The one-item gift guide

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It's gift guide season and in a matter of weeks – or maybe just days – you'll be tired of scouring through recommendations for people on your nice list. It's a guy-with-an-eye tradition to offer counter programming by recommending just one thing. That way, we won't exhaust you with endless blah-blah-blah, instead giving you a quick dose of inspiration for pleasing the dearest in your circle.

This year's pick is a book about sticks. No, that's not a typo. I was stunned to discover a small art book about exactly that, sticks and the people who love them, on a recent visit to Type Books in the Junction. There's now a copy in my living room that might become a Christmas gift...

... though I'll have to replace it with another, because – like the sticks it celebrates – it's a delightful thing to have.

The book's authors, Logan Jugler and Boone Hogg, created the book as an offshoot of their hugely popular online venture, Official Stick Reviews, which collects photos and stories of stick lovers from around the world. The book includes a "sticktionary" – a handy list of terms to help you talk about sticks – but is mostly given over to pictures and blurbs from the far-flung members of "Stick Nation."

There's an exuberance permeating every page, especially in examples of how sticks power the imagination, turning us into characters of a story about to be written:

It's no surprise that some of the stories involve dogs:

What I love most about the book is the way it proves that the ordinary becomes extraordinary when we look with fresh eyes. Sticks are waiting for us to discover them, on a walk through the forest or a stroll along the beach. They're free. They make no demands other than to be appreciated if we have the time and the impulse.

You'll find a stack of Sticks in the Junction outpost of Type Books, but I suspect it will disappear fast:

I'm sure they'll order you a copy or two if they run out of stock. I think it would make a great side table book, or a coffee table book beside something massive and serious, like a monograph on Rembrandt. It's perfect for nature lovers, design aficionados, witty bibliophiles – anyone, really, who needs reminding that the mundane world around them is actually miraculous.

From the archives

Let's take a quick look back at earlier one-item gift guides. In 2024, we featured "Arranging Things", a thought provoking picture book about how objects come together in pleasing vignettes:

In 2023, we featured "Painting the Plate", an unusual cookbook that shows you how to make dishes that resemble famous works of art:

I'm not sure if this ongoing series will always feature books or branch out into other memorable gifts, but I do know that I still heartily recommend these earlier picks.

Hmmm. I guess this has turned into a multiple-item gift guide after all!

Thank you for reading.