1 The 007 Diaries – Filming Live and Let Die
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the release of the iconic James Bond film Live and Let Die, The History Press, in collaboration with Rooksmoor Press, has published a fine press edition of The 007 Diaries by none other than Roger Moore. Originally published in the 1970s, the book draws humorously on Moore’s experiences as James Bond. Beautifully bound by Blissetts, the book is printed on 120gsm Heritage Bookwhite mould-made paper and finished in Colorado Jordan cloth. It features stunning two-colour foiling, also the handiwork of Blissetts “after some real experimentation and trialing of different techniques and formatting to get this absolutely perfect. As always, our team were neither shaken nor stirred by the task”.
What does it cost? £350
Where can I find it? mailchi.mp/thehistorypress/007-diaries
2 Mid-Century Type – Typography, Graphics, Designers
Mid-Century Type is a fascinating visual exploration of how, in the middle decades of the last century, the typographer became an independent, influential contributor to a fast-developing technological world of communications. The book charts this meteoric rise of the typographer during the early post-war decades. Each chapter is devoted to a particular design activity in which typography played a significant role, from type design and corporate identity to advertising and film and television. Author David Jury’s text offers fresh insight into the groundbreaking work of an array of European and US typographers, and is accompanied by over 500 illustrations.
What does it cost? £40
Where can I find it? merrellpublishers.com
3 Depressing Xmas Trees Christmas cards
If you haven’t sent your Christmas cards yet, firstly: you probably ought to get a move on. Secondly: why not really get into the spirit of the season and send your friends (or enemies) these cards depicting decrepit, battered and bent trees in a variety of deeply insalubrious locales? Photographer and “human disaster area” Patrick Dalton shot these abandoned Christmas trees “callously discarded on the streets of London”. They are printed in the UK and available in packs of four. Dalton suggests they are suitable for “a despised work colleague, your racist uncle/aunt or even your local MP”. If you have sent your cards, well, you could get ahead of the game and buy them for next year.
What do they cost? £6
Where can I find them? Patrickdalton.co.uk
4 Gail Myerscough turntable slipmat
If you know a really cool person who enjoys their music replete with pops, crackles and the occasional needle scratch noise, why not give them an epically fab slipmat for their turntable from designer Gail Myerscough? Suitable for both ’33s and ’45s – and probably for your old ’78s, grandad – it is available in a range of designs. These are “professional grade slipmats” (amateur DJs, take care), made in the UK from medium density felt. They are glazed on the printed side giving them some extra slip and rigidity while remaining smooth.
What do they cost? £15
Where can I find them? gailmyerscough.co.uk
5 Terrible Maps: The stupidly funny illustrated gift book perfect for geography lovers
Terrible Maps is a sort of cartographic car crash – a very funny and silly selection of jokes and useless infographics in map form. If you have ever wondered which countries in Europe have outlawed knock-down ginger or the most popular takeaway foods across Europe, this book will tell you. What’s the opposite of Indonesia? Outdonesia, of course. The map of Saudi Arabia’s rivers does not require a lot of ink, unsurprisingly. Can you use the state of Oklahoma to express approval or disapproval? Of course you can!
Author Michael Howe says: “After posting interesting, sensible, factual maps on social media for a few years as Amazing Maps it became clear that humans inherently like to whine because every comment section was full of complaints, arguments and general negative feedback. I was struck with an idea. Why not post maps that aren’t meant to be good, that defy rational criticism, that transcend the boundaries of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? Terrible Maps was born.”
What does it cost? £12.99 (hardcover)
Where can I find it? Waterstones.com
6 The Dictionary People
Q: What do three murderers, Karl Marx’s daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common?
A: They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.
Asked to think about the creation of the Dictionary, Robbie Coltrane’s depiction of Dr Johnson in Ink and Incapability from Blackadder the Third, is what immediately springs to mind – don’t judge me. And while we might think the process of putting it together was the work of dusty, learned Victorian types, the truth is its editors used a huge variety of sources for their definitions. The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary (A-B) was published in 1888, but the rest wasn’t completed until 1928. At that point it comprised 414,825 entries crowdsourced from contributors including archaeologists, astronomers, pornographers, ‘mad men’, naturists and novelists. The author of The Dictionary People, lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie, traces the lives of thousands of contributors who defined the English language, from the eccentric autodidacts to the family groups who made word-collection their passion.
What does it cost? £22
Where can I find it? penguin.co.uk
7 The Plot
Oh dear. Well, here we are. This is Nadine ‘Mad Nad’ Dorries’ account of the downfall of the prime minister Boris Johnson, the “saviour of the Conservative Party”. The blurb describes the book as “the story of a damning trail of treachery and deceit fuelled by an obsessive pursuit of power, which threatens to topple the very fabric of our democracy”. Its premise is that there are sinister “powerful forces operating behind the scenes in the heart of Westminster” who engineered Johnson’s political demise. It’s probably a must-read simply in terms of Dorries’ access to sources, but claims that there is a clandestine cabal functioning at the core of the Tory party who call themselves ‘The Movement’ should probably be taken with pinch of salt.
What does it cost? £19.99
Where can I find it? Amazon.co.uk
8 Say Cheese
If you are looking for something printed that’s really cheesy, then this is literally the only thing: printed cheese. Yes, those cheese geeks over at The Cheese Geek have come up with something that the “world has been crying out for” – personalised cheese. Yes, Say Cheese can print your image or message of choice on the top of a 180g-round of Waterloo, a semi-soft cheese made from unpasteurised Guernsey cow’s milk. The process uses “a very clever machine” (a printer, Printweek guesses) and malt extract. All cheese products are delivered in climate-controlled packaging, although the company recommends eating within a week for optimum freshness.
What does it cost? £15
Where can I find it? thecheesegeek.com
9 The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet
In its day, print was as disruptive as the internet is proving in the 21st century. For five centuries it fostered what some call print culture – a worldview shaped by the completeness, permanence and authority of the printed word. Author Jeff Jarvis holds the Leonard Tow Chair in Journalism Innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York. In The Gutenberg Parenthesis, he traces the epoch of print from its fateful beginnings to our digital present – and draws out lessons for the age to come.
What does it cost? £14
Where can I find it? bloomsbury.com
10 Air Swimmer remote-control inflatable flying shark
Come on. It’s a remote-controlled inflatable flying shark – why wouldn’t you want to gift this? It’s got print on it and everything – it’s totally legit. It’s also available as a cute, goofy clownfish, but clearly that’s not going to be as cool as a flying shark! You’ll need to find a supplier of helium, which the vendor says is available from gift shops and florists (florists? Really?). Probably best not to use hydrogen unless you’re looking to recreate the Hindenburg disaster in miniature – with a shark.
What does it cost? £36.99
Where can I find it? Bozyno.com
11 The CMY Cubes – the Original Cube
The CMY Cube offers the opportunity for printers to approach colour mixing from a fresh perspective. The opposing faces of the cube are coloured cyan, magenta or yellow. Rotating the angle from which the cube is viewed, varies the degree to which specific frequencies of cyan, magenta, and yellow are filtered from white light, resulting in a unique, cube-specific spectrum of colours.
It is quite clever. The company explains that the internal geometry of the solid shape has an intermediate level of reflectance over the visible light spectrum. This means that when white light reaches a face of the cube, a portion of that light passes through the face, while the remaining light is either reflected or absorbed. Light reflecting off the outside faces of the cube is what gives us the cyan, magenta, and yellow colours of the spectrum while the material coating each face absorbs the other frequencies. The light that passes through the material retains only the band of frequencies not otherwise absorbed.
When this passed-through light makes contact with a different face pair, the process repeats, this time the material absorbs a different band of frequencies. The light that remains is a unique colour, specific to the conditions that created it. Starting with pure white light, the cube can create dozens of unique colours.
What does it cost? £20
Where can I find it? uk.cmycubes.com
12 Artropad
Artropad is a Hong Kong-based company that has created a range of products that seek to combine the utility of a piece of stationery with creative paper sculpture. Its note pads, memo pads and calendars have been cunningly perforated so that removing the leaves reveals a beautiful 3D landscape or object. Subjects include the Amalfi coast, a grand piano and a Sakura tree. Some of the models have integral lights that add to the visual effect once the pages are removed.
What does it cost? From around £33
Where can I find it? artropad.com
13 The Colors of Life
Stuart Humphreys is a digital artist who specialises in colourising and enhancing early photographic works, although he is best known for his colourisation work on early Doctor Who films, including The Mind of Evil and Terror of the Zygons. Known online as BabelColour, he has here collaborated on The Colors of Life with publisher Gestalten, enhancing more than 200 photographs capturing people from various backgrounds and their everyday lives, at leisure and at work. With the use of cutting edge enhancements, these early colour photographs and their stories come to life in a way they previously never could. The 256-page, hardcover book is a “captivating journey into the past, using the technology of the present to allow readers to see and experience history in a new and vibrant light.” See our technology feature for a detailed look at the book and processes used.
How much does it cost? £45
Where can I find it? uk.gestalten.com/
14 Roll Ranger
If you know someone who struggle to the find the end of the Sellotape, and I think we all know how annoying that can be, then Roll Ranger may be the ideal gift. The device was developed by Optics for Hire, a US- and Ukraine-based engineering consultant and is intended to help you quickly and easily find the edge of tape. It features a bright red light that glows when the edge of the tape is found, making it easy to see where to begin lifting the tape.
What does it cost? $12.99
Where can I find it? rollranger.store
