Today Show Features Independent Bookseller Recommendations

On Friday morning, December 21, NBC's Today Show featured a segment highlighting holiday gift recommendations from four independent booksellers: Marva Allen of Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe in New York City; Jamil Zaidi of Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle; Roberta Rubin of The Book Stall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Illinois; and Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut. Booksellers presented general interest, coffee-table books, cookbooks, and children's categories. Picks included The Pirate's Daughter (Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Unbridled); 30,000 Years of Art (Phaidon Eds., Phaidon); The Art of Simple Food (Alice Waters, Random House); and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie, Little, Brown Young Readers).

Today Show host Meredith Vieira introduced Allen, Zaidi, Rubin, and Coady as "some of the top booksellers from across the country." The segment was part of a daily "Countdown to Christmas." Each bookseller stood at a small table, where they displayed the four titles they were recommending as great last-minute gift ideas. Vieira introduced them one-by-one. Each bookseller mentioned their bookstore's name and location and presented one category.

Allen covered general interest books, listing The Pirate's Daughter; Blonde Faith (Walter Mosley, Little, Brown); Alek (Alek Wek, Amistad); and Come on People (Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint, Thomas Nelson). She noted that Blonde Faith was Mosley's last in the series, and that President Bill Clinton wasn't going to be happy about that.

Next was Coady, who chose kids' books. She recommended The Absolutely True Diary, which she said was perfect for 13-,14-, and 15- year-olds, as well as adults; Cool Stuff 2.0 (Jon Woodcock and Chris Woodford, DK Children), was also interesting for adults, she said; Violet Bing and the Grand House (Jennifer Paros, Viking Juvenile), for 6- to 8- year-olds; and Here's a Little Poem (Jane Yolen, Andrew Fusek Peters, and Polly Dunbar, Candlewick). Both Coady and Vieira agreed that one of the first books for any child should be a poetry book.

Jamil recommended the coffee-table books 30,000 Years of Art; The Deep (Claire Nouvian, University Of Chicago), which he said would appeal to any nature lover; Enclosure (Andy Goldsworthy, Abrams); and Cartographia (Vincent Virga and Library of Congress, Little, Brown) for history and geography lovers.

Roberta chose the cookbooks The Art of the Simple Food; No Reservations (Anthony Bourdain, Bloomsbury USA); Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook (Bobby Flay, Clarkson Potter); and Fandango (Sandy Hill and Stephanie Valentine, Artisan).

At the end of the segment, Vieira recommended visiting the Today Show website for additional picks from each bookseller.