The Read Max Holiday Gift Guide

This holiday, give your loved ones Read Max (and other stuff)

Greetings from Read Max HQ! Most Sundays Read Max is dedicated our weekly roundup column, in which I pick out some worthwhile and often overlooked books, articles, movies, and music to recommend to paying subscribers.

We’re going to do something slightly different this week, and only partly because I didn’t really watch any good movies or read anything that great this week: A holiday gift guide! What follows is a short catalog of things I want and things I own that I think would make good gifts.

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Read Max gift subscription

The most obvious gift in the world--and yet many people didn’t even know it was possible to “give” a subscription to the Substack best-selling newsletter “Read Max” ?? Simply click the button below, and print the above image out for the gift card!

Read Max Email Supply dad cap

This attractive Read Max cap--an exact replica of the uniform cap worn by Read Max Email Supply Field Specialists--is currently on sale for the frankly criminal price of $17, giving Read Max fans or their loved ones literally no excuse for not purchasing one this holiday season.

Birchwood Palace and KFAX Zines

Andy Sturdevant’s excellent Birchwood Palace Industries, a publisher dedicated to great and strange American and global design and communications ephemera, has an incredible selection of zines available for sale at its website that make for ideal presents for just about anyone. Read Max subscribers will likely enjoy, in particular, The Outer Periphery: A Visual Catalog of Amateur Spacecraft Designs from the U.S. Patent Office, from which the above image is taken; Sealand: A Visual Catalog of International Shipping Container Logos, 1965-2020, which features a lovely short essay about neoliberalism and shipping containers from journalist Joeridge Chua; and Videoland: A Visual Catalog of American Video Store Logos, 1980-1995.

In the same vein we are also huge fans of KFAX, the in-house zine imprint of the house-music label Klasse Wrecks, which specializes in collections of logos and other vernacular design from small and semi-forgotten scenes and subcultures, among them the early UFOlogy scene (from which the above image is taken), the early computer software scene, and early skateboard company logos. (If the zine you want is marked as “sold out” on the main KFAX site, check the Bandcamp.)

Liberty Graphics Tyrannosaurus Rex t-shirt

The only good fashion company in the United States is Liberty Graphics, a Maine-based screen printer owned as a co-operative by its employees. Liberty used to sell wholesale to The Nature Company, and in general it specializes in [photo of The Rainforest Cafe with caption RETVRN or Look what they took from you] type shirts printed with beautiful illustrations of plants, animals, or celestial bodies. (As well as lots of illustrations of canoes, kayaks, snowshoes, and outdoor-recreation images.) I am particularly partial to a recent set of reprints of four extremely groovy 1985 designs of dinosaurs, including this stunning red-and-gold Tyrannosaurus Rex tee. Follow the Instagram for good archival designs, too.

Casamara Club “botanical sodas

Is it weird to give someone a case of “botanical sodas” for Christmas?? Probably, yes, but these are very good--essentially slightly bittersweet seltzers that taste like a better and more flavorful version of soda-and-bitters you’d get at a bar--and you may know a 30something-and-up who would find it really nice to have some cold bottles of something refreshing and bitter in the fridge that won’t give them a headache the next morning if they drink more than 1.5. Personally I prefer these to even the good non-alcoholic beers, and they also make good mixers, if you can still handle your alcohol. They’re maybe a bit pricey to keep yourself regularly stocked, but that just means they’re in the perfect gift price zone.

The Penguin Atlas series by Colin McEvedy

My friend Mike put me on this excellent series of historical atlases, written by a professional psychiatrist and semi-professional historian named Colin McEvedy starting in the 1960s and published by Penguin, mostly as the attractive wide paperbacks you see above. The format is pretty simple: A map showing population centers, trade routes, borders, or some other historical trivia, and on the facing page a short explanatory text, written in McEvedy’s witty and dated (and often condescendingly Anglocentric) prose. (The datedness and Anglocentrism is, to my mind, part of the charm: I would not read these for up-to-date accuracy.) There are six of them--Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Recent, American, and African--and they’re all very good for the specific purpose of having a book around that you just pick up and page through for a little while, and very good as gifts for the kind of person who likes this thing. Best of all you can get any one of them used for less than $5. (The image comes from an Etsy listing for three for $20, but you can find them cheaper separately on Biblio or Abebooks.)

Anker PowerCore Fusion 10000

Do we still buy “gadgets” for people at Christmas? The only company that still makes gadgets I find useful and pleasing is Anker, the charging-cable and surge-protector manufacturer that has risen from “weird fake-seeming Amazon Marketplace brand” to “the only electronics brand I still trust 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳 Anker forever” since its founding in 2016. This brick is both a USB-A/USB-C wall charge and a 10,000 mAh battery good for around two full iPhone charges; the battery charges directly from the wall with no extra cable needed. It’s one of those seemingly boring presents that the recipient will use constantly for years, quietly saying prayers to your foresight and generosity as it saves them yet again on a long and unexpected layover. There’s a newer version that is high-wattage enough to charge a laptop when plugged in, but it has half the battery capacity, and you will come to appreciate the smug sense of security your 10,000 mAh give you when toting this bad boy around.Ronin De Niro Movie 1998 Vintage Promo Hat, Briefcase, Keychain + More - RARE! on eBay

Prixel Printing Kit

My wife came across this extremely cool-looking simple letterpress kit while looking for presents for our three-year-old, and while it would probably be a disaster in his tiny little hands for at least the next few Christmases it looks so cool that … I kind of want it for myself? (She ended up getting him this wooden stamp set, which I expect will also be a disaster but possibly slightly less so.)

Ronin De Niro Movie 1998 Vintage Promo Hat, Briefcase, Keychain + More - RARE!

If you know a boy of any gender in their 30s or 40s there is a strong chance they love the 1999 Nokiawave thriller Ronin and would be willing to discuss it with you at great length, or at least to shout “What color is the boathouse at Hereford?” at you until you tell them to knock it off. Celebrate that slightly off-putting love by purchasing them this G/VG Paragon pay-per-view promotional kit, which includes, per the listing:

• Adjustable baseball cap with embroidered movie logo

• Briefcase business card holder with movie logo

• Flashlight Keychain (miniature car) with movie logo

• Expired (1999) Paragon Pay-Per-View Coupon

• Original Paragon Time Warner promo bag

Admittedly this one is a hard sell, because the gift-giver has to be rich enough to spend $125 on essentially a gag gift and the gift recipient has to both love the movie Ronin and have a need for a business-card holder--but for the right person, imagine how powerful it would be to whip out your Ronin-branded business-card holder at meetings?