SOUL FOOD:Give the gift of books for the holidays

In the rush for gifts this holiday season, I’m sure a high-tech gadget like PlayStation 3 wins out over the humble book. I haven’t heard reports of anyone camping out for days to get their hands on a first edition of even the hottest of titles.

Nevertheless, a good book will have a longer shelf life than the most coveted electronic device. And given the near empires Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Borders have built in no small part upon books, surely a book or two is on the holiday wish list of someone you know.

So, here are a few volumes that have come my way. Some are gems; others are worthwhile, at least, for a moment’s pleasure.

Which are treasures and which ephemera? That may be in the eye of the reader, so I’ll let you decide. They’re all available from the booksellers mentioned above.

One of the most memorable books I received as a gift as a child was on the paper-folding art of origami. I don’t recall who gave me the book. It could have been my father — much of my childhood was spent in Japan, where origami originated, while he was in the Marines.

What I do remember are the exquisite origami papers and the directions that taught me how to create magical objects with them. The book captivated me for many months, long after the Christmas I received it.

Memories of paper cranes and lanterns and ships came back when I happened upon “Jewish Holiday Origami,” by Joel Stern and “Jewish Origami 1” and “Jewish Origami 2,” by Florence Temko. Any or all of these books would make enchanting Hanukkah gifts — not necessarily only for children.

Stern’s book provides instructions for 24 projects (rated for degree of difficulty from beginner to intermediate to advanced) and related to Jewish holy days — including Sabbath, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover and Shavuot — for which it also gives succinct explanations. At $5.95 it’s a bargain, even though you have to supply your own paper.

Temko’s books have full-color illustrations with each project’s step-by-step instructions and come with paper, though with fewer projects each. Once created, the origami menorahs, Torahs, frogs, goats, pyramids, human figures, a parting Red Sea and more make splendid props for telling holiday stories.

On the heels of Hanukkah comes Christmas, among whose Christian celebrators might find David Gregory’s “Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering” a fitting gift.

Who could get an invitation, typeset on beige Crane stationery, that reads, “You are invited to dinner with Jesus of Nazareth, Milano’s Restaurant, Tuesday, March 24, Eight o’clock” and not go?

Not me. Not Nick Cominsky, the story’s workaholic business executive who gets the invitation, either.

The book itself is an invitation, an invitation to cynics to consider there really is a God, the Bible is true, and Jesus is who it says he is. The dinner conversation is a device.

Over dinner, Nick asks the familiar “if there is a God and if the Bible is true and if you [Jesus] are who you say you are, then why” questions doubters are given to ask. It’s the book’s Jesus, of course, who answers them.

Who can argue with Jesus? Again, not Nick. Though he does tell Jesus he doesn’t find one of his answers “entirely satisfying.” To which Jesus replies, “I know. That’s okay.”

On the deeper end of the pool is “On the Way to Jesus,” by Joseph Ratzinger (now better known as Pope Benedict XVI). The publisher, Ignatius Press, contends that too often the “popular” Jesus we meet in books and films and even news stories is not the true Jesus of the Gospels.

The popular Jesus, says the book’s front cover flap, “makes no demands” and “accepts everyone and everything under all circumstances.”

“On the Way to Jesus,” whether or not Benedict XVI intended it to be, serves as the publisher’s rebuttal to the persona of the popular Jesus. It’s a scholarly work by the former Roman Catholic Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith who is now Pope. Its essays are footnoted, serious and all the same poetic and very readable.

Ignatius intended the book “for anyone — believer or unbeliever — who wants better to understand the true Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, the Christ of Christianity.”

For the Advent season that precedes Christmas, Catherine Mandell’s “When You Fast … Recipes for the Lenten Seasons,” is a great cookbook to have on hand. Mandell is the innkeeper of a central Pennsylvania bed and breakfast, as well as a baker and cake decorator.

Her book was written for Eastern Orthodox Christians, but any Christian who practices fasting — whether during Easter’s Lenten season or Advent’s — will find the recipes helpful and almost too scrumptious. And one doesn’t have to practice fasting at all to enjoy the dishes found in this collection.

Among my favorites are Mandell’s lima bean soup, her baked potato pancakes, her zucchini and carrot orzo and her vinegar (yes, vinegar) cookies. There are 242 pages of recipes in all, as well as tips for stocking a Lenten pantry, dairy-free recipes, sayings from Scripture and the Church Fathers and Mothers and guidelines for fasting in accordance with the Orthodox tradition.

For anyone who might be curious about often overlooked Orthodox Christian Church, whose numbers are growing in the United States, “The Orthodox Church New Edition,” by Timothy Ware (a.k.a. Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia), is a very fine introduction.

It is so thorough it is just as appropriate for any Orthodox Christian seeking to know more about the church. Once an Anglican Protestant, Ware became Orthodox at the age of 24.

During a season that celebrates miracles, whether Hanukkah or Christmas, what could be better than a book called “No Small Miracles: Heartwarming, Humorous & Hope-filled Stories from a Pediatric Chaplain.” The chaplain is Norris Burkes, and this time, I have to include something of a disclaimer: Norris is a friend.

I’ve had the satisfaction of hearing some of his very moving — and sometimes very funny — stories firsthand. The only thing better than reading this book would be to have Norris tell these stories in his own warm and remarkably captivating voice, a voice that does find its way into the pages of this book.

So if you could use a bit of hope and humor as this year ends and a fresh one begins, you might just find them between the covers of this collection of tender short essays.