Every year about this time many magazine and newspaper book reviewers take a break from their regular routine to pick their “best books of the year.” Thus here for your gift giving edification, are some of the UCP titles that appear on the lists for the 2007 season.
The Philadelphia Inquirer is running a list of recommended coffee table books for the holiday season that includes both Clarie Nouvian’s photo journey to the bottom of the sea, The Deep, and Marcia Lausen’s insightful critique of ballot design in Design for Democracy. The Inquirer praises both books for being “more nuanced coffee-table winners, for a variety of tastes.” —See our special site for The Deep.
Playboy magazine is also currently running a best of the year section in the January edition of the magazine. Playboy asked contributor and NYU professor of sociology Eric Klinenberg to name his picks for 2007. On his list was David Grazian’s new book On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife, a fascinating exposé of the various illusions that make up Philadelphia’s thriving nightlife scene.
In the December 14 Wall Street Journal “Holiday Book Guide,” under the subheading “Photography,” you can also find Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan’s new book, Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News. The Journal‘s Richard Woodward writes:

Most institutional archives contain historic photographs that the passage of time has turned into objects of wonder. Mark Jacobs and Richard Cahan have uncovered a bundle in Chicago Under Glass: Early Photographs From the Chicago Daily News. Images that began their lives as nothing more than photo-ops—an alderman wrestling a bear, men playing indoor baseball, or policemen standing on a street corner in 1926 next to a recent invention, the traffic light—are slowly acquiring a patina that will only make them more curious and hard to distinguish from art.

Last but not least the Financial Times named Pierre Laszlo’s Citrus: A History as one of the best food books for 2007. From the FT:

Today, a billion citrus trees produce 100 million tons of fruit annually. Their diversity is astonishing, with more than 1,500 species. Pierre Laszlo’s short, brilliant history summarises citrus’s global importance, including religion and the arts, and also contains some excellent recipes.

You can even check out some of those recipes right now if you like on the special site we’ve created for the book.
Also see the press’s own comprehensive list of books for the holiday season.