant cozy this winter, Zutano’s baby suits and accessories are as practical as they are adorable. The elf suit, made from polar fleece, works well as an extra layer over pajamas or under a snowsuit. The booties, with two snap buttons, actually stay on a squirmy newborn’s feet. And the furry suit, made of nubby faux fur with little ears, makes your baby as warm as a little bear. – EMILY BRENNAN

Girl’s Long Sleeve Camouflage Print Dress

Lacoste

$110 lacoste.com

Treat a young lady to a dress she won’t want to take off. This raspberry-and-blueberry-colored camouflage frock is a versatile, three-season hit that can be paired and layered with most of what’s already in the closet. – SIMONE S. OLIVER

Design Your Own Tote Bag

Seedling

$39.99 seedling.com

Seedling, a New Zealand-based company, offers a bunch of inventive kits to create everything from superhero masks to butterfly wings to birdhouses. This one, complete with a cotton tote bag, colorful fabric paints, glitter glue and assorted ribbons and fabrics, is a great gift for a crafty tween. – EMILY BRENNAN

The Lego Movie Watches

$24.99 shop.lego.com

Teach your child how to tell time the old-school way: with a timepiece that has attitude and a back story. The style-conscious child will want to swap out the links to assert her personal style, just like Wyldstyle from "The Lego Movie." – SIMONE S. OLIVER

The Fashion Coloring Book

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

$12.99 hmhco.com

For the “Project Runway"-bound child. It’s never too early to start your child’s fashion history education. Not your average coloring book, these pages include over 50 looks from iconic designers from Madame Chanel to New York’s finest, Marc Jacobs. – SIMONE S. OLIVER

Travel

Whether they make travel smoother or more elegant, send you somewhere you’ve never been or make you feel as if you’re an ocean away when you haven’t left home, these gifts aim to transport.

1. Distressed Skinny Minimergency Kit

Pinch Provisions

$24 pinchprovisions.com

Vacations are hardly without mishaps. At some point you’re bound to stain your shirt or get a headache. The latest Minimergency kits (in gold and silver) have you covered. The latest kits fit in the palm of your hand (5 by 1.5 by 3 inches) yet include an arsenal of “what-if” solutions: tissues, breath freshener, an emery board, elastics, a deodorant towelette, an adhesive bandage, tweezers, a safety pin, a tampon, double-sided tape, earring backs, dental floss, a mending kit, bobby pins, lip balm, clear nail polish, a polish remover pad, stain remover, pain relievers and a mirror.

2. Metallic Playing Cards

Anthropologie

$18 anthropologie.com

Help loved ones delayed at the airport or warming up by a ski lodge fire pass the time King Midas-style with this gold, smooth, shiny deck of cards from Japan.

3. Beach Travel Candle

Henri Bendel

$15 henribendel.com

Even if you don’t want to pack this four-ounce candle — which smells of jasmine, white lotus and coconut milk — you can place it on your mantel, strike a match and dream of your next sand-and-sun vacation.

4. Rubber Tags

Flight 001

$7 each flight001.com

These cheeky rubber luggage tags are affordable stocking stuffers. And with phrases like “You say layover. I say happy hour,” you’re also giving the gift of cheer to any delayed traveler who happens to spy one hanging from a bag.

5. Atlas Blue Jetsetter Tote Bag

Hudson + Bleecker

$98 hudsonandbleecker.com

Warm-weather vacations call for beach bags that don’t hog suitcase space and can be easily cleaned before being repacked. This faux leather cobalt tote with geometric perforations is lined with thick, clear plastic so you can toss in wet flip-flops and sunscreen with nary a care.

6. Embellished Travel Case

Free People

$58 freepeople.com

Unlike many beauty cases, this bohemian-inspired number has plenty of room (8 by 10 inches) for all those grooming accouterments — shampoo, brushes, razors — you just can’t travel without. The case unfolds to reveal three zippered compartments, but the exterior, dappled with gold coins and paillettes, is pretty enough to pass for a clutch.

7. Panama Women Collection Currency Case

Smythson of Bond Street

$285 smythson.com

Hunting and pecking from a swirl of euro coins in your wallet doesn’t make for easy shopping. This candy-colored calf-leather currency case (shown in green) with four zippered compartments keeps travelers organized: Put 2 euros in one pouch; .01 in another. Or use the pockets to separate bills from different countries. Various colors behind each zipper help you remember what you put where.

8. Ladurée Macarons and Ladurée Chocolate Books

Editions du Chêne

$39.95 each amazon.com

Some gifts you long to keep for yourself. If you can’t make it to France, these beautiful hardcovers with metallic edges and rich photos will take you there. They go beyond recipes (Ladurée Macarons has instructions for making 80 different kinds) to the storied history and production of some of the country’s most beloved desserts. Only the real thing could be sweeter.

9. Livescribe Notebook

Moleskine

$29.95 shop.moleskine.com

For the people on your list who love chronicling their travels by hand yet want to store everything digitally, this new notebook looks like a classic black Moleskine but has pages designed for smartpens (sold separately) that, in combination with an app, turn anything written or drawn on the pages into digital form.

Peshtemal (Fouta)

Turkish Towel Company

$36 turkishtowelcompany.com

These ultra-thin cotton towels made in Turkey won’t weigh down a bag and can be used not only as beach blankets but also as sarongs and scarves. Great for those who travel light. (Note that the white fabric is not opaque.)

TripIt Pro

$49 a year tripit.com/pro

Need a last-minute gift? Giving TripIt Pro is like giving someone a digital assistant. The app gathers details from the user’s confirmation emails — flights, rental cars, hotels, theater tickets — and puts them into a daily itinerary. It also keeps track of flights, seats, fares and points, allowing users to focus on the most important part of the trip: having fun.

Rail Europe Gift Card

Available in denominations of $25, $50, $100, $250 and $500 raileurope.com

Want to give the gift of travel? These “cards” as they’re called (they’re actually PDF files) can be used on any train ticket, rail pass or product from RailEurope.com, which offers a variety of train itineraries in countries including Italy, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Spain and France. And unlike fruit baskets, the cards don’t expire.

Rail Europe, Inc.

Gifts for the Home

A votive holder with a fox tail, a kit that lets you grow your own moss garden and a blanket that goes with an exposed brick wall (and many other décor elements) are just a few of the items, in three price categories, that we offer in this year’s gift guide.

$25 and Under

Can-Do

$15 josephjoseph.com

This innovative can opener from Joseph Joseph attaches itself to the top of a can and starts working with the turn of a wrist. (It makes no difference if you’re right- or left-handed.) Push the button in front to release the lid.

Watercolor Set

$16 kioskkiosk.com

Kiosk shops internationally for affordable goods and presents them as country-themed collections. This month, it’s offering designs from Romania, including this small painting kit.

I Have No Ideas and I Hate Everything Mug

$16 emilymcdowell.com

Emily McDowell, a former advertising artist and copywriter, creates witty cards and gifts thorough her company in Los Angeles. Her inspirational mugs really are that (inspirational).

Breakfast Molds

$4.95 each surlatable.com

These silicone shapers from Tovolo add whimsy to pancakes or eggs. The current range includes a pig, bagel and gingerbread man.

Kaleidograph

$12.95 kaleidographtoy.com

Recommended for children ages 5 and up, but also for adult designers and artists, Kaleidograph packages a dozen double-sided patterned cards that can be overlapped to form 500 billion different combinations. The die-cut cards can also be used as stencils.

Fuji on the Rock Ice Cube Mold

$15 neo-utility.com

Drop a piece of Japan in your drink with a cone-shaped mold that gathers a cloud of air bubbles at the top to produce a tiny facsimile of Mount Fuji.

Cement Stair Planters

$19.50 buddfinn.com

Budd+Finn, the Portland, Ore., shop that sells these architectural planters, recommends them for succulents but also suggests that they can be used as desktop pencil caddies.

Dipper Pet Bowl

From $18 waggo.com

Waggo Home’s hand-dipped ceramic dog bowls come in seven colors.

Silver Fish Pen Knife

$22 bestmadeco.com

From Best Made Company, this knife is three inches long when closed and five inches long when its nonlocking stainless steel blade is unfolded. Comes with a red lanyard.

Anigram Reindeer Ring Holder

$8 umbra.com

Designed by Sung Wook Park for Umbra, the reindeer is one of a menagerie of jewelry-bearing creatures. It is made of white enameled metal with chrome accents.

Mini Hornit

$24.99 walmart.com

This bell for a bicycle or scooter emits 25 different sounds and beams a 12-lumen white or green light. Comes in four colors.

‘J’ Hook

$18 paxtongate.com

From the San Francisco and Portland, Ore., curios emporium Paxton Gate, an industrial iron hook.

D.I.Y. Apothecary Moss Terrarium Kit

$25 food52.com/provisions

From MakersKit, a basic terrarium you can assemble for growing low-maintenance moss. Includes glass containers, preserved mosses, sand, pebbles and video guide.

Mugtails

$14.50-$22.50 buddfinn.com

Made in Japan, these porcelain vessels can be used for beverages or votives. Available in squirrel, rabbit, fawn, cat, fox, hedgehog, bear and moose versions.

Evak Storage Containers

From $19.99 prepara.com

These borosilicate glass containers have a twin valve system that allows you to remove air from inside, the better to preserve the contents. Available in large and medium sizes, and, next month, a mini version.

Ceramic Berry Baskets

$15 each birchlane.com

Just like cardboard pint containers from the store, only they don’t get mushy when wet, these baskets from Birch Lane are four inches wide and three inches high.

Re-Cycle Frame

$20 tenthousandvillages.com

The fair trade company Ten Thousand Villages worked with artisans in Moradabad, India, to produce handmade frames from increasingly scarce metal, which the crafters recycle.

Butterfly Map

$24 screechowldesign.com

Jacqueline Schmidt of Screech Owl Design in Brooklyn created the 12-by-16-inch Butterfly Map so that you can “remember that you make a world of difference.”

$250 and Under

Shorebirds

$37 each gretelhome.com

Sigurjon Palsson’s decorative oak birds for the Danish design company Normann Copenhagen are 2.5 inches tall and come in four colors.

Monkeybiz Baboon and Porcupine

From $60 huntingwithjake.com

Made by South African bead artists in a nonprofit devoted to women’s economic empowerment and health, these creatures are among the latest additions to the collection (they are joined by a dachshund and a poodle).

Brass and Walnut Pour-Over Coffee Brewer

$179 store.kaufmann-mercantile.com

This drip coffee maker from Kaufmann Mercantile, an online shop, allows you to adjust the glass cone vertically to accommodate different sized cups.

Irish Whisky Stones

$35 makersandbrothers.com

Designed to chill your spirits without diluting them, these cubes of Irish Connemara marble are from the Dublin design retailer Makers & Brothers.

Cone Lamp

$220 sightunseen.com

This seven-inch-high stoneware lamp by Recreation Center, a Brooklyn design studio, was said to have been inspired by the 1993 movie “Coneheads.” The lamp is illuminated by the doughnut-shaped fluorescent bulb near the base.

Acacia Honey Dipper

$45 alessi.com

Miriam Mirri, an Italian designer, used the hexagonal pattern of honeycombs in her Acacia honey dipper for Alessi. The stainless-steel dipper is 6.25 inches long and an inch wide.

Marmol Radziner Menorah

$140 marmolradzinerjewelry.com

Designed by the Los Angeles architecture studio Marmol Radziner in walnut with bronze candleholders, this 20-inch-long menorah is also available with a raised shamash holder.

Louise Bourgeois Plates

$55 each momastore.org

Four plates designed by the artist Louise Bourgeois are currently available exclusively from the Museum of Modern Art Store.

Stickr Tree

$29.95 butchandharold.com

New from Butch & Harold, a removable vinyl decal tree that lets you hang framed photos from its branches.

Precision-Cut Napkin Rings

$36 for set of four food52.com

Frederick Arndt a designer in Saginaw, Mich., creates these arresting napkin rings in walnut or maple. They are available from Provisions, the online product shop founded by the website Food52.

Mini-Clutch Portable Bluetooth Speaker

$199 stelleaudio.com

From Stellé Audio, a clutch with a mirror, a pocket for your lipstick and a Bluetooth-enabled speaker that is compatible with smart phones, tablets, computers and TVs. Also comes in metallic purple and blue, for $149.

Teaball

$135 makersandbrothers.com

This teapot from the British company Freud contains a removable infuser and brews up to six cups.

Oden Pitcher

$150 sightunseen.com

Ian Anderson, of Aandersson Design in Philadelphia, produces the dramatically contoured Oden pitcher in slip-cast ceramic. It is available exclusively from Sight Unseen’s online design shop, in black or white.

Over $250

Oru Bay+ Kayak

$1,495 orukayak.com

The 12-foot-long Oru Bay+ kayak, a newly improved version of an innovative design, folds down into a box the size of a large suitcase and can be assembled, with practice, in just five minutes. The kayak weighs 28 pounds and comes with an adjustable foam seat and waterproof hatch for storing possessions.

Brick Blanket

$265 workof.com

Perfect for industrial-influenced décor, this 100 percent wool blanket will match exposed brick walls. The edges are saddle stitched by hand.

Chatsworth Daisy Doll Pram

$750 silvercrossus.com

Silver Cross, a British company that has been producing baby strollers since 1877, also makes versions for dolls. The Chatsworth pram has polished chrome details and a spring suspension similar to that used in the models for real children.

Alphabet Decorative Quilt

$390 coralandtusk.com

Founded in 2007 by Stephanie Housley, a textile designer, and her husband, Chris Lacinak, Coral & Tusk in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, specializes in embroidered wearables and objects for the home. This padded linen quilt is based on Ms. Housley’s animal illustrations. It measures 32 by 50 inches.

Messaline Vase

$15,500 ateliercourbet.com

Designed in 1993, Messaline was one of 14 vases that Ettore Sottsass created for the National Porcelain Factory of Sèvres in France and named after historical and fictional women with strong characters. (“Messaline” refers to the third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius; the marriage ended with her execution.) The porcelain vase, with its gilded bronze base, is about 13 inches high.

Le Perfum de la Maison Candles

$300 per medium candle, $450 per large candle usa.hermes.com

Célena Ellena, the daughter of Hermès’s chief perfumer, Jean-Claude Ellena, has concocted five new scents for the French fashion brand that are embodied in candles set in Limoges porcelain bowls. Each scent is associated with a color derived from Hermès’s vivid silks. A small version is also available for $185.

Flax Light

$350 shop.cooperhewitt.org

Christien Meindertsma, a Dutch designer, conceived the ropelike Flax lamp for Thomas Eyck in tribute to the historically important flax industry in the Netherlands. The light is 16 feet long and includes a bulb and adapter for American outlets. A 32-foot-long version with five bulbs is also available, for $1,200.

Bucolic Vases

About $559 to $578 secondome.biz

Glass vases with integrated trellises are the work of the Paris design studio 5.5. They are available through the Italian design gallery and ecommerce site Secondome.

Cabin Full Bed

$2,999 rhbabyandchild.com

Restoration Hardware introduces a child’s bed built into a play cabin, with door, windows and canvas curtains. Made of spruce. Assembly required.

Pewter Pitcher

$375 thefutureperfect.com

Handmade by Match in Italy, this pitcher is composed of a lead-free 95-percent tin alloy certified as food safe. It is eight inches high and can be personalized with a monogram.

Treehouse Hardwood Bike Shelf

$525 fiercelymade.com

Pete Raho, a Brooklyn artisan, designed this cherry wood shelf with a groove to fit the top tube of a bicycle and leave room below for any cables. The shelf can be customized for nonstandard tube diameters.

41D Gerstner Chest

$1,250 bestmadeco.com

Best Made Company collaborated with H. Gerstner & Sons in Ohio to create a limited version of the latter’s classic tool chest. Measuring 20 by 10.5 inches by 13.5 inches, the chest is made of cherry wood with brass hardware and felt-lined compartments.

Beoplay A2

$399 beoplay.com

Designed by Cecilie Manz of Denmark, this portable Bluetooth speaker from Bang & Olufsen weighs 2.5 pounds and runs on a lithium-ion battery with up to 24 hours play time between charges. Available in gray, black or green.

Hibachi Grill

$625 food52.com/provisions

The Hibachi Grill by Kotai Grill is made of carbon steel and works with charcoal. Eighteen inches long, it allows for convenient outdoor cooking, but at 24.5 pounds it is not what many would consider portable.

Mark Weinberg

Dutchi 3 Limited Edition Bicycle

$675 linusbike.com

From Linus, a three-speed city bike modeled on a classic Dutch design. The steel-framed Dutchi 3 is available in small and medium sizes and for a limited time in turquoise (shown) and coral.

Film

Here's to the movie moguls of 1939! By most accounts, that was the greatest year in Hollywood history, rewarding us this season with big, fancy 75th-anniversary editions that will gift-wrap well. There are also some sublime restorations of 20th-century classics, which are much better gifts than they used to be, now that so many people have giant television screens. There are recent hits for both grown-ups and children. And dual-format releases are becoming as common as deleted-scene reels and director interviews, so half the time, you won’t even have to check whether the people on your gift list have Blu-ray players.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Kino Lorber

DVD, $17.47; Blu-ray, $20.97 kinolorber.com

Robert Wiene’s classic 1920 horror silent in a splashy 4K restoration that makes the sets (like something from a German Expressionist children’s book) and the characters (especially the wild-eyed doctor and his sideshow star, a homicidal sleepwalker) seem like drug visions. Subtitles, which Wiene seems to have rationed carefully to build suspense, are in fairy-tale-font German and more typographically quotidian English. – Anita Gates

The Conformist

Raro Video

DVD, $15.99; Blu-ray, $26.99 rarovideousa.com

Every shot in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 re-creation of the last days of Italian Fascism is a work of art in this ravishing restoration overseen by the film’s cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro. And Georges Delerue’s score turns the story — of a secret-police operative (Jean-Louis Trintignant) assigned to kill his old college professor in Paris — into a symphony. If your gift recipient needs more convincing, a one-hour documentary (included), “In the Shade of the Conformist, ” explains how great the film is. – Anita Gates

Gone With the Wind

Warner Bros. Entertainment

$49.99 wbshop.com

Rhett lusts for Scarlett, who loves Ashley, who worships Melanie, and the South loses the Civil War in grand (eight Oscars) style. For the film’s 75th anniversary, this four-disc collection is packaged with a hardcover book about Scarlett’s fashions, a reproduction of Rhett Butler’s handkerchief and a tiny music box that plays “Tara’s Theme.” – Anita Gates

Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel

Combo pack, $29.99 marvel.com

Home for the holidays with un-kindred spirits? Half the room can pay attention to this summer action hit’s noisy 3-D space battles, exploding bodies and hand-held weapons the size of home appliances. The other half can enjoy the misfit superheroes — including a smart-aleck raccoon (with Bradley Cooper’s voice) and a walking tree named Groot — and a demonstration of how important 1970s and ’80s music will be to intergalactic exploration. – Anita Gates

Stanley Kubrick: The Masterpiece Collection

Warner Bros. Entertainment

$199.99 wbshop.com

Humbert Humbert, HAL, a haunted hotel, the past and the imperfect-future-past, all in one hefty package. Eight of Stanley Kubrick’s most memorable works (“A Clockwork Orange,” “Barry Lyndon,” “Dr. Strangelove,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Full Metal Jacket,” “Lolita,” “The Shining” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”), as well as five documentaries and a hardcover book with archival photos. – Anita Gates

Magic in the Moonlight

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

$29.99 sonypictures.com

For Woody Allen fans who miss Merchant Ivory. Beautifully groomed people in the South of France in 1928, in fluttery fabrics, wood-paneled rooms and perfect gardens, enact the tale of a dapper country-house visitor who is really there to expose a beautiful young American medium as a fake. – Anita Gates

Maleficent

Disney

$24.95 disneystore.com

For younger movie fans, a revisionist back story (and more empowering happy ending) for “Sleeping Beauty.” A tale of two kingdoms, a message about greed versus bliss, adorable fairyland creatures, a very angry dragon and Angelina Jolie giving new meaning to the concept “true love’s kiss.” – Anita Gates

The Night Porter

Criterion

DVD, $23.96; Blu-ray, $31.96 criterion.com

The unblinking eye of the open-minded 1970s taking on the monstrous 1940s (sex and the arts as recreation in a Nazi camp), as seen from the respectable 1950s, a decade that looks absolutely lustrous in this 2K digital restoration. Charlotte Rampling looks lustrous, too. – Anita Gates

Time Bandits

Criterion

DVD, $23.96; Blu-ray, $31.96 criterion.com

Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy-satire about a little boy’s excellent time-travel adventure with the morally questionable title characters. Their journey includes a dinner party with Napoleon, an encounter with a politically savvy Robin Hood and some major Greek drama with Agamemnon. As in all good children’s fiction, the parents are idiots. – Anita Gates

The Wizard of Oz

Warner Bros. Entertainment

$71.49 wbshop.com

The Munchkins, the tornado, the yellow brick road and teenage Judy Garland, now in 3-D. And the 75th-anniversary edition is like opening five gifts in one: a five-disc set, a hardcover photo book, a blank journal for writing your own children’s classic, three Oz-theme pieces of jewelry and a tiny ruby-slippers glittering snow globe. – Anita Gates

Television

This year’s television-on-DVD collections offer the recently departed (Hercule Poirot, the “How I Met Your Mother” crew), the not so recently departed (Tony Soprano) and the long gone (“The Jeffersons,” “The Wonder Years” and Lee Marvin — Lee Marvin! — in “M Squad”). There is even the soon to be departed, with the complete collection of the not yet complete “Sons of Anarchy.” To find out how that works, keep reading.

The Jeffersons: The Complete Series — The Deee-luxe Edition

Shout! Factory

$229.99 shoutfactory.com

All 11 seasons (253 episodes) of Norman Lear’s paean to upward mobility and racial harmony are collected for the first time. You can groove to the theme song, “Movin’ On Up,” written by Jeff Barry (“Da Doo Ron Ron,” “River Deep, Mountain High”) with the actress Ja’net Dubois, and debate — from the viewpoint of2014 — whether the show was retrograde, startlingly progressive or both – Mike Hale

M Squad: The Complete Series

Shout! Factory

$79.97 shoutfactory.com

Before he hit it big in the movies with “Cat Ballou” in 1965, Lee Marvin was a television veteran, appearing in nearly 50 series and anthologies. His most prominent role was in this half-hour cop show, in which he starred as a detective in a “special unit” of the Chicago police. As with other crime dramas of late 1950s, “M Squad” episodes look like, and offer some of the same pleasures as, the quick-and-dirty B movies of the period. – Mike Hale

30 for 30 Fifth Anniversary Collection

ESPN Film

Blu-ray, $199.95 espn.go.com

ESPN’s sprawling sports documentary franchise is represented by more than 80 full-length films from the “30 for 30,” “Soccer Stories, “Nine for IX” and “SEC Storied” series, and a selection of shorts. The Blu-ray set comes in a ticket-shaped box, while a DVD set available fromGroupon comes in a spiffy black-and-red metal locker with a T-shirt and souvenir book for $249.95. – Mike Hale

Yu-Gi-Oh! Classic: The Complete Set

Cinedigm

$229.64 cinedigm.com

Sometimes all you want is to fight battles, relive past lives and confront soul-sucking dragon demons — to win playing cards. And to do it for 86 hours! That’s the value proposition of this box, which collects the five seasons of the early-2000s anime series “Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters,” the first of the many television offshoots of the Yu-Gi-Oh! comic books to be broadcast in the United States. – Mike Hale

The Sopranos: The Complete Series

HBO

Blu-ray, $279.98 store.hbo.com

If you need an excuse to revisit the show responsible for so many things — the pre-eminence of HBO; the boom in cable drama; the normalization of dark, violent crime stories — here is the entire series on Blu-ray for the first time. You get all 86 episodes in 1080p high-definition, as well as a new 45-minute program of interviews with cast, crew and others testifying to the series’s impact. – Mike Hale

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Complete Cases Collection

Acorn

DVD, $299.99; Blu-ray, $349.99 acornonline.com

This collection has been a long time in the making: David Suchet’s run as Christie’s fussy Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, began 25 years ago on the British network ITV and, in America, ended this year on PBS. Before you can say “the little gray cells are working,” here are all 70 episodes in one compact package. The set includes the documentary “Being Poirot,” shot as Mr. Suchet was in the last days of filming the series. – Mike Hale

The Wonder Years: Complete Series

StarVista

$249.95 timelife.com

This influential series has been a lodestar for 25 years’ worth of nostalgic sitcoms and teenage dramas, right up to the recent, directly imitative spate of when-I-was-a-child shows like “The Goldbergs” and “Surviving Jack.” This set, housed in a scale-model metal school locker, collects the show’s 115 episodes for the first time. – Mike Hale

How I Met Your Mother: The Whole Story

20th Century Fox

$179.98 foxconnect.com

Still wondering what all the fuss was about last spring? You can catch up on this popular, recently concluded CBS sitcom — which was essentially a nine-season flashback, graced by a great comic performance from Neil Patrick Harris — in a set that reflects the show’s self-referential nature, with extras like “The Secret of the Pineapple Incident Revealed” and “How We Filmed the Kids.” – Mike Hale

Sons of Anarchy: The Collector’s Set

20th Century Fox

DVD, $169.98; Blu-ray, $299.99 foxconnect.com

How do you release a “complete set” when a show is only partway through its final season? Leave an open slot for that season (the seventh), which needs to be purchased separately. The collection is housed in a box that reproduces the table in the clubhouse of this FX show’s title motorcycle gang. – Mike Hale

Classical Music

You might think it would be easy to come up with gift ideas for classical music lovers, especially people just getting into it. But there is so much out there. I and two of my fellow critics at The New York Times offer some suggestions, mostly items released this past year. There are DVDs of opera productions; tickets; notable books, including a few penetrating new biographies of composers; and CD boxed sets galore.

Anna Netrebko: Live From the Salzburg Festival

Deutsche Grammophon

Four DVDs, $92.99 deutschegrammophon.com/en

Celebrating Salzburg’s diva of the decade, this set compiles three of her classic performances at the festival: Susanna in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Violetta in “La Traviata” (in Willy Decker’s starkly effective production) and Mimi in “La Bohème.” Her colleagues include the singers Rolando Villazón, Thomas Hampson, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Piotr Beczala, and the conductors Carlo Rizzi, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Daniele Gatti. The common thread (which is not such a common one) is the Vienna Philharmonic. – Zachary Woolfe

Trinity Church’s Messiah

Dec. 17, 19 and 21 at Trinity Church ($45 to $95); Dec. 18 at Alice Tully Hall ($45 to $85) trinitywallstreet.org

Handel’s great oratorio has become a kneejerk holiday tradition, but the musical forces of Trinity Church — the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra, led by Julian Wachner — restore to the work its savage power and spiritual force. – Zachary Woolfe

Strauss: Complete Works for Voice and Piano, 1870-1948

Two Pianists Records

Nine CDs, $45.65 twopianists.com

Richard Strauss’s 150th birthday came in June, and this compilation of his songs for voice and piano is an apt commemoration of a talent that was extraordinary from the beginning, but deepened as he aged. The performers include both young artists and eminent veterans like Brigitte Fassbaender. – Zachary Woolfe

The Music of Gustav Mahler: Issued 78s, 1903-1940

Urlicht

Eight CDs, $39.19 urlicht-av.com

This impressive collection of early — very early — Mahler recordings includes symphonies led by the likes of Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Eugene Ormandy and Willem Mengelberg, often in interpretations more willful and changeable than we are used to today. Memorable weirdness comes in the form of dance-band arrangements of tunes from “Das Lied von der Erde” and “Des Knaben Wunderhorn.” – Zachary Woolfe

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven

By John Eliot Gardiner

$35 knopfdoubleday.com

Learned and personal, this study of Bach’s vocal works, written by one of the master’s great contemporary interpreters, swells with insights gleaned from years of performance. Working with the threadbare records Bach left of himself, John Eliot Gardiner suggests a personality more fiery and rebellious than the impassive, slightly grumpy standard take on this epochal composer. – Zachary Woolfe

Stand Up Straight and Sing!

By Jessye Norman

$27 hmhco.com

There is, unsurprisingly, nothing casual about this autobiography by one of our grandest opera singers, which one witty critic observed was written in a style that seems as if “it might read better illuminated on gilt parchment.” But Jessye Norman’s account of her life will surely appeal to lovers of the singular genre of diva memoirs. – Zachary Woolfe

Dvorak: Rusalka

EuroArts

Two DVDs, $41.50 Euroarts.com

Stefan Herheim is one of opera’s most innovative directors, and he has given “Rusalka” a dark, carnival spin, seeing it not (as usual) from the perspective of its title character, a water sprite, but from that of the tormented gnome who longs for her. Willard White plays this role with intensity, and Adam Fischer leads a ferocious performance from the orchestra of La Monnaie in Brussels. – Zachary Woolfe

Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie

Opus Arte

Two DVDs, $29.99 opusarte.com

For its first staging of a Rameau opera, the Glyndebourne Festival in England went big: a riotous yet sophisticated production, by Jonathan Kent, that captures both the frigidity and the passions of human relations, and that has the leadership of the French Baroque master William Christie, conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Ed Lyon, Christiane Karg, Sarah Connolly and Stéphane Degout all give standout performances. – Zachary Woolfe

Rossini: Le Comte Ory

Decca

DVD, $39.98 deccaclassics.com

For the Mexican tenor Javier Camarena, 2014 was a breakthrough year. In March, he won over audiences and critics at the Metropolitan Opera as Elvino in Bellini’s “La Sonnambula.” Here, in a spirited production of Rossini’s madcap comedy from Zurich Opera, is a chance to observe his coloratura chops and acting talents up close as he charms and cheats his way into a castle full of women in pursuit of the spirited Adèle, sung with vivacious charm by the mezzo Cecilia Bartoli. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Wagner: Parsifal

Sony Classical

Two DVDs, $24.98 sonymasterworks.com

It’s rare to find as terrific a cast as the one the Metropolitan Opera assembled for François Girard’s production of Wagner’s “Parsifal” in 2013, so it’s a good thing that this hypnotic and compelling performance was captured on DVD. Jonas Kaufmann is wonderful in the title role, but it’s Peter Mattei’s Amfortas — noble, heart-wrenching, human — who stays with you when all is said and done. The luxury lineup also includes René Pape as Gurnemanz, Katarina Dalayman as Kundry, and Daniele Gatti drawing a burnished performance from the Met Orchestra. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Strauss Conducts Strauss

Deutsche Grammophon

Seven CDs, $35.29 on Amazon deutschegrammophon.com

Offer the gift of time travel with this fascinating set of recordings conducted by Richard Strauss. His readings of his own works, such as the tone poems “Don Juan” and “Death and Transfiguration,” are full of revealing details, but there are also compelling performances of works by Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, including a spellbinding “Tristan” Prelude. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Shostakovich, The Soviet Experience: The Complete String Quartets (Plus Quartets by Miaskovsky, Prokofiev, Weinberg & Schnittke)

Çedille

Eight CDs, $32 cedillerecords.org

Forget the series title. “The Soviet Experience,” offered by the Pacifica Quartet, is well worth submitting to, capping this passionate ensemble’s journey through the harrowing, exhilarating, brash, heroic and wistful string quartet music by Shostakovich and gems by his contemporaries, including rarely performed composers like Miaskovsky and Weinberg. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

New York Polyphony: Sing Thee Nowell

BIS

$22.70 on Amazon bis.se

“Sing Thee Nowell,” by the first-rate a cappella ensemble New York Polyphony, is a Christmas CD — but of that rare kind that functions as an antidote to the season’s cash-register-jingling madness and forced jollity. The medieval and Renaissance carols and motets, with a few carefully camouflaged contemporary works, offer a spacious and radiant retreat from the hype and hassle. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Christian Gerhaher: The Art of the Song

Sony Classical

13 CDs, $37.84 (Amazon) (List price, $65.99) sonymasterworks.com

The German baritone Christian Gerhaher is the reigning star of lied interpretation. This attractively packaged set shows him applying his exquisite musicianship and astute psychological insight to songs by the whole pantheon of German song composers, including Schumann, Wolf, Beethoven, Brahms and, of course, Schubert, with complete recordings of “Die schöne Müllerin” and “Winterreise.” His excellent pianist is Gerold Huber; partners on orchestral songs (such as Mahler’s) include Kent Nagano and Daniel Harding. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

George Frideric Handel: A Life With Friends

By Ellen T. Harris

$39.95 wwnorton.com

Handel was a richly gifted composer but an ungrateful subject for biographers. The records he left behind offer mostly a dry litany of concerns with money and legal matters that shed no light on his inner life. Kudos to Ellen T. Harris, then, for conjuring up a cast of supporting characters who help Handel come to life, along with the music business, urban landscape, politics and religious disputes of his time. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World

By Trevor Cox

$26.95 wwnorton.com

There is relatively little music in this riveting and highly entertaining book, chock-full of facts and weird scientific phenomena. But in its ability to open your ears to the quirky, awe-inspiring, odd and ultimately emotional qualities of sound — in echoes, whispering galleries, singing sand dunes and other auditory sports of nature — it has the power to make you listen to everything in a new way. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph

By Jan Swafford

$40 hmhco.com

At over 1,000 pages, Jan Swafford’s biography of Beethoven is a weighty proposition. But, like Beethoven’s music, it contains a world of human experience, from rustic wit and sullen petulance all the way to sublime wonder and profound wisdom. Mr. Swafford’s book reads like a novel, but the scholarship behind it is meticulous and impressive. – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

The Lady of the Camellias

By Alexandre Dumas, fils; a new translation by Liesl Schillinger

$16 penguin.com

Looking for a stocking stuffer? Most Verdi fans know that “La Traviata” is based on the 1852 French play “The Lady of the Camellias,” by Alexandre Dumas, fils, which was the stage version of Dumas’s earlier novel. This elegant translation of that engrossing, psychologically astute work is an ideal gift for Verdi lovers. – Anthony Tommasini

Virgil Thomson, Music Chronicles, 1940-1954

Edited by Tim Page

$45 loa.org

The composer Virgil Thomson was just about the most lively and astute music critic America produced in the 20th century. He may not have been right about everything or free of an agenda, but he shaped opinion and was a must-read commentator. His complete reviews for The New York Herald Tribune, from 1940 to 1954, along with other writings, have been collected in a handsome, smartly edited Library of America volume, the first of two. – Anthony Tommasini

Strauss: Elektra

BelAir Classiques

DVD, $29.99 belairclassiques.com

Patrice Chéreau, the influential French director, died last year, just months after his stunning production of Strauss’s “Elektra” at the Aix-en-Provence Festival was filmed by Stéphane Metge. Placing the story in a grim, modern setting, Chéreau draws intense performances from an inspired cast, led by the soprano Evelyn Herlitzius as Elektra. The Orchestre de Paris, under Esa-Pekka Salonen, plays blazingly. – Anthony Tommasini

Bach: St. John Passion

Berlin Philharmonic Recordings

Two DVDs and Blu-ray, 39.90 euros (about $50) berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com

To follow Peter Sellars’s acclaimed staging of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion,” which Simon Rattle, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Radio Choir released on DVD and brought to New York this fall, Mr. Sellars and the orchestra presented the leaner “St. John Passion” in Berlin this spring. With the cast almost entirely intact from the “Matthew,” including Mark Padmore’s ’ peerless Evangelist and Christian Gerhaher as Pilate, it was once again a bristling experience. – Zachary Woolfe

Guilini in Vienna

Deutsche Grammophon

15-CD boxed set, $79.99 deutschegrammophon.com/us

The great Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005) had close associations with both the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony, captured in this rewarding set of live and studio recordings. Giulini conducts varied works, including symphonies by Bruckner and Brahms. Of special note are the superb accounts of three Beethoven piano concertos with the masterly Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. – Anthony Tommasini

Howard Karp: Concert Recordings, 1962-2007

Albany Records

Six CDs, $45 albanyrecords.com

Though a renowned teacher, the American pianist Howard Karp was not widely known outside academia, which makes this collection of selected live concert recordings, spanning four decades, such a valuable release. In repertory from Bach to Beethoven to Kirchner, the playing of this major pianist is superb. – Anthony Tommasini

Leonard Shure: Live Performances

Doremi

Three-CD boxed set, $37.96 doremi.com

The towering American pianist Leonard Shure, an influential teacher, did not have the kind of public career his formidable artistry warranted. This set of live recordings fills in some gaps, especially a thrilling account of the Brahms First Piano Concerto, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1960. – Anthony Tommasini

Schumann: Symphonies No.1-4

BPHR

Two CDs, Blu-ray DVD, $62.99 berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com

The conductor Simon Rattle leads the incomparable Berlin Philharmonic in fresh, insightful and engrossing accounts of the four Schumann symphonies. If the packaging of this album is overdone, with its trappings of a coffee table item, this may actually enhance its allure as a gift. – Anthony Tommasini

Maria Callas: Remastered Edition, Complete EMI Recordings (1949-1969)

Warner Classics

69-CD boxed set, $274.99 warnerclassics.com

The complete recordings of Maria Callas, one of the greatest vocal artists of the 20th century, have been collected and issued once again, this time in impressively remastered versions. And talk about a boxed set — this bright red one is the size of a cinder block. But it’s quite the gift. And what is left to say about these momentous recordings? – Anthony Tommasini

Monteverdi: Three Operas

Warner Classics

Nine CDs, $44.99 warnerclassics.com

Years before collaborating with the director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle on landmark productions of the three Monteverdi operas, the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, an early-music pioneer, made influential recordings of the works between 1968 and 1974 with the forces of Concentus Musicus Wien and exceptional casts. They have been remastered for this handy and affordable set. No librettos included, however. – Anthony Tommasini

Pop & Jazz

Even in an era of total music availability, there are scenes and sounds that haven’t been fully unearthed, excellent artists still waiting for their definitive anthology. But each year, there are fewer and fewer of them, as record labels scrape their archives clean and collectors of obscure music share their spoils with the world. Here, the pop and jazz critics of The New York Times assess this year’s crop of remembrances. (Prices may vary depending on where you make your purchase.)

Warfaring Strangers: Darkskorch Canticles

Numero Group

CD, $15.99 numerogroup.com

In the wake of Led Zeppelin, 1970s rock could be a grand, swaggering affair. But on “Warfaring Strangers,” attitude takes a back seat to lyrics, and the lyrics are weird. These dug-up-from-obscurity oddball bands are as obsessed with monster riffs as with Dungeons & Dragons-esque mysticism. The results are erratic — Medusa moves with purpose and confidence on “Black Wizard,” Inside is straightforwardly brassy on “Wizzard King” and Stone Axe’s “Slave of Fear” is bubbling with paranoia. What these bands have in common is using rock to soundtrack worlds that existed only in fantasy. As one song by Wizard here puts it: “Bring on the séance.” – Jon Caramanica

The Soul of Designer Records

Big Legal Mess

Four CDs, $35.99 biglegalmessrecords.com

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Style Wooten ran a pay-as-you-go studio in Memphis, recording all comers and, for about $500, sending them home with a record of their own. Designer Records was one of his imprints — the gospel one, which benefited from the number of small regional outfits touring the South. The songs collected on this set — gospel-blues, gospel with a little rock ’n’ roll, and plain ol’ praise song, for a start — are open-minded in a Memphis way about what constitutes gospel. And they largely show that the line between the real pros and those with dreams of making it — Sensational Family Singers, the Mighty Blytheville Aires, Little Willie Patterson w/the Famous South Land Singers, and many more — wasn’t that thick at all. – Jon Caramanica

Nas: Illmatic XX & Souls of Mischief: 93 ’Til Infinity, 20th Anniversary Edition

Columbia/Legacy; Hieroglyphics/Get On Down

Two CDs, $13; Two CDs, $28.95 legacyrecordings.com

Nas’s “Illmatic” is one of the genre’s signature documents, a sterling and emotionally potent album. By comparison, Souls of Mischief’s “93 ’Til Infinity” is less heralded, but is a display of lyricism almost as formidable as “Illmatic” and far breezier. The reissues of both albums come on a wave of 1990s nostalgia in hip-hop, meaning the unearthing of classics and the obscurities that go with them — both of these reissues come with a second disc of related material. The bonus disc of “Illmatic” is better — it includes “I’m a Villain,” the song that reportedly helped Nas secure his record deal, as well as a bracing radio freestyle. But what’s more interesting are the remixes that were originally included on each artist’s 12-inch singles. For Nas, they were calmer than his album tracks — see “The World Is Yours” (Tip Mix) — with production that matched the cool of his delivery. But Souls of Mischief’s remixes were beefier than the originals — see the low rumble of “That’s When Ya Lost (I Ain’t Trippin’ Remix)” — suggesting a tougher side clamoring to be heard. – Jon Caramanica

Whitney Houston: Whitney Houston Live, Her Greatest Performances

RCA/Legacy

One CD and one DVD, $14.88 legacyrecordings.com

What’s most striking on this DVD that compiles a host of atomic Whitney Houston performances is just how little she performs. Take the 1990 version of “Greatest Love of All” from an Arista Records anniversary concert — she’s not doing a thing besides playing with her voice, and showing you with her eyes she knows just how good she is. The rest of this collection is much the same — maybe she shakes her hands a bit, maybe she tilts her head 10 degrees back, but mostly she unleashes missile strikes from between bright white rows of teeth. Her “Star-Spangled Banner” from Super Bowl XXV is a master class. Even her early appearances on “The Merv Griffin Show” and “The Tonight Show” are powerful beneath her tentativeness. She’s slipping just a bit as the 1990s kick in — you can see that, too, in these video clips, which show the difference between someone utterly confident and someone beginning to keep up appearances. But even anxious Whitney is intense. There’s a superfluous CD of most of these performances here, too — skip it. Instead, just watch her stand still and demolish whole worlds. – Jon Caramanica

Johnny Winter: True to the Blues, The Johnny Winter Story

Columbia/Legacy

Four CDs, $49.99 johnnywinter.com

The facility displayed on this career-spanning box is outrageous in places — Johnny Winter picked up the blues as a kid in Beaumont, Tex., and never let go, going on to become one of the blues-rock era’s defining performers. He was also the first white musician inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. This compilation covers his studio albums, which were fiery throughout the 1970s. (Check out “TV Mama,” from 1977.) It really shines, though, on the assembled live performances, from Woodstock (an astonishingly dirty “Leland Mississippi Blues”), the Atlanta Pop Festival and more. Onstage he was appealingly loose, testing his limits and those of the people up there with him. Mr. Winter died in July, soon after this set was released, turning this worthy tribute into a fitting epilogue. – Jon Caramanica

Hardcore Traxx: Dance Mania Hardcore Traxx, 1986-1997

Strut

Two CDs, $14.44 strut-records.com

The first disc of “Hardcore Traxx” is fine stuff — early-period Chicago house music, some with a sleazy undertow (Hercules’s “7 Ways”). But the second disc is the revelation: Dance Mania was the incubator of ghetto house, a manic, rowdy, sweaty style that took hold as a splinter sound as mainstream house was becoming more refined, which ended up influencing all the juke and footwork music of the last few years. The pioneer is DJ Funk, represented here with a pair of gritty thumpers, “House the Groove” and “The Original Video Clash: Video Clash II (Street Mix).” There’s also spare dance floor erotica by DJ Deeon (“Hypnosis”) and Traxmen & Eric Martin (“Hit It From the Back”). – Jon Caramanica

Bedhead 1992-1998

Numero Group

Four CDs, $41.69 numerogroup.com

Bedhead oozed its way through the 1990s, a band content to never shift past second gear. While the rest of indie rock was trying on its big-boy boots, this Dallas band perfected a sound that came to be called slowcore: The drums were lazy, the guitars languorous, the vocals unhurried. But this was in no way a lazy band, only a disciplined one with unconventional values. This alluring boxed set collects the group’s complete output — three albums, with various odds and ends — that show evolution in only the barest ways. Even the dogmatic Steve Albini, who recorded Bedhead’s third and final album, “Transaction de Novo,” couldn’t find much in its sound to sandpaper off. – Jon Caramanica

Bob Dylan and the Band: The Basement Tapes Complete

The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 (Columbia/Legacy) & The Basement Tapes Raw: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 (Columbia/Legacy)

Six CDs, book, $149.98 & Two CDs, $19.98 legacyrecordings.com

Holed up in the Catskills in 1967, Bob Dylan and the Band warmed up with recordings of country, blues and gospel favorites in their homes in and around Woodstock, N.Y. Then, having set aside current rock, they plunged into a new batch of masterpieces: songs that were absurd, heartsick, biblical, bawdy, playful, rooted and footloose. They were made as demo recordings that Mr. Dylan’s publisher offered to other groups. But in their casual sessions, Mr. Dylan and the Band were putting America’s past through a time warp; they harked back to honky-tonks, juke joints, churches and sock hops but had wayward thoughts all their own. The demos were bootlegged and hailed, and in 1975, Robbie Robertson of the Band shaped the 1967 recordings and some Band material into the official album “The Basement Tapes,” overdubbing and adjusting the originals. Bootleggers escalated with more 1967 material. Now Mr. Dylan’s camp trumps them with everything that can be salvaged from the original tapes, fragments and all: overdubs removed, multiple takes collected, sound restored as much as possible. The six-disc set is exhaustive and exhausting, from very loose cover songs through a final disc of distorted recordings that only full-time Dylanologists will replay (though “Next Time on the Highway” and “That’s the Breaks” are tantalizing). But the songs released in 1975, now unadorned, are still zany and deep (and often in multiple takes), and later discoveries like “I’m Not There” and “Wild Wolf” deserve to join them. It’s also illuminating to hear Mr. Dylan singing material he’d hand over to the Band. Still, for most listeners, the two-disc “Basement Tapes Raw” is ample and well selected. – Jon Pareles

The Art of McCartney

Arctic Poppy

34-track MP3 download; two CDs; two CDs, one DVD; two LPs; four LPs; 36-track Amazon Exclusive; deluxe three CDs, four LPs, one DVD, USB drive, extras. Prices start at $17.99 arcticpoppymusic.com

Heartfelt tribute and star karaoke intersect on “The Art of McCartney,” which has Paul McCartney’s band backing musicians from multiple generations in McCartney songs. They don’t get much wiggle room; the arrangements are similar to Mr. McCartney’s own. So the individual touch is in the song selection and in the grain of the voices. Brian Wilson and Smokey Robinson go deep into the catalog for “Wanderlust” and “So Bad.” Chrissie Hynde removes all complacency from “Let It Be.” Willie Nelson gets cozy with “Yesterday,” and Robert Smith of the Cure gleans some angst in “C Moon.” Allen Toussaint and Dr. John dig out New Orleans roots in “Lady Madonna” and “Let ’Em In.” The real tribute to Mr. McCartney is that most of the performers can’t escape imitating him. – Jon Pareles

Mike Bloomfield: From His Head to His Heart to His Hands

Columbia/Legacy

Three CDs, one DVD, $59.98 legacyrecordings.com

The frantic, trebly tone of Michael Bloomfield’s lead guitar was an essential part of Bob Dylan’s “wild mercury sound” in 1965, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, of the Electric Flag and in live jams and studio sessions, including some Dylan rarities. Mr. Bloomfield, who died in 1981 of a drug overdose, was a brilliant and troubled musician who got his first guitar as a bar mitzvah present and immersed himself in blues and later raga. This set gathers his performances as soloist, band member and session man, acoustic and electric, igniting each one; there’s also a DVD documentary. It includes his exhilarating record-company audition, when he demonstrates his ragtime-country virtuosity in the speed-picked, titled-on-the-spot “Hammond’s Rag”: “I’m going to sign you!” says the A&R guru John Hammond. – Jon Pareles

David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed

Columbia/Legacy

Three CDs, $21.99; two CDs, $13.99; two LPs, $37.99 legacyrecordings.com

David Bowie puts midtempo melodrama forward on “Nothing Has Changed,” the latest of his many compilations. Along with obligatory songs from the 1970s and 1980s, often in their singles versions, the collection includes both his first recording, “Liza Jane” from 1964, and a 2014 track, “Sue (or In a Season of Crime),” which enlists Maria Schneider and her modernist jazz big band and sounds like an excerpt from some larger tale. This boxed set also includes rarities like his own version of “All the Young Dudes,” songs from his unreleased album “Toy” and pop psychedelia from his 1960s beginnings. But particularly in the sequence of its three-CD configuration, which works its way backward, the album strives to make a case for Mr. Bowie’s releases since 1990. It falls short; the concepts, conundrums and rhythmic muscle are still there, but the melodies aren’t. – Jon Pareles

Soul and Swagger: The Complete ‘5’ Royales, 1951-1967

RockBeat

Five CDs in a hard-bound book, $89.98 rockbeatrecords.com

Too gritty and gutsy to secure pop crossover hits in the 1950s, the “5” Royales are one of doo-wop’s great underdiscovered vocal groups. The bass voice of the five singers was Lowman Pauling, a songwriter who came up with countless variations on romance (he wrote the Shirelles’ hit “Dedicated to the One I Love” and the James Brown hit “Think”) and a guitarist whose rhythm jabs and telegraphic bits of lead were the essence of bluesy cunning. This thorough collection starts with gospel songs the group recorded as the Royal Sons before applying gospel’s close harmonies and call-and-response propulsion to far more secular thoughts; even in the most lovelorn plaints, there’s a lusty glee. – Jon Pareles

Real World 25

Real World

Three CDs, 28-page booklet, $22.17 realworldrecords.com

Purism never mattered to Real World Records, the label Peter Gabriel started in 1989. Relying on his Real World Studios in rural Box, England, the label has recorded visiting world-music bands with better technology than they have at home, gleaning superb sessions from African bands in particular. The label has also encouraged hybrids and collaborations, often pairing European or Canadian producers with far-flung musicians and placing traditional voices in modern backdrops — though, as in this box, lyrics often go untranslated. The selection spans every continent but Antarctica, and falters only on the third disc, which was chosen by a listener poll. The label leans unobtrusively toward the aesthetics of Mr. Gabriel’s own music: resonant and somber but sometimes willing to groove. Regardless of language, the songs are produced like pop, treating plush sound as a cultural bridge. – Jon Pareles

The Velvet Underground

Polydor/UMe

One CD, $15.99; two CD deluxe edition, $29.99; six CD 45th anniversary super deluxe edition, $99.99 universalmusicenterprises.com/

The third Velvet Underground album, “The Velvet Underground” from 1969, was a statement of folky restraint, with some of Lou Reed’s most tender songs, like “Pale Blue Eyes,” and most optimistic ones, like “Beginning to See the Light.” It followed the 1968 maelstrom of “White Light/White Heat” and the departure of John Cale, replaced by Doug Yule on bass. There’s historical justification for the three mixes of it in the super-deluxe box: one from the original pressings with vocals upfront, a more spacious stereo mix with a different take of “Some Kinda Love” that appeared on later pressings (and is used for the deluxe and single-CD versions), and a mono mix for radio play. Three discs of extras reveal a transformed band: distinct, transparent, downright cheerful at times. Sessions intended for the next album show Reed’s songwriting taking on a surreal humor. And live 1969 recordings from San Francisco show a band that was less menacing and arty than the Velvets with Mr. Cale, but could still be downright hypnotic. – Jon Pareles

Nils Lofgren: Face the Music

Fantasy

10 CDs, $139 nilslofgren.com

In his solo work since the 1970s, Nils Lofgren was the dependable, fast-learning, good guy of rock: flexible with mood and attack and vocal tone, a student of the masters, and a natural, sometimes brilliant guitarist. Ultimately his work as a sideman became his home base: A lot of people know him more as the lead guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, which he has been on and off since 1984. But this thorough set of his own records, as the leader of the band Grin and under his own name, stands as a useful alternate history of rock during that time, with contributions from Lou Reed, Al Kooper, Ringo Starr, Neil Young and Mr. Springsteen. (Its booklet, a river of anecdote, has much value as well: Mr. Lofgren kept his eyes open and hasn’t forgotten much.) – Ben Ratliff

The Columbia and RCA Victor Live Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars

Mosaic Records

Nine CDs, $149 mosaicrecords.com

This was the period of Louis Armstrong’s career — 1947 to 1958 — when his fame grew as big as it would ever get, and yet his road wasn’t clear. He had to compete against a new jazz audience that saw him as a relic when he made albums of commercial pop standards; he also had to compete against his brilliant past, reintroduced to the market on 78s and LPs. (The story of jazz as a reissued music, defined and sometimes haunted by its own back story, really begins with Armstrong.) His new strategy was to go on the road playing hot and casual jazz, a version of the sound that made him a hero in the first place, in theaters from New York to Amsterdam to Ghana, among musicians of his generation including Sid Catlett, Jack Teagarden and Barney Bigard. A hardened entertainer, Armstrong repeated some of his solos note-for-note across these performances — a suspect practice in jazz. But they were generally worth repeating. Here are 11 years’ worth of these concerts, previously released (on records like “Satchmo the Great”) and not, rendered in the best audio possible. – Ben Ratliff

Rosemary Clooney: CBS Radio Recordings, 1955-61

Mosaic Records

Five CDs, $85 mosaicrecords.com

What takes the biggest role in this boxed set — other than Rosemary Clooney’s voice, a wonder of amiability — is the musical blandishment of the bandleader Buddy Cole, who played theater organ, semiclassical piano, harpsichord and celeste. These were small-group performances on daytime radio for a homebound female audience, strictly on the up and up. (“It was Clooney’s job to keep women’s spirits high as they cooked dinner and changed diapers,” James Gavin writes in his liner notes.) But if you listen beyond the gratingly chipper arrangements, you can hear something deep: excellence, tenacity, realness. Clooney’s repertory here included songs like “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” and “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me,” but she wasn’t a jazz singer. Close, though. She had a trustworthy sound, with relaxed phrasing and dynamics. She may have been aesthetically safe, but she was never corny. That’s an accomplishment, given the circumstances. – Ben Ratliff

Captain Beefheart: Sun Zoom Spark, 1970 to 1972

Rhino

Four LPs, $89.99; four CDs, $50.98 rhino.com

If the 1969 double album “Trout Mask Replica” is Captain Beefheart’s vision served distilled and straight up — right-brain chanteys and blues shouting, galumphing polyrhythms, clashing counter-lines — it’s also his most forbidding. Beefheart, a.k.a. Don Van Vliet, who died in 2010, sized up the considerable talents of his working group, the Magic Band, and pushed them beyond standard limits; it took the band a while to settle into its sound, make it groove and flex, transcend the exotic. This is what happened in the period examined in “Sun Zoom Spark,” a remastered set of three Beefheart records — “Lick My Decals Off, Baby,” “Clear Spot” and “The Spotlight Kid” — as well as an extra disc of outtakes from those sessions, including songs that wouldn’t be taken up and fully developed until later. At its hottest, this band could be a kind of undomesticated marvel, then find a groove and switch gears into blues and soul. – Ben Ratliff

Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner: Just Between You and Me, The Complete Recordings, 1967-76

Bear Family

Six CDs, $171.51 bear-family.com

Before “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colors,” Dolly Parton had a recurring role on a popular television show hosted by the singer Porter Wagoner, who then drew her closer into his enterprise. He produced her albums, and they made a string of duet records for RCA, playing as a romantic couple; they were considered in a league with George Jones-Tammy Wynette and Conway Twitty-Loretta Lynn. As prolific songwriters, Mr. Wagoner and Ms. Parton each had serious sentimental and macabre streaks, sometimes at the same time; there are forgettable tracks here, but the best of them represent Nashville’s tenderness, daffiness and ambition in the late ’60s and ’70s. – Ben Ratliff

Miles Davis: Miles at the Fillmore

Columbia/Legacy

Four CDs, $49.98 milesdavis.com

After he released “Bitches Brew” early in 1970, Miles Davis took his message on the road, leading a thrilling band at the crossroads of rock aggression and postbop expedition. These previously unissued concert recordings, from April and June, show how furious and inspired the group could be, with both Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett on keyboards and a brilliant Jack DeJohnette on drums. – Nate Chinen

Rod Stewart: Live 1976-1998, Tonight’s the Night

Rhino

Four CDs, $39.98 rodstewart.com

There’s no big concept here, not even a booklet essay: just a rag heap of live material from across a 22-year winning streak, all seeing release for the first time. Good enough. Rod Stewart brings the fullness of his spry, yelping charisma to this music, not only on his own hits but also those of Sam Cooke, Van Morrison and Oasis, among others. – Nate Chinen

Parchman Farm: Photographs and Field Recordings, 1947-1959

Dust to Digital

Two CDs, 77 photographs in hardcover book, $35 dust-digital.com

The folklorist Alan Lomax paid several visits to the Mississippi State Penitentiary, a.k.a. Parchman Farm, and this set presents a sober digest of his findings: work songs, their rhythms often marked by the chop of timber; rough gems like John Dudley’s “Cool Drink of Water Blues,” as much of a respite as it sounds; striking photographs, published for the first time; insightful essays, from then and now, ringing sternly with empathy. – Nate Chinen

The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume Two, 1928-32

Third Man/Revenant

Some 800 digital tracks, six LPs, two hard-bound books, reproductions of show bills and catalogs, in an aluminum and stainless steel Art Deco case, $400 thirdmanstore.com

This year’s most tantalizing splurge — at least for those among us who can instantly elucidate the world of difference between Charley Patton and Charlie Poole — is this gleaming Art Deco valise, teeming with a democratic profusion of American blues, rustic folk and hot jazz. As in Vol. 1, released last year, this boxed set enriches its many hours of recorded history with reproduced ephemera; an included USB drive, shaped like a hood ornament, turns your web browser into a custom music portal. And the scholarship in a pair of hard-bound books is first rate, even when, as in the case of the Texas blues singer Hattie Burleson, “biographical details for this artist are as rare as hen’s teeth.” – Nate Chinen

Uncompromising Expression

Blue Note

Five CDs, $58.99 bluenote.com

The capstone to a year of 75th-anniversary festivities for Blue Note Records, this 75-track compilation — produced mainly by the British writer Richard Havers, as a sidepiece to his official illustrated history of the label — can best be understood as a tool of promotion. But the quality of the music is indisputable, and canonical fare comes mixed in with some welcome and unexpected inclusions, like the trumpeter Dizzy Reece, the saxophonist Harold Vick and the multireedist Ronnie Laws. – Nate Chinen

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Complete Epic Recordings

Epic/Legacy

12 CDs, $82.88 srvofficial.com

During an all-too-brief major-label career — from his landmark debut album, “Texas Flood,” in 1983 to his death in a helicopter crash in 1990 — Stevie Ray Vaughan left a permanent, heat-scorched mark on the blues. This set chronicles his trajectory from regional wonder to reigning king, with one special incentive: “A Legend in the Making — Live at the El Mocambo,” recorded in 1983 and never previously released on CD. – Nate Chinen

Kenny Dope: The Wild Style Breakbeats

Kay-Dee/Get On Down

Seven seven-inch records, $70 kaydeerecords.bigcartel.com

In 1981, Charlie Ahearn was directing “Wild Style,” his ode to the culture that wasn’t even called hip-hop yet, and his film needed music. He commissioned Fab 5 Freddy to gather breakbeats that would be used in the film, original music that was true to the period but would hedge against relying on familiar records that might be passé by the time of the film’s release. Fab 5 Freddy pulled together a band — including Blondie’s Chris Stein on guitar — and delivered 13 short tracks of early rap simulacra. Apart from a small pressing of white labels, the music was never formally released. This loving set, manufactured as a stunning book, idealizes those breakbeats, only five of which were even used in the film. The project is part reissue, part reimagining — the songs here are extended edits (by Kenny Dope) of the original clips, and as such they are both right and wrong, a trigger of memory and also a rewriting of history. But even if this set isn’t the purest, it’s still of the utmost importance for giving life to these building blocks of hip-hop that were, for decades, practically figments of the imagination. – Jon Caramanica

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever

StarVista/Time Life

Six DVDs, $79.95 timelife.com

Bono might be able to insert a U2 album into your iTunes library, but what record label, in 2014, could command a couple of hours of network prime time for a special dedicated to its legacy, extending it in the process? It’s impossible to overstate how important Motown Records was in the development of American popular music, to say nothing of its trickle-down effects on politics and race relations. In 1983 it was no longer at its peak, but it had enough clout to bring out its retinue of stars. The concert featured a murderers’ row lineup — Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops and many more. There is ample bonus footage in this set, including numerous interviews with people involved with the special, though the best feature is an hourlong round table of Motown songwriters, filmed in 1983, that involves a lot of raised eyebrows and a couple of spilled secrets. It’s all ancillary to the concert, though, which is vibrant and completely self-aware of how monumental an occasion it was. And that’s not even counting the moonwalk pulled off by Michael Jackson that stopped the show cold, sketching out the future while paying tribute to the past. – Jon Caramanica

Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966-1985

Light in the Attic

Two CDs, $24.99 lightintheattic.net

It’s shameful it has taken as long as it has for a compilation of this nature and scope to emerge. Compiled by the record collector Kevin Howes, “Native North America” collects widely in indigenous pop, with an emphasis on country-rock and folk from Canada and the northern United States. Some of the music here hybridizes traditional and modern forms, but most of it uses familiar idioms to tell stories that have been kept out of the pop-music historical narrative. High points include Sugluk’s Neil Young-isms, Willie Dunn’s stoic talking country, and the breezy Beatles-informed maneuvers of the Chieftones. – Jon Caramanica

Theater

Theater is fundamentally an ephemeral art form. Here today — for an exclusive, limited 14-week engagement only! — and gone tomorrow. Or at least until the next revival. (And there’s always an old hand to tell you that the latest isn’t nearly as good as the last.) But even the most transitory arts leave traces behind. A fine original cast album can conjure the pleasure we took in a performance with surprising vividness. Reading the letters or essays of a writer or director can give us fresh perspectives that inform our appreciation of new work. Although choosing a gift for your beloved theater-lover can sometimes seem an impossible proposition, this season there are plenty of promising options.

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

By John Lahr

$39.95 wwnorton.com

John Lahr, the former chief drama critic of The New Yorker, has produced a prodigiously researched — and also just plain prodigious, at more than 700 pages — biography of this great, tortured American playwright. Although Mr. Lahr essentially picks up Williams’s life as he is on the cusp of worldwide acclaim, following the 1944 production of “The Glass Menagerie” — boyhood and youth mostly skipped over — his analysis of the playwright’s life and the patterns it produced in his work is acute and eloquent. The writer’s relationships with his various lovers are mined exhaustively, but Mr. Lahr is most superb on the relationship between Williams and the director Elia Kazan, perhaps his greatest collaborator. – Charles Isherwood

American Musicals: The Complete Books & Lyrics of Sixteen Broadway Classics

Edited by Laurence Maslon

$75 loa.org

Given that it’s one of the few essentially indigenous American art forms, it took the Library of America a scandalously long time to take note of the Broadway musical. That’s been made up for with this handsome two-volume set, which includes the first-ever publication of Irving Berlin and Moss Hart’s “As Thousands Cheer,” and returns several major musicals to print for the first time in decades. You might quibble with a choice or two — “Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific,” but no “Carousel”? — but these volumes are nonetheless as valuable as they are purely enjoyable. – Charles Isherwood

100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write

By Sarah Ruhl

$23 us.macmillan.com

The playful title of this delectable collection isn’t entirely paradoxical. This is less a book of essays, in the classic mode of learned ruminations on cleanly defined themes, than it is a compendium of really elaborate questions. “What of aesthetic hatred, and is it useful?” is the title of one. (Answer: well, maybe.) Admirers of Ms. Ruhl’s stylistically audacious plays will not be surprised at these oddly shaped but neatly chiseled pieces, none of which run more than a few hundred words or so, and some of which are just a sentence or two. But each is tightly packed with fresh thought, smart thinking and lively humor. Noting that today some dramaturge would probably tell Shakespeare to cut out all that direct address, Ms. Ruhl wryly notes, “Being dead is the most airtight defense of one’s own aesthetic.” I stopped dog-earing the pages of my favorites when I realized there were barely any pages left uncreased. – Charles Isherwood

The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan

Edited by Albert J. Devlin, with Marlene J. Devlin

$40 knopfdoubleday.com

A necessary addition to any film or theater aficionado’s library — it acts as a companion volume to Elia Kazan’s marvelous autobiography — this well-edited volume of letters traces his extraordinary career from the inside. Pugnacious, ambitious, deeply sincere and deeply flawed, Kazan was the most influential American theater director of his era. His correspondents include most of the great names of the times, from Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams to John Steinbeck and Clifford Odets. – Charles Isherwood

Sandra Bernhard

Joe's Pub

Tickets, $60 to $200 www.joespub.com

For the theater-loving curmudgeon in your life (a fairly populous breed, I believe), there’s a guaranteed happy ending to the year to be found in the annual holiday un-cheer served up by the inimitable Sandra Bernhard at Joe’s Pub, Dec. 26 through 31. Ms. Bernhard’s savage dissection of the state of current affairs is always a bitter-tasting delight, and she rocks her chops, too, on her favorite songs, with her band the Flawless Zircons. – Charles Isherwood

Taylor Mac: A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, 1900-1950s

New York Live Arts/Under the Radar Festival

Tickets, $40 to $75 newyorklivearts.org

For the theater lovers on your list who’ve already seen just about everything, and have bought the CD, too, it’s best to look into the more rarefied realms. A top choice this year would be tickets to the January performances of the enthralling entertainer Taylor Mac, one of the city’s downtown treasures. Mr. Mac has embarked on an epic project called “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.” (Who knew pop has such a long pedigree?) He will be performing evenings of music from the 1900s through the 1920s, and from the 1930s through the 1950s. There’s also one marathon performance of both parts. Mr. Mac, an androgynous performer who generally appears in dazzling gear and makeup, is a terrific singer, and his perspective on pop history is sure to be unique. – Charles Isherwood

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Masterworks Broadway

CD, $16.95 myplaydirect.com

Although the practice was never common, once upon a long time ago, acclaimed plays, as well as musicals, were recorded for posterity. This year came a to-be-treasured reissue of the 1963 original cast album of the premiere production of Edward Albee’s gold-plated classic of marital strife. Arthur Hill and Uta Hagen’s brilliant performances still scorch the ears, and the heart, all these many years, and many revivals, later. – Charles Isherwood

Violet (2014) Cast Recording

PS Classics

$15.95 psclassics.com

Standing tall among the standout performances on Broadway last season was Sutton Foster’s stirring turn as the title character in the revival of the Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley musical, “Violet,” about a naïve but spunky young woman on a journey to meet a faith healer who she believes can remove the scar from her face. Ms. Foster’s performance, and the superb gospel- and country-inflected score, have been preserved on a lush two-disc set, allowing the full scope of the musical to be preserved for the first time. – Charles Isherwood

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (2014) Cast Recording

Sh-K-Boom Records

$14.99 sh-k-boom.com

The most refreshing new musical of last season took home the Tony Award for best musical, along with three others, but perversely was denied the trophy for its ebullient, witty score. (That went to the more earnest “The Bridges of Madison County.”) Well, phooey! The coruscating lyrics by Robert L. Freedman, paired with the rich, operetta-flavored music of Steven Lutvak, make this the most vibrant and enjoyable of the year’s new cast album releases. – Charles Isherwood

Technology

Giving gadgets as gifts can be challenging, as some choices — Apple or Android, big phones or small — are often matters of personal taste. Here are some safe, fantastic gadgets and services that are all but certain to bring good cheer.

GoPro Hero4 Silver

$399.99 shop.gopro.com

GoPro has three new camera models out this year, and the cheapest one starts at $129, making it a good option for people who just want a rugged, portable action camera that takes reliably good photos and videos. Step up to the GoPro Hero4 Silver and you'll get built-in Wi-Fi for connecting to remote control apps, plus a highlighting feature that marks specific points in video for easier editing and sharing. – Molly Wood

Amazon’s Kindle Voyage E-Reader

$199 amazon.com

The Voyage is just a device for reading, which makes it unusual in these days of multifunction tablets. But with a high-resolution screen that looks just about indistinguishable from a printed page, there's no better gadget to read on. A tablet hurts your eyes; this thing seduces them. – Farhad Manjoo

Bose QuietComfort Headphones

$299.95 bose.com

Bose's noise-canceling headphones are the savior of any traveler, and although they're expensive, they're worth the price. The QuietComfort 25 models are big, over-the-ear headphones with comfortable ear pockets and amazing noise cancellation. For those who prefer smaller in-ear headphones, the QuietComfort 20 earbuds do the trick. – Molly Wood

Dyson DC-59 Motorhead

$549.99 dyson.com

Dyson spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing a machine once thought to be impossible — a lightweight, handheld vacuum cleaner that is nearly as powerful as a full-size, plug-in model. The DC-59 Motorhead is its best effort yet; though it looks like a space-age laser gun, there's nothing better at cleaning up. – Farhad Manjoo

Subscription to CrashPlan Backup Service

$4 a month code42.com

This backup service constantly uploads everything stored on your computer to a secure server, keeping your data safe even if your computer crashes. CrashPlan's software is intuitive and, after you set it once, you can pretty much forget about it. It's also so cheap you can't afford not to use it. – Farhad Manjoo

Google Chromecast

$35 google.com/chrome

This device plugs into the back of your TV, connects to your Wi-Fi, and then lets you “cast” video from your phone, laptop or tablet to your TV easily, without changing inputs on the television. It works with major video sources like YouTube, HBO Go and, of course, Google movies and music. – Molly Wood

Spotify Premium

$9.99 a month spotify.com

A lot of people listen to the free version of Spotify, the popular streaming music service, but the $9.99 per month subscription package comes with noticeable benefits. For one thing, there are no ads while you're listening, and for another, you can download music onto any device for listening on a plane or anywhere else you don't have service. – Molly Wood

Google Drive Cloud Storage

$1.99 a month for 100 gigabytes of storage google.com

Most tech giants now offer low-priced online storage, but Google Drive has the best combination of price and features. You can access documents stored on Google's online drive from just about any machine, and with Google's auto-enhancing system for your photos, your data will look pretty great, too. – Farhad Manjoo

Sony’s A6000 Camera

$699.99, with lens store.sony.com

Smartphone cameras are now so good that most people no longer need to carry around a point-and-shoot camera. But mirrorless cameras like Sony's are still worth tucking in a bag when you're out on the town. These shooters are almost as good as full-sized DSLR cameras, but they're quite compact -- making for great shots in a small package. Sony's best mirrorless, the A6000, has a nice selection of interchangeable lenses, and it has a focusing system that can target your subject incredibly fast. – Farhad Manjoo

The iPhone 6 Plus

$299 with a mobile phone plan store.apple.com

There isn't anything very original about a larger iPhone; many of Apple's rivals have been making big-screen phones for years. But Apple's iOS operating system pairs so well with a large screen that it results in something unusual -- not just a large phone, but a powerful, multipurpose computer you can use for most of your everyday tasks. – Farhad Manjoo

Vizio P Series 4K Ultra HD TV

Starting at $999 vizio.com

Ultra HD is the new, even higher definition high-definition TV that'll be marketed in force this season. Vizio, as usual, has made the new technology accessible with 4K TVs that start at just $999 (competing models are at least twice as much, usually more). If you want to step into the trend without risking thousands in buyer's regret, these televisions look good and have solid tech inside. – Molly Wood

Sonos Play:5 Wireless Speaker System

$399 sonos.com

Sonos wireless speakers are an easy and elegant way to equip your whole house with a wireless speaker system that looks and sounds good. The Play:5 delivers the best sound in the Sonos family and is great for a big room. Its app for Android and iOS lets you control and stream music from your phone or tablet to some or all of the connected speakers, and works with popular music sources like Spotify and Pandora – Molly Wood

Video Games

Thanks in part to what I hope is the temporary argument that takes place under the GamerGate hashtag on Twitter, it’s been a pretty dismal year for video game players, without much peace on earth or good will toward one another. The quality of the games hasn’t helped. As a group, the games of 2014 fare poorly when compared with the exceptionally deep roster of terrific games in 2013, including BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World and Gone Home. But compiling a list of the 10 gifts from this year that are worth giving to the player in your life was harder than anticipated — because there are a lot more than 10. Some well-received games — Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Sunset Overdrive among them — didn’t make the cut.

The Last of Us Remastered

Naughty Dog

$49.99 playstation.com

Sony’s PlayStation 4 console, which has been trouncing Microsoft’s Xbox One in sales for the past year, has a lot going for it, including a great-feeling controller and the terrific subscription service known as PlayStation Plus. Yet one area in which the system hasn’t lived up to its promise is exclusive games that can’t be played anywhere else. The Last of Us, a PlayStation 3 game from 2013, is still your best option. This new edition includes the short prequel Left Behind, my leading contender for the best game of 2014.

Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes

Disney Interactive Studios

$74.99 infinity.disney.com

The starter pack for the second edition of Disney Infinity includes toy figures of Iron Man, Thor and Black Widow. The Marvel heroes can be swapped in and out of the game by placing them on an accompanying stand. A few mediocre adventures come on the disc, but the real action is in the game’s Toy Box mode, which lets players build their own creations. (For $15 less, a starter pack with figures from “Brave” and “Lilo & Stitch” skips the scripted adventures altogether.) The toys from last year’s version — including Elsa and Anna of “Frozen” — still work.

Skylanders Trap Team

Toys for Bob

$74.99 skylanders.com

Skylanders invented the “toys to life” category that Disney and Nintendo, which is releasing its own Amiibo figures this year, have now entered. Trap Team is another fine entry in the series, but its tablet edition is its boldest innovation. Now you can play Skylanders even if you don’t own a video game console (although a newer tablet will allow for a much better play experience). The starter pack for the tablet edition includes a Bluetooth controller. People have been waiting for Apple to introduce a video game console. Maybe it already has.

Mario Kart 8

Nintendo

$59.99 nintendo.com

My sister and her fiancé, both 20-something millennials who were raised on the Nintendo 64 console and the Wii, came to visit over the summer. They didn’t know much about Nintendo’s Wii U console, which may help explain why it has taken a thumping over the past couple of years. But they remembered previous versions of Mario Kart, a cartoonish racing game that looks Pixar-like in its latest incarnation. And they couldn’t believe how much fun the new one is.

Titanfall

Respawn Entertainment

$39.99 respawn.com

Although it has lagged behind the PlayStation 4 in sales, the Xbox One has some very good games that you can’t play on a Sony machine. Titanfall, designed by some of the people who turned Call of Duty into a marketplace behemoth, is an inventive multiplayer shooter. Players begin as small human pilots, leaping skyward and scampering across walls. Perform well enough, and you can be the first to summon a mammoth robot from the clouds.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

MachineGames

$59.99 wolfenstein.com

Video games can be smart, quiet and artful. They can also be dumb, loud and about the joys of shooting Nazis in the face. Wolfenstein: The New Order is a dumb video game of very high caliber, a well-designed shooter set during a surprisingly well-conceived alternate history in which Germany wins World War II. In these 1960s, the Beatles sing “Das blaue U-boat” instead of “Yellow Submarine.”

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Obsidian Entertainment

$39.99 southpark.ubi.com

While it doesn’t reach the heights of the “South Park” movie or “The Book of Mormon” — the Broadway musical by Trey Parker and Matt Stone — South Park: The Stick of Truth is one of the better video game comedies yet made. The Canada level is a sublime joke that would only work in a game. The rest is as subversive and vile as the TV show.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Blizzard Entertainment

$1 to $250 us.battle.net

I’ve spent more time than I would like to admit playing this digital card game on my iPad. It’s free, and if you’re patient, you can compete without spending a penny. But if you know someone similarly addicted, a Battle.net gift card, or an infusion of cash into a virtual account, would let that person buy additional packs of cards or unlock new play modes.

Desert Golfing

Captain Games

$1.99 captain-games.com

Take Angry Birds. Now remove the birds, the pigs and the physical structures, and replace the landscape with a seemingly endless golf course in a desert — the lone and level sands of “Ozymandias” as the links. Swipe back and release to hit a ball into a hole. Repeat. Unless you delete the game, you can never start over, you can never retry a hole, you can never change the past. It’s as addictive and bleak as daily existence. Put it on a loved one’s phone if you’re hoping to avoid speaking to each other during the holidays.

Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition

Oculus VR

$199 samsung.com

The virtual-reality company Oculus VR was bought in March by Facebook for $2 billion. This headset, which requires Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 phone to work, is the first commercial product that Oculus hasn’t pitched only to software developers. The Gear VR, Oculus says, is still a test product. It’s meant for early adopters and digital enthusiasts. But if you want to witness Oculus’s virtual-reality technology for yourself, then the Gear VR is the simplest way to go — at least until Oculus releases a consumer version of its Rift headset, possibly as early as next year.

New York City

Gifts for the New Yorker in all of us: expats, transplants, new and longtime residents and those who simply wish they lived here. Our experts hand-selected experiences that give a sample, at best, of all this wonderful city has to offer, from dining to culture to experiences.

Cronuts from Dominique Ansel Bakery

For the Sweet Tooth

$5 per pastry, maximum of six in pre-order cronutpreorder.com

New Yorkers used to wait in lines hours long simply for a chance to taste the Cronut, a bakery combination of a croissant and a doughnut. Simply saying you had had one was a bragging point among New York foodies. As the craze has died down slightly (lines still form most mornings), the Cronuts are a little more obtainable. But, in a manner both better for gifting and for your sleep schedule, the bakery does take advance orders, at $5 per pastry, with a maximum order of six. New orders are taken every Monday at 11 a.m.

Fishing Charters

For the Nautical

Tours start at $525 for half a day, for up to three people urbanflyguides.com

New York City is many things, but few think of it as an ocean village. Yet with surfboards on the subway heading out to the Rockaways, seaplanes landing in the East River and fishing lines cast from East River Park, New York is becoming more in touch with its shores. To grab some fish you can actually eat, head out on a fishing charter. Brandon McCarthy of Urban Fly Guides will take you either through Jamaica Bay or out into the Hudson Channel. And hang around the docks to get some real New York City “big fish” stories. Urban Fly Guides will fish for striped bass through December, and then reopen in April.

Mini New York City

For the City Planner

$8 entry, $50 to adopt a building queensmuseum.org

Tucked away into a large room at the Queens Museum in New York is one of the city’s hidden gems: a nearly 10,000 square foot scale model of the city’s five boroughs, with every building in the city built before 1992 detailed to 1:1200 of a scale. A day trip is $8, or you can “adopt a building” in the panorama for $50.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Katz Pastrami

For the Traditionalist

Prices Vary katzsdelicatessen.com

One of the oldest Jewish delis in New York City, Katz is a favorite of tourists and locals alike, stacking pastrami inches high before slathering it in brown mustard and sandwiching it between two pieces of bread. Their old slogan was “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army,” but we would recommend sending the pastrami, which runs at $14 per 1lb.

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Bridge Seats at Madison Square Garden

For the Sports Fan

Prices Vary ticketmaster.com

Madison Square Garden, the self-described “world’s most famous arena,” does indeed have one new aspect that sets itself apart from the rest of the world: the Chase Bridge seats, which run along two suspended walkways that extend the length of the arena and give an unrivaled bird’s-eye view of both hockey and basketball.

CitiBike Annual Membership

For the Active

$149 for the year citibikenyc.com/signup

Yes, we recommended this last year, but it’s one gift worth recycling: The hardest part about cycling in New York is storing the bulky bicycle in the average New York shoe box apartment. A CitiBike yearlong bike share membership helps free up some space.

MoMA PS1+ Membership

For the Art-Lover

MoMA Membership $85, PS1+ $100 momaps1.org

PS1, an offshoot of the Museum of Modern Art, is described as an “exhibition space rather than a collecting institution.” And it offers a membership experience like none other. While it requires a membership to the MoMA first, the additional $100 to support PS1 includes “conversations with MoMA PS1 curators and artists, private receptions, four free admission tickets to “Warm Up,” which is the collective’s summer Saturday’s experimental music series.

Trapeze Lessons

For the Adventurous

Classes start at $50, plus a $22 registration fee newyork.trapezeschool.com

Swinging through the air of the concrete jungle of New York is no longer just for Spider-Man. The New York Trapeze School lets “students” experience what it is like to swing, flip, fly, and, if they slip, bounce off safety nets, all in the shadows of skyscrapers. The school has three locations, indoors in a warehouse in Queens during the winter, and locations along the Hudson River and the South Street Seaport in the summer.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

NoshWalks Food Tour

For the Hungry

Starting at $54 noshwalks.com

You could travel to Georgia for a khachapuri, Norway for gjetost or Chile for humitas, or you could go on a food tour in the East Village in Manhattan; Bay Ridge in Brooklyn; or Astoria in Queens. NoshWalks is a company that specializes in ethnic food tours around all five boroughs, even occasionally venturing into New Jersey. Above, breads from Oda House, on Avenue B.

Jet Ski Tours

For the Adrenaline Addict

Tours start at $175 for a single rider, $225 for two jettyjumpers.com

New York’s many waterways provide some of the starkest, grandest views of the city’s towering skylines and dramatic bridges. And no view feels grander than that from the plastic perch of a Jet Ski or other personal watercraft, with adrenaline coursing through your veins as you rip through wind chop at 50 miles per hour before coming to rest under the curving span of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The season starts again in April.

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times

Union Square Cafe

For the Nostalgic

Gift card prices vary ecommerce.custcon.com

Union Square Cafe, a pioneering restaurant that became the mother ship of the fleet run by the entrepreneur Danny Meyer, will close its doors at the end of 2015 and move to a location yet to be determined. So, to the nostalgic New Yorker who will miss the classic institution, give the gift of one more banana tart with macadamia brittle, before the oven is turned off.

Tickets to Tapings

For the Late-Night Lover

Free, but require your time

Nearly every late night television host calls New York City home. Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, John Oliver and more all tape in New York City, and all offer free tickets to tapings. It just takes some timely (and a little lucky) clicking and a bit of advance planning.

Credits
Creative Direction by

R Smith, Alicia DeSantis and Jacky Myint

Photography by

Tony Cenicola

Video Directed by

Mike Anderson and Michael Kirby Smith

Video Produced by

Taige Jensen, Nicole Fineman, Natalia V. Osipova and Vijai Singh

Coordination and Letterman Coffee Mug by

Heather Phillips

Ukulele Played by

John Woo

Coloring by

Clementine and Joe

Contributions by

Mike Abrams, Virginia Avent, Lindsay Blatt, Sara Bonisteel, Emily Brennan, Elizabeth Bristow, Phaedra Brown, Monica Drake, Jeremy Egner, John Hyland, Michael Kolomatsky, Tiina Loite, Maria Newman, Josh Robinson, Ashwin Seshagiri and Joe Siano.

Special thanks to

Deborah Acosta, Kelly Alfieri, Jessica Anderson, Eva Harris, Simone Oliver, Steve Shalit and Jessica Torok.

The gifts included in this guide were chosen solely by The New York Times. Our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers or affiliate partnerships.

Through a third party, we may receive commissions on sales of these products that are made on the linked sites. We do not know what products may generate a commission, or what that commission might be, and it played no part in our selection.

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