We hope you enjoyed Alta Live’s holiday gift guide special with book buyers Sherri Gallentine from Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, Sarah High from Bookshop, and Luisa Smith from Book Passage in Corte Madera.
Here is the complete list of books recommended by Gallentine, High, and Smith.
For the reader who’s already read everything:
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, by George Saunders
- The True Deceiver, by Tove Jansson
- All Day I Dream About Sirens, by Domenica Martinello
- Interior States: Essays, by Meghan O’Gieblyn
- Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller
- The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History, edited by Tina Jordan and Noor Qasim
For little kids:
- Together, by Mona Damluji and Innosanto Nagara
- D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths, by Ingri D’Aulaire and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire
- Vivaldi, by Helge Torvund and Mari Kanstad Johnsen
- Grumpy Pants, by Claire Messer
- A Friend for Henry, by Jenn Bailey and Mika Song
- Woodland Dance!, by Sandra Boynton
- Trees, by Tony Johnston and Tiffany Bozic
For teenagers:
- March graphic novel series, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
- Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley
- Love Is a Revolution, by Renée Watson
- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente
- Home Is Not a Country, by Safia Elhillo
- 52 YA Books Every Book Lover Should Read, by the American Library Association
- The Magic Fish, by Trung Le Nguyen
For home cooks:
- Drinking French: The Iconic Cocktails, Apéritifs, and Café Traditions of France, with 160 Recipes, by David Lebovitz
- Vegetable Simple, by Eric Ripert
- Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen
- New Native Kitchen: Celebrating Modern Recipes of the American Indian, by Freddie Bitsoie and James O. Fraioli
- Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, by Toni Tipton-Martin
- The Taste of Country Cooking: The 30th Anniversary Edition of a Great Southern Classic, by Edna Lewis
- Son of a Southern Chef: Cook with Soul, by Lazarus Lynch
- Treasures of the Mexican Table: Classic Recipes, Local Secrets, by Pati Jinich
- Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad
- Burnt Toast and Other Disasters: A Book of Heroic Hacks, Fabulous Fixes, and Secret Sauces, by Cal Peternell
For coworkers:
- The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person, by Shonda Rhimes
- Making Stuff and Doing Things: DIY Guides to Just About Everything, edited by Kyle Bravo
- The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron
- How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell
- Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
- Vicious Nonsense: Quips, Snubs & Jabs by Literary Friends & Foes, edited by Kristen Hewitt
- The Lost Spells, by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris
For fiction fans:
- Voices in the Evening, by Natalia Ginzburg
- Five Tuesdays in Winter, by Lily King
- Chouette, by Claire Oshetsky
- The Farm, by Joanne Ramos
- Still Life, by Sarah Winman
- The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, by Nathaniel Ian Miller
For history buffs:
- Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe
- The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
- Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route, by Saidiya Hartman
- American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850, by Alan Taylor
- The Romanovs: 1613–1918, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
- All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles
- Orwell’s Roses, by Rebecca Solnit
- The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
About the guests:
Sherri Gallentine is the head book buyer at Vroman’s Bookstore, where she’s worked for over two decades.
Sarah High is Bookshop’s senior partnerships manager. She joined the then-small Bookshop team in the summer of 2019, before the site was live. At Bookshop, she helps booksellers use the site as their sole form of e-commerce or alongside another e-commerce platform. Before working at Bookshop, she was a publishing intern at Catapult, Soft Skull Press, and Counterpoint Press, and before that she was a bookseller and manager at Book Culture in Manhattan.
Luisa Smith practically grew up in Book Passage, so it was no surprise when she finally applied to work there back in 1996. Since then, she has had many positions in the store, but her favorite is buying director, the role she’s had for a number of years. Besides her work at Book Passage, Smith is the editor in chief of Scarlet, a Mysterious Press imprint. There, she is able to take her love of books a step further, enthusiastically working to get the authors she discovers on bookshelves in stores across the country. Smith would describe herself as a reading addict who has been lucky enough to find great jobs to support her habit.•
