1996 Christmas List

• 1. What's Right, by David Frum, 1996. $9.60. A collection of his magazine articles on politics and culture. Lots of apt phrases and good ideas, and inspiration for the rest of us to try to write so well.

• 2. The Hercule Poirot Mystery TV series, $20 per episode, 1992. Agatha Christie is not half so good on paper, maybe because much of the pleasure in watching this series comes from the interwar English civility and scenery.

• 3. The Dark Wind, by Tony Hillerman, 1982. $4.79. A top-notch Jim Chee novel, about Hopi Indians (as well as Navahoes) and cocaine being lost in the desert.

• 4. Game Wars: The Undercover Pursuit of Wildlife Poachers, by Marc Reisner, 1991. $8.80. An exciting book about poaching in Louisiana. True crime, but with fish and game violations instead of axe murders.

• 5. The HTML computer language. This is what one uses to write up a WWW page. It is easy to use, well-designed and good for formatting, in its limited way.

• 6. Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest: True News of the World's Least Competent People , by John Kohut and Roland Sweet, 1996. $7.96.Curious stories of strange happenings, drawn from their column in the free newspapers.

• 7. The Problem of Pain , by C.S. Lewis, 1940. $4.80.Not about pain so much as life, experience, God, and salvation. Good ideas such as man's feeling for the numinous and the moral, and how belief in God combines both.

• 8. Indigo Lactarius. A blue fall mushroom that is easy to recognize, and edible, though one would hardly believe it.

• 9. The Wallace and Gromit animations. 1996. $22. There are at least three of these half-hour English animated films about a cheese-eating inventor and his dog. I found them oddly gripping in their mix of homely English ways and bizarre inventions, and very funny.

• 10. Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who do Not, and Why... by Kenneth Woodward, 1991. $11.20. Woodward is a journalist who interviewed Vatican insiders on the politics and theology of saint making.

• 11. Bob Vila's Toolbox, by Bob Vila, 1993. A book on portable hand and power tools-- not a how-to book, but a book on the tools themselves.

• 12. Lectures on Jonah , by Martin Luther, 1526. $22.99. Here one sees Luther not as polemicist, but as teacher, and as a good one, too.

Fraoch heather ale. Killer Angels , by Shaara, 1974. The Survival of the Birch Bark Canoe , by John McPhee, 1975. The Ivory Grin , by Ross Macdonald, 1952. Introduction to the First Three Gospels , by William Barclay, 1966/75. Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout beer. Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The Diamond District of New York. The Wine-Dark Sea , by Patrick O'Brien, 1993. The Chinese movie ``Eat-Drink-Man-Woman''. Aging and Old Age , by Richard Posner, 1996. Not a Hazardous Sport , by Nigel Barley,1988. Sprecher Black Bavarian beer.

Shaara, KILLER ANGELS, 1974. About Gettysburg.

John MCPHEE. THe Survival of the Birch Bark Canoe, 1975, about 130pp. One of his very good books, about a canoe trip across Maine with a pigheaded canoebuilder.

Ross MACDONALD, THE IVORY GRIN. 1952, 249pp. A very good book by the best writer of American detective novels ever. THe plot is not quite as twisted as in most of his novels, but it is pretty twisted. This one is more haunting in its characters.

BARCLAY, William. Introduction to the First Three Gospels. New edition. 1966/75. 303 pp. Very good.

Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout truly is good. Creamy and soothing, nto at all like Guinness.

Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan. Worth visiting.

Diamond district, New York. Fascinating to window shop.

Patrick OBrien, THE WINE-DARK SEA, 1993. Good, as usual.

C.S. LEWIS. A GRIEF OBSERVED. Very good, reminding me somehow of Pascal. This is about his reactions to the death of his wife. 1963, 151 pp.

Eat-Drink-Man-Woman. Extremely good Taiwanese movie.

Richard Posner, Aging and Old Age.

Nigel BARLEY, Not a Hazardous Sport, 1988, 206 pp. A very good book about an anthropologist and some Celebesian natives, including the story of how he brought some woodcarvers to England for an exhibition. Very Funny.

FRAOCH HEATHER ALE. Delightful stuff. Bad label, tho. Malty and flowery.

SPRECHER, Black Bavarian beer. Very very good. Not a stout, really-- it may be a lager, even. The pure, srong, flavor is roasted barley. Not too thick.

The Miller Brewery tour.