Lifestyles

For all the snazzy electronic doodads out there vying for everyone's rapt attention, there remains an inviting gift to consider that is filled with compelling detail and inviting illustrations, and is reasonably priced to boot. It is known as the book, and there are a number of splendid new releases this year that are ideal for holiday giving. Here are some of the very best:

• Is somebody you know passionate about wine? If so, the can't-miss book of the year is the newly minted third edition of "The Oxford Companion to Wine" (Oxford University Press, 813 pages, $65), edited by Jancis Robinson, with 4,000 alphabetically listed entries on wine history, wine regions, grape varieties, along with every conceivable consideration of trends, personalities, and themes. The Washington Post called the second edition "the greatest wine book ever published." This effort has 400 new entries, along with dozens of maps, charts and diagrams.

• Another milestone worth noting is the 75th birthday edition of "Joy of Cooking" (Scribner, 1132 pages, $30), for which Ethan Becker, the son of co-contributor Marion Rombauer, and grandson of Irma S. Rombauer, the original author, has combined the very best of what has distinguished the earlier versions, with plenty of the new. Veggie bean burgers, sushi, Mississippi mud cake, homemade pita chips, hearth cooking, you name it, it's all here in this indispensable reference for a new generation of home chefs.

• The jazz artists who hit their stride during the middle of the 20th century made more than great music; they also inspired a whole generation of photographers to do some of their best work, a generous sampling of which is included in "The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography" (Harry N. Abrams, 176 pages, $40), edited by Lee Tanner, with an introduction by the estimable Nat Hentoff. Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Budd Johnson, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald -- pick a name, they're here, in all their mellifluous glory.

• When it comes to sports cars, the closest most of us will ever come to owning a top-of-the-line dream machine is in the pages of "Ferrari: The Road From Maranello" (Random House, 319 pages, $45), by Dennis Adler, chock full of illustrations and knowledgeable text on the history of what has been described as "the fastest road car ever." With the notable exception of the Jaguar E-type of the 1960s and '70s, quite possibly the most beautiful, too.

• Outdoor photographer and conservationist Tim Palmer has spent 35 years exploring the continent's waterways, an obsession, he notes, that has become "the central theme of my life." His book, "Rivers of America" (Harry N. Abrams, 224 pages, $40), with more than 200 photographs, is a celebration of the great outdoors in the truest sense.

• Certainly one of the most original books of the season is "Historical Atlas of the United States" (University of California Press, 280 pages, $39.95), a colorful chronicle of American history as documented in maps, illustrated with 535 magnificent examples drawn from dozens of important collections, and text by Derek Hayes, author of several notable works on cartography.

• "Where We Lived: Discovering the Places We Once Called Home" (Taunton Press, 272 pages, $40), by Jack Larkin, is the inaugural title in a new publishing venture being done with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and featuring 400 photos from the collections of the Library of Congress that give texture to the lives of Americans in the context of their living spaces, a compelling concept that draws from diaries, tales, and journals.

• "London: An Architectural History" (Yale University Press, 264 pages, $60), by Anthony Sutcliffe, takes readers on a remarkable tour of one of the world's greatest cities by examining the extraordinary variety of streets, buildings, parks, cathedrals that make it so unique, and does it in a way that sweeps along the centuries, yet pays attention to the vision of so many different designers.

• Going to another extreme entirely -- the work of one extraordinary architect, Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) -- in yet another of the world's most magnificent metropolises, we have "Palladio's Venice: Architecture and Society in a Renaissance Republic" (Yale University Press, 352 pages, $65), by Tracy E. Cooper, with 352 illustrations, and one of the outstanding releases of season.

• In the world of high fashion, there are a handful of names that command attention, with none more resonant than that of Cristobal Balenciaga (1895-1972), "the master of us all," according to Christian Dior, and the subject of two separate examinations. "Balenciaga Paris" (Thames & Hudson, 224 pages, $85), edited by Pamela Golbin, is by far the more elaborate, with a striking variety of objects featured in a Paris exhibition. "Balenciaga and His Legacy" (Yale University Press, 162 pages, $50), by Myra Walker, focuses on some 70 creations for day and evening wear, along with an informative text.

• Armchair archaeologists are going to love "The Royal Tombs of Egypt: The Art of Thebes Revealed" (Thames & Hudson, 314 pages, $65), the first book to reproduce the murals that decorate these ancient sanctuaries, including 30 eye-popping foldouts; the text is by Zahi Hawass, the 300 photographs by Sandro Vannini

• Few subjects could be more compelling than the visual thinking of a Renaissance genius; Martin Kemp's "Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design" (Princeton University Press, 213 pages, $60) demonstrates how the Renaissance master worked out so many of his projects on paper, and uses reproductions of 200 original notebook pages to probe the workings of his mind.

• One of the most interesting publishing projects of recent years -- the creation of a complete edition of the Bible written and illustrated entirely by hand and known collectively as "The Saint John's Bible" -- continues apace with release "Pentateuch" (Liturgical Press, 158 pages, $69.95), the third in a series of reproduction books from the originals, all prepared under the supervision of master calligrapher Donald Jackson; this volume features text and illuminations of the first five books of the Old Testament.

  There are a number of truly spectacular art books newly issued, several of them in conjunction with blockbuster museum exhibitions. Among the not-to-be-missed are:

• "Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 450 pages, $65), edited by Rebecca A. Rabinow, a brilliant consideration of a crucial period in art history that examines, through numerous essays, the contributions of Ambroise Vollard, a Paris art dealer who introduced some of the modern era's most iconic artists.

• "Yosemite: Art of an American Icon" (University of California Press, 222 pages, $65 hardcover, $34.95 paper), edited by Amy Scott, a gathering of 200 artworks that have emerged from impressions of the great Yosemite wilderness in the Sierra Nevada range of California.

• "Picasso and American Art" (Whitney Museum of American Art/Yale University Press, 400 pages, $65), by Michael FitzGerald, chronology by Julia May Boddewyn, a richly illustrated documentation of the debt American artists owed to an artist -- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) -- who never set foot in the United States.

• "The Rembrandt Book" (Harry N. Abrams, 384 pages, $65), uses text by Gary Schwartz, and some 700 illustrations, to place in perspective the remarkable life and career of Rembrandt von Rihn (c. 1606-1669) on the occasion of his 400th birthday.

Among noteworthy reference works, we have two:

• "The Yale Book of Quotations" (Yale University Press, 1,067 pages, $50), edited by Fred R. Shapiro, an entirely new production with plenty of fresh material -- Bob Dylan, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Matt Groening are among those present-- some 12,000 selections, and fully sourced.

• "The English Reader" (Oxford University Press, 512 pages, $30), by Michael Ravitch and Diane Ravitch, anthologizes a comprehensive selection of poems, essays, songs and orations, a selection, the mother-son team asserts, that "every literate person needs to know."

Those with a continuing interest in the literary canon should take note of the latest offerings from the Library of America in a 25-year program that is unique in American publishing: "Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1944-1961" (774 pages, $35); "William Faulkner Novels 1926-1929" (1,180 pages, $40); "Hart Crane: Complete Poems & Selected Letters" (849 pages, $40), and "Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977" (911 pages, $35).

Of particular note, too, is "The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin" (W. W. Norton, 480 pages, $39.95), a complete text of Harriet Beecher Stowe's epochal antebellum novel of 1852, edited by the noted Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who argues for a new evaluation of the work from an African-American perspective.

Popup books are not just for children, as two new releases make eminently clear:

• "Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense" (Simon & Schuster, $29.95), with paper engineering by Kees Moerbeek, features oversized foldouts depicting scenes from seven timeless movies -- "The Birds," "Marnie," "Saboteur," "Frenzy" and "Torn Curtain" among them. The spreads for "Psycho" and "Vertigo" are brilliant.

• "Graceland: An Interactive Pop-Up Tour" (Quirk Books, $40), paper engineering by Chuck Murphy, foreword by Priscilla Presley, brings fans of the late Elvis Presley into three-dimensional reconstructions of his living room, music room, kitchen, television room and meditation garden, and has a special "awards exhibit" displaying some of the king's glitziest of costumes.

• Finally a stocking stuffer from the incomparable paper engineer Robert Sabuda, "Christmas" (Scholastic, $12.99), with delightful pop-up figurines for each letter of the title, the last one featuring a resplendent Santa opening a card, accordion-like, with the words "Merry Christmas."

Couldn't say it better myself.

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