Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, and More Books to Gift

I do love a honeyed biscuit, and these look ridiculous. Listen, these may even replace rolls for tomorrow…

You’ll need:

all-purpose flour, unsalted butter, frozen and grated, baking powder, salt, honey, very cold buttermilk, Honey butter, butter, and honey.

For exact ingredient amounts and instructions, go to homeandbelly’s IG page.

I’m sure you’ve heard about this one in the last month. It’s definitely one of the memoirs to get this year, if you get any of them at all. Or, maybe I should say it’s the audiobook to listen to — if you haven’t heard, Britney Spears recorded most of the audiobook, with Michelle Williams stepping in to do parts that were too traumatic for Britney. And let me tell you, William’s impersonation of JT will have you gagging. If I were him, I’d leave the country.

As far as the contents of the memoir go, it covers about what you would expect: Britney Spears’ life of fame, motherhood, relationships, and more. I grew up listening to Britney and remember trying to learn the choreography of her music videos with my older sister in the early aughts. After her conservatorship, I’m glad to see her have a win.

Now I know a collection of poetry as a gift is not for everyone — even some readers — because a lot of people are still not used to reading it regularly. But even if someone has just an inkling of interest in poetry, I think this National Book Award finalist would make a great gift. Olivarez explores the many forms of love — from romantic to familial and platonic — and how aspects of society complicate it. Even as he examines race, identity, and culture, he still goes back to love, and poet David Ruano provides a Spanish translation to accompany Olivarez’s poems.

Another celebrity memoir! I don’t read many memoirs throughout the year, but I feel like they make great gifts if you’re looking for bookish things. I’ve noticed that whenever my non-reader friends ask about books, they usually are more interested in memoirs, so maybe that’s why. In any case, Sir Patrick Stewart’s story starts in Yorkshire, England, and continues to the top of Hollywood — where he starred as Captain Picard in Startrek and Professor Xavier in X-Men — and a knighthood in 2010.

Here’s a fun holiday romance that takes place when Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Christmas overlap. It follows Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson, strangers sitting next to each other on a plane. Maryam is on her way to her sister’s wedding, and Anna to her boyfriend’s wealthy family’s place for the holidays. When the plane experiences severe turbulence, it shakes the women (ha) into confessing some of the things they’ve been holding close to them. An emergency landing leaves them snowed in in the picturesque town of Snow Falls, where the actor Anna has a crush on just so happens to be filming a romance movie. Now, if the two women could just realize what’s in front of them…

Books about books just hit different in winter, I think. Here, 25-year-old Takako finds out her boyfriend is marrying someone else and takes up her eccentric uncle’s offer to stay in a small room above the used Tokyo bookstore that’s been in their family for generations. Takako has never been much of a reader, but the books of Morisaki bookshop turn out to be excellent tools for mending broken hearts.

I love a good, cozy mystery series during the winter, and this is the third book in the food-centric cozy series Caribbean Kitchen (you don’t need to have read the first). Here, Miriam keeps getting called away — first to her parents’ in the Dominican Republic, where she investigates a possible property vandal, then to Puerto Rico to film a special for Three Kings Day. Two of her friends keep her company in Puerto Rico, but there are mysteries surrounding their boyfriends — one is a telenovela heartthrob who goes missing, and the other is an image of perfection…with a suspiciously large duffle bag of cash. Through pages of delicious food descriptions and African drumming, Miriam will sleuth her way to tying everything together.