Afew weeks ago Paris was gearing up for Christmas.
A Nespresso boutique, next door to Bon Marche, one of the city's most chic department stores, was attracting queues that forced the rest of us into the gutter. Pressing my nose against the window like one of Zola's urchins, I couldn't fathom the frenzy inside. Were they flocking to view a new machine? Had fresh Christmas coffee flavours been put on sale, to tempt palates so refined - or jaded - they need constant stimulation?
In Lost Illusions, Balzac (a coffee addict of gargantuan proportions) writes that "those who do not know life in Paris to its depths [do not] suspect how continual enjoyment whets the appetite for novelty". It's not just Parisians, though. While the Nespresso fad seems to me a case of the emperor's clothes - it's only coffee, for goodness sake - sober Scottish friends who I'd otherwise consider resistant to hype clearly find great comfort and joy in these plastic baristas and their dinky pods.
It was with mixed feelings, therefore, that I eyed a large box delivered to my door the other day. The same size and weight as a coffee machine, would it, I wondered, convert me from my stove-top espresso maker into someone George Clooney might nod to in the street?
I'll never know. Inside, coddled in tissue paper, was a collection of Everyman's newest books. Like a nest of freshly laid eggs, and not costing a great deal more (less than £80 for seven exquisitely illustrated and produced hardbacks), it felt as if this really was Christmas. Caffeine was now the last thing on my mind, although each of these and those mentioned below deserves a coffee-table of its own.
Among the jewels I lifted out were AS Byatt's Possession, a collection of fishing stories from writers such as Jerome K Jerome, Hemingway and Annie Proulx, The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni - one of Italy's most famed novels - two new editions of early PG Wodehouse works, and a beautiful heirloom edition of the child's classic The Poppy Seed Cakes by Margery Clark.
Talking of heirlooms, two days later a slimmer parcel arrived, from the Folio Society. I am an incontinent collector of Folio books, recklessly buying titles I already own just because they are so attractively produced. I always promise I'll give away the now redundant copies, but I can never bear to part with them.
Fresh in the Folio stable is one of my favourite childhood books, George MacDonald's The Princess And The Goblin (£24.95), illustrated by Madalina Andronic who brings eastern European glamour to this haunting Scottish tale. Also new is an edition of Pride And Prejudice, whose delightful illustrations, by Anna and Elena Balbusso (£34.95), will please first-time readers and Austen devotees.
As is becoming evident, good publishers are meeting the challenge of e-books head-on by making their titles so desirable only those with no sense of style - or restricted luggage - would opt for digital. Christmas was always the time for buying lavish books. Increasingly, though, gorgeous books are being produced at plain prices. Take Birlinn's Glory And Honour, Andrea Thomas's fascinating history of the Renaissance in Scotland (£25), which is so generously illustrated it would fall into the luxury category but for the scholarship it displays. Likewise there's a monumental history of The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland, by Annette Carruthers (Yale, £60), which offers a feast for both eye and mind.
This Christmas, however, no book is better suited for putting on open show for all to enjoy than the new edition of John McEwen's Bellany (Mainstream, £40). First published in 1994, and updated to include the past two decades, including the artist's sad death this autumn, it is a fine tribute to an extraordinary talent. Bellany's ability was a gift of a calibre that Scotland rarely sees, and the array of works displayed in this glossy, informative, inspirational collection is breathtaking, as was the man himself.
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