Guess how many I've bought!

Since we’re a mere five weeks from Christmas, I know you're all starting to think about what to buy your loved ones. I thought I’d throw out a few ideas you may not have thought of:

1) Do you know someone who’s tried to enjoy the writings of Borges, but who wished there were a way to both read his works AND understand what the hell he’s talking about? Or have you ever someone say, “I wonder what Borges thought about King Kong?” Then perhaps you should consider Borges: Selected Non-fictions. He writes “like a subequatorial Camus, with a dash of Siskel and Ebert on the side.” Why, just take a peek at the first paragraph from his essay, “The Nothingness of Personality”:

I want to tear down the exceptional preeminence now generally awarded to the self, and I pledge to be spurred on by concrete certainty, and not the caprice of an ideological ambush or a dazzling intellectual prank. I propose to prove that personality is a mirage maintained by conceit and custom, without metaphysical foundation or visceral reality. I want to apply to literature the consequences that issue from these premises, and erect upon them an aesthetic hostile to the psychologism inherited from the last century, sympathetic to the classics, yet encouraging to today’s most unruly tendencies.

Now, who wouldn’t like to curl up with 520 pages of that on a snowy evening?!? *

2) Putting books online is so 2007. Prove you're up on the latest trends by giving someone a book based on a website! Finally, a way have a bit of the internet wherever you go!

3) If you've got some money to spare, and want to throw this fact in other people's faces, this book should be first on your list. Please think to include a stand for displaying it.

4) In the new economy, we may need to stock up on goods for a new career:

4a) This will be useful for many trips to the store or bank

4b) Great vehicle if you must leave your safehouse after the rioting starts

4c) Not all of us may be able to afford hot water. These figures may underestimate demand, so there's an opening in the market!

5) Finally, if you know someone who's always secretly wanted hot-pink hair, but who doesn't have the guts to walk around with it, here's a solution!

* If you are unfamiliar with the prose of J.L. Borges (and even if you're not!), check out one of my most favorite pieces on McSweeney's.