Present company

Fiction

SOME of the book world's biggest hitters have new novels out for Christmas. For those who need a thrill to keep them from dozing their way through Boxing Day, the prolific James Patterson's latest, Four Blind Mice (Headline, £16.99), is ideal. Washington cop Alex Cross is persuaded to put his future on hold to track down a triple killer.

In Prey (£17.99, HarperCollins) Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park fame, again fuses science with fiction to create another page-turner. This time, the danger is not from dinosaurs but from microscopic particles.

For those who require a more human-sized read, plenty of family sagas are available. Tony Parsons has hit a rich seam of sales with his angst-ridden yarns of male midlife crisis, and the latest, Man And Wife (HarperCollins, £16.99), is the sequel to smash hit Man And Boy.

Zadie Smith also has a follow-up to her debut smash White Teeth. As The Autograph Man (Hamish Hamilton, £16.99) hunts for stars' signatures, he tells us more about the nature of modern celebrity.

Marian Keyes has resurrected the dysfunctional Walsh family for her fifth novel, Angels (Michael Joseph, £16.99). Maggie heads for Los Angeles after her marriage breaks up.

And Terry Practchett's renowned imagination shows no signs of flagging in his 27th Discworld novel, Night Watch, the perfect gift for any fantasy fan.

Memoirs

Now we know. Ulrika Johnsson was raped by a television presenter. Edwina Currie untucked John Major's shirt from his underpants. And Roy Keane is not the mild-mannered boy scout we all believed.

We have all read the headlines, but does someone you know want more? Then get them Honest by Ulrika (Sidgwick & Jackson, £16.99), Diaries by Edwina (Time Warner, £18.99) or Keane: the Autobiography (Michael Joseph, £17.99).

A more uplifting story of sporting triumph can be found in Ellen Macarthur's Taking On The World (Michael Joseph, £17.99). The remarkable Macarthur describes how she became the fastest yachtswoman to circumnavigate the world.

But do me a favour, and don't buy Jeffery Archer's prison diaries. If we ignore him, he might go away.

Two very different broadcasters have just told their story in print. The wonderful David Atteborough recalls 50 years in television in Life On Air (BBC, £18.99). And motormouth Murray Walker, at Borders in York tomorrow, looks back on great Grand Prix moments and even greater gaffes in Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken (HarperCollins, £18.99).

For mucky, but not sordid, revelations, the life story of gardener and novelist Alan Titchmarsh, Trowel and Error (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99), might be blooming popular.

Lifestyle

If you've still got room on your kitchen shelves, another batch of freshly baked cookbooks has arrived.

Choose your celebrity chef carefully. Jamie Oliver (Jamie's Kitchen, Michael Joseph, £25) throws together some tasty and do-able recipes, perfect for someone who likes to have a few mates round for a scoff.

But for the fussy type who wants to present his dinner party guests with restaurant-standard meals, you need Gary Rhodes (Gary Rhodes Cookery Year: Autumn into Winter BBC, £18.99).

You don't have to be on TV to know your grub, of course. Martha Rose Shulman is an internationally renowned cookery teacher, and her latest book, The World On Your Plate (Carroll & Brown, £25) gives a flavour of the globe.

This very well-informed book includes notes on dining customs and etiquette, a guide to local ingredients and updated recipes for the world's best dishes, illustrated by stunning location photographs.

So. You've sorted their taste in food, what about their taste in clothes? For some time telly fashion dominatrixes Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine have been forcing women to ditch their dowdy wardrobe in exchange for something more flattering. Now they are doing it in print. What Not To Wear (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, £12.99) is a guide to making the most of every female figure. Give with tact.

History

It's hard to escape those TV books, isn't it? The book to accompany Simon Schama's series, A History Of Britain III: the Fate Of Empire 1776-2000 (BBC, £25), is a big bestseller. It brings the story of our isles to a stirring close.

The rosiest days of our empire are the subject of The Victorians (Hutchinson, £25), AN Wilson's lively, even gossipy, account.

Meanwhile, Antony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall (Viking, £25) brings home the horror of the Nazis' disintegration by humanising it. A remarkable achievement.

Reference

My first recommendation is not a book at all, at least not in the traditional form. Anyone who loves words will be your best friend for ever if you give them The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press) on CD Rom.

The computerised version of the world's best lexicon is a fantastic reference work. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

The CD Rom has an advanced search feature so you can track down any of the 500,000 entries with little trouble and in all manner of ways. Once you've mastered the phonetics, it even allows you to use it as a rhyming dictionary. But all this doesn't come cheap: the price is £250.

For those on a more reasonable budget, the same publisher has recently published The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (edited by Elizabeth Knowles, £18.99). Among the wits included in this moreish 5,000-entry work are Desmond Tutu, Eddie Izzard and William Shatner.

Fauna Britannica: the Practical Guide to Wild and Domestic Creatures of Britain by Duff Hart-Davis (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £30) does exactly what it says on the cover. And it does it stylishly, accompanied by lavish colour photography.

For those of a scientific bent, try Cassell's Laws Of Nature by James Trefil (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25). It is an A-Z of the laws and principles which govern our universe.

Humour

After all that serious reading, we need a laugh. So why not smile and shudder all over again to the machinations of the pitiable David Brent in The Office: The Scripts (BBC, £9.99).

Alternatively, enjoy the genius of the man who changed humour. Tragically I Was An Only Twin: The Comedy Of Peter Cook (Century, £17.99) should have the most po-faced grub laughing like a moron. Cracking.

Updated: 10:23 Wednesday, December 04, 2002