Book gift guide

Sex, satire, fashion, food & literature: Nice and naughty books for everyone onyour list

The Story of O by Pauline Réage
Marie Lu's Legend series
Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico
Photo by Penny de los Santos
Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington
Building Stories by Chris Ware
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't by Stephen Colbert

With less than a week left for holiday shopping, we at CultureMap would like to offer a happy medium between street brawls in Target and Neiman Marcus and just giving up and throwing gift cards at loved ones. How about a nice book?

The well-selected, gifted book literally and sometimes literarily tells a story to the receiver and has the ability to send many messages. I love you. I know you so well. I understand what you like. Please stop trying to force me to read 50 Shades of Grey.

So with a little help from our favorite independent bookstores, here is the CultureMap definitive, but completely random, book gift guide.

Contemporary literary reader

For the contemporary literary reader with shelves of signed copies and tales of meeting authors, pick up Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue. Chabon will be in Houston Jan. 28 for the first Inprint reading of the new year, so the book, a pen, and event ticket might be the perfect choice for this reader.

Movie lover

For the movie lover who’s just not into books, let him know Hollywood is with a gift basket filled with The Life of Pi, Cloud Atlas, Les Misérables (the book turned musical, turned movie), Anna Karenina, Jack Reacher, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and The Hobbit. Do readers' imaginations project at a 48-frames-a-second or 24?

Teen reader

If instead you’re shopping for a teen reader who wants to get into the next big series before the rest of the world flocks to the obligatory movie, Blue Willow Bookshop’s Valerie Koehler suggests the Legend series by Marie Lu, who used to call Sugar Land home.

“Post apocalyptic novels are still very hot this year. In this one, the main character is a teen who is slated to become an assassin and things turn treacherous when she is sent to kill a boy who may or may not have killed her brother. Lots of action which appeals to all teens,” says Koehler.

Food lover

Need a gift for a foodie who always buys locally? Try a cookbook by a favorite local chef. Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico is not only filled with his favorite recipes, but he includes personal stories to savor with each dish.

Fashionista

If that fashionista in your life loves the behind-the-scenes drama of the industry as much as the clothes, find some sophisticated gift wrap for Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington, the woman who managed to steal the spotlight from Anna Wintour in not one but two documentaries about Vogue.

Hipster satire-lover

Give the gift of historical irony to your favorite hipster satire-lover by pairing Stephen Colbert’s latest, America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't, with some ancient school Gulliver’s Travels because if Jonathan Swift were alive today, he’d no doubt have his own Super PAC.

Bibliophile

For the bibliophile who refuses to buy an e-reader and is looking for validation, Brazos Bookstore manager Jeremy Ellis recommends Chris Ware’s Building Stories: “An oversized box of 27 different booklets, each with a different format and point-of-view. This is a book to wade through rather than read start to finish. An eEdition would not be the same.”

Lovable luddite

And if that lovable luddite reader is raising little ones, Valerie Koehler recommends In My Den by Sara Gillingham because you can’t download the felt finger puppet that comes with the board book and then poke it through a Kindle.

Future forecaster

For the gambler, baseball stats lover, and fortune-teller in your life, let them know that the future can sometimes be forecast with The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don't, the new book by this nation’s recently chosen math-nerd-in-chief, Nate Silver.

An alternative to 50 Shades of Grey

And finally for that sweet, budding-sadist friend who won’t stop insisting you have to read 50 Shades of Grey, Brazos Bookstore recommends The Story of O by Pauline Reage.

Written in 1954, “The novel, originally published in French, is described as a story of love and submission. It won the French literary prize that year and has been in print ever since,” says Ellis, who also suggests Exit to Eden, Anne Rice’s S&M romance written under her pseudonym Anne Rampling.

If those suggestions don’t send the message, throw a hardback copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer your best friend's head. Carrie Fisher would approve.

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Movie Review

Pop star Charli XCX seizes 'The Moment' in new mockumentary

Photo courtesy of A24

Charli XCX in The Moment.

There have been plenty of music documentaries and biopics that show how the life of a music star can be a trying one, with fans, record label executives, and hangers-on all wanting a piece of a certain singer or band. Charli XCX knows the pressures as well as anyone thanks to back-to-back hit albums, but instead of addressing her life with a self-aggrandizing promo film, she’s gone the unexpected route with the mockumentary, The Moment.

The singer plays a fictionalized version of herself who’s coming off of “Brat Summer,” a cultural phenomenon that followed the release of her 2024 album, Brat. In addition to a planned tour, she and her team are trying to come up with other ways to capitalize on the moment, ideas that sometimes include her input and sometimes don’t. The one that becomes the driving force of the story is a concert film that will be directed by the in-demand filmmaker Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård).

Even though Charli XCX had already planned out the visuals, props, and other elements of the tour with good friend Celeste (Hailey Gates), Johannes slowly but surely pushes his ideas to be used instead. As that part of her life starts to slip from her grasp, she starts to lose it in general, agreeing to endorse a Brat-themed credit card, taking an ill-advised spa trip to Ibiza, and more.

Written and directed by Aidan Zamiri (who’s directed two Charli XCX music videos) and co-written by Bertie Brandes, the film should in no way, shape, or form be interpreted as giving viewers an accurate idea of who the singer really is. Aside from the presence of well-known actors like Skarsgård and Rosanna Arquette and comedic actors like Kate Berlant and Jamie Demetriou, everything in the film is heightened sufficiently to understand it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Still, it’s clear that fans of Charli XCX or those who participated in Brat Summer will be more invested in the film than others. Knowing that Rachel Sennott’s cameo likely stems from their friendship following Charli XCX doing the score for Sennott’s film, Bottoms, or that she enjoyed early fame from the inclusion of her song, “Boom Clap,” in “a movie about two kids with cancer,” as her character puts it, adds some depth to the film.

One of the funniest things about the film is the lack of a showcase of Charli XCX’s music. She doesn’t sing a single note in the entire film, and any songs of hers that are heard are incidental to the story. There is, however, a ton of oppressive flashing titles and frenetic imagery during the various transitions in the film. If you are even slightly affected by rapid lights and/or movement, it might be best to avoid the film entirely.

As George Clooney can attest from Jay Kelly, it’s more difficult to play a version of yourself than you might think, and Charli XCX deserves credit for playing into rumors of her “bitchiness” in this film. Upcoming roles in other films will prove whether she’s truly a good actress or not, but she has a presence that serves this movie well. Skarsgård, who seems to be having a moment of his own in the real world, is the clear winner for best supporting actor of the film, scoring in almost every scene he’s in.

The Moment may not be as effective a mockumentary as something like This is Spinal Tap, but it still has enough memorable moments to make it worth seeing for both fans and non-fans alike. If that’s not enough Charli XCX for you, she’s also created the soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, which will be in theaters on February 13.

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The Moment opens wide in theaters on February 6.

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