Masha Hamilton's Holiday Gift Suggestion

Masha Hamilton is the second author from Unbridled Books with a holiday gift recommendation this weekend. Hamilton's second novel, The Distance Between Us, draws upon Hamilton's own career as a journalist covering political upheavals in the Middle East and Russia. "The aftermath of combat often leads to the most profound moments in people’s lives," she writes on her website, but "those who have spent long months in war zones may find themselves reluctant to invest too fully in other arenas as well, shy about emotional involvement, stingy with their feeling." She explores this dilemma in what Gayle Brandeis calls a "powerful, intense, beautifully written story [that] takes us right into the brutal heart of the war zone."

Vril-Ya Country, which you can reach by traversing a mine that lies beneath Newcastle, England and whose people heal with a touch of their lips. Erewhon, in Australia, where children are trained to think hypothetically and taught that life guided by reason alone is intolerable. Bingfield’s Island in the East Indies, home of the famous dog-bird, a large shaggy-haired bird with the tail of a pig. The Devil’s Teeth, a chain of five mountains in northeast Greenland reached by a mile-long natural basalt bridge. Xujan Kingdom, a walled city in Africa inhabited by a tribe of madmen who revere parrots. If the real world is getting someone you know down this holiday, try The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, compiled by Alberto Manguel with deadpan humor--a geographical glossary taken from the realm of writings by hundreds of authors ranging from Homer to Evelyn Waugh.

D.A. Photography