Dear Readers,

Are you still dithering over a Christmas gift for family and friends?

I understand, and believe me, nothing would give me more pleasure than to be able to write a fat check and put a big red bow on a new BMW, a diamond studded watch, or maybe a yacht from Tim Hodgdon's East Boothbay toy store for grown ups.

But that is not going to happen. So, being a word guy, I always recommend buying books as presents.

I mean real books, not the e-book versions. I love real books you can hold in your hand. Books that don't need a battery or a charging station or an Internet connection that might expose you to someone in a far off land who will collect your data and try to sell you something, or worse. I especially love books that use words to unlock my imagination and give me the sense of another place.

Here are a few books that I liked. You might like them too.

In no particular order, I will start with Richard Ford's new work, “Let Me Be Frank With You.” It is the latest, and possibly the final book on his Frank Bascomb saga. I love the way he uses words and sentences. Unlike other “serious and important” writers, who seem to want to impress the reader, his works are a joy to read and offer real insights into the character of Bascomb and friends.

Ford is acknowledged to be one of America's finest writers and, best of all, he spends much of his time on the shore of Linekin Bay in East Boothbay.

If you like the Maine woods and mystery stories, you might try a series of novels by Paul Doiron, a former top editor at Down East magazine.

Doiron has penned five mystery novels featuring a game warden named Mike Bowditch whose adventures are more than just routine “whodunits.” Playing on major news events, Doiron uses Bowditch to explore the forest and the forest's culture, like the conflict spanned by a proposed national Northwoods park or the intense quest to free a celebrated murderer.

Along the way he lampoons bureaucrats, shows how living on the edge of poverty can color the lives of those who choose to live in the woods, and explains conflicts between the locals and well heeled and well intentioned folks from away. All are page turners.

Doiron's Bowditch novels are titled “The Poacher's Son,” “The Bone Orchard,” “Bad Little Falls,” “Massacre Pond” and “Trespasser.”

If you were ever fascinated by France, and I mean rural France, not the glitz and glitter of Paris, Martin Walker has written a charming series of mystery novels set in the countryside called the Dordogne. His hero is Bruno Courreges, the chief of police of a tiny fictional town called St. Denis.

In a town not much larger than Boothbay, Walker's hero is a cook, a wine maker, a hunter (game, truffles and mushrooms), a coach, the mediator of disputes and the chief protector of locals from the prying eye of the national bureaucrats. Along the way he explores ancient caves, regional prejudices and wounds stemming from the German occupation during World War II. And he solves crimes, too.

The books in the Bruno series are: “Bruno, Chief of Police,” “The Dark Vineyard,” “Black Diamond,” “The Crowded Grave,” “The Devil's Cave,” “The Resistance Man” and “Children of War.”

I love history, and Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the muckrakers, “The Bully Pulpit,” is a gem. We know a lot about Teddy, but little of Taft, who turns out to be more than just another overweight political figure.

Finally, Daniel James Brown wrote a fascinating tale of the American rowing crew that won the 1936 Olympics called “The Boys in the Boat.” It is an inspiring tale of nine working class college guys from Washington state who won the gold medal, defeating the world's top rowers and efforts of the Nazis who stage managed the entire event for Leni Riefenstahl's cameras. After you read the book, you can see them in action in her movie, “Olympia.”

All are good reads. Best of all, they are easy to wrap.

Good reading to all.