Season's Readings

Gifts for the literate, semiliterate or just plain illiterate on your list.

DOREE SHAFRIR (dshafrir@philadelphiaweekly.com)

Buying books for other people can be stressful. You want to give them something you think they'll like, but you also want the book to reflect your own good taste. Often, of course, the two come into conflict. You have to decide whether you're going to just buy your grandmother a Danielle Steel book for the zillionth time or take the aesthetic high ground and force her to slog through Infinite Jest.
Good thing this season offers a whole host of books that should satisfy a range of tastes--from the highbrow to the lowbrow and everywhere in between (and lots with pictures)--without compromising anyone's literary integrity. You might even want to pick some of these up for yourself.

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At the other end of the spectrum, the true believer (or Lego lover) will likely enjoy Brendan Powell Smith's The Brick Testament: Stories From the Book of Genesis (Quirk, $14.95). Though a little creepy, Powell Smith's tableaux of Old Testament stories are pretty amazing--each has been painstakingly created with Legos. (He also has a website, thebricktestament. com, that's apparently very popular.) There's a Noah's Ark scene, a Tower of Babel montage, and depictions of the tale of Joseph and the coat of many colors. It's the perfect way to introduce your heathen children to the Lord, or something like that.