Homegrown reads: 5 gift ideas for New Brunswick book lovers

'Tis the season to be jolly and to pound the pavement during frustrating quests for perfect holidays gifts. With a world of choices, it can be easy to overlook products made right here in New Brunswick.
 

Carolyn Guy, executive director of Atlantic Books Today magazine said if you're looking for a good local gift for the book-lover in your life, it can be hard to choose.

1. All the Things We Leave Behind by Riel Nason [Goose Lane Editions]

"It's one I read back in the summer just as it came out. It is sticking with me... It's a story that is set in the 1970s near Kings Landing and when it opens, we know that the young girl is waiting to get news from her parents because they're out looking for her missing brother. The story is told through a series of flashbacks, and there's lots of surprises, but it's just the way the story is revealed, bit-by-bit, just completely charmed me. I loved it."
 

2. Shadow of Doubt: The Trial of Dennis Oland by Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon [Goose Lane Editions]

3. Truth & Honour: The Death of Richard Oland and the Trial of Dennis Oland by Greg Marquis [Nimbus Publishing]

"I think both books — read them back to back and you can be the judge, because they both take a slightly different view of the whole trial. I think the Oland trial certainly ... brought out the voyeur in us, I think. Everyone who I've talked to about the trial just got a different perspective. A great way to start a family debate Christmas Eve, maybe, or Christmas morning."

"Lucy Jarvis, she's actually the founder of the New Brunswick Arts Centre, but she's an artist not a lot of people know about. She's a contemporary of Emily Carr, so she was doing a lot of her painting in the '30s and '40s. Some of her artwork looks a bit like Carr's, but others are very different. The artwork is stunning and it's always nice to learn about an artist that you don't know a lot about ... There is a brief  biography of her life, and her paintings and illustrations are absolutely amazing. It's one of those books [where] part of you wants to take an X-Acto knife and cut it out and frame it, the other part does the, 'No, no, then I'd ruin the one on the flip side!' It's for the art-lover in your life, that's for sure."

5. The East Coast Way of Life by Meghan Bangay [Formac Publishing Company Ltd.] 

"Adult colouring books, they're huge. And this has all kinds of images. So, there's a bag of Covered Bridge chips, there's the Hartland Bridge, there's the [flower pot rocks at Hopewell Rocks], beach scenes, St. Andrew's ... and you can make it look exactly how it looks or exactly how you think it should look ... Colouring books are always fun to curl up with with family and friends ... if your family is still traumatized after the discussion about the Olands, this can mend some bridges."