Another year of difficulties and hopefully joys has gone by, and rather than ruin the holidays with Grinch-like missives from the past or punditry on the present I thought I’d offer a more useful kind of analysis. The following is not sponsored content. No one is foolish enough to pay me to advertise. I don’t even like advertising for myself. 

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For your parents: Brick (not the material), ~$50

Judging by my readership demographics you’re quite likely a Millennial, which means you’re in the only generation that should be allowed access to the internet. We’re all familiar by now with some of the macropolitical harms here– conspiracy thinking, anti-vax misinformation, etc. I can’t help with that. But capitalism has devised a solution to the more mundane problems it’s created here: do your older relatives also ceaselessly scroll Instagram Reels with the sound on? 

Christmas has never been quieter with the Brick, a real device that’s actually called that! Apparently it disables select apps on your phone until you touch the device to the phone again. This makes reconnecting intentional or something. Yes, you’ll have to configure it for them. The number one reason to get this is that it’s too humiliating to buy for yourself. If you’re looking for gift ideas for me for the holidays, don’t you dare. 

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For the 18th-century historians in your life:

Master & Commander: Far Side of the World Blu-Ray 

Purchase one of the only historical movies that unites “history buffs” and academic historians. Oceans are now battlefields, hurrah! Imagine an alternate 2000s where the “MCU” means the Master and Commander Cinematic Universe, and Jack Aubrey is better known than Iron Man. This world could still be yours someday, and buying an overpriced Blu-Ray is the best way to demonstrate your dedication to this dream! Don’t worry if the person receiving the gift was 8 years old when it came out– there’s nothing like nostalgia for something you didn’t actually experience at the time.

Physical media is all the rage amidst what Cory Doctorow has called the “enshittification” of tech platforms, a term that mostly just means “things getting worse” but propagates itself thanks to twee obscenity making it memorable. All the cool kids are buying retro gaming devices and stacks of DVDs. Someday you will die, but your media collection won’t have to (pay no attention to the expiration date on those discs, or else you’ll fall down the rabbit hole of long-term media storage technologies and go mad). The best part? You’ll get to give a lecture about this to everyone who sees your collection. A generous and remarkable gift.

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For your friends: Warhammer 40,000 Miniatures, ~$300 to $30,000?? dollars

“In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war,” goes the tagline for British developer Games Workshop’s bestselling war game and miniature painting hobby. Beloved of Henry Cavill, friendly gamers, and also an alarming number of fascists, the setting alone will, depending on your political leanings, have you pining for the halcyon days of the Biden era, cheering MAGA, or chuckling with knowing irony: a decrepit catatonic emperor holds the forces of Chaos at bay as humanity fights a doomed battle against everything and itself. His own misrule guarantees mankind’s demise! 

Is it “satire”? Who can say! The discerning fan will of course make clever references to Margaret Thatcher, understanding that not everything is about America. There’s plenty to satirize, after all. The UK’s ruling party is so dedicated to defeating fascism that they’ve committed to mass deportation and made sure trans women can’t use the bathroom just to keep fascists at bay… somehow… Anyway, by purchasing one of the UK’s only remaining critical exports, you’ll also support our longtime ally against fascism, and with a more festive and less salacious “special relationship” than Britain’s other major export, OnlyFans. 

With dozens of armies and more colors of paint than you can count, there are so many ways to play 40k, as it’s known– you can buy miniatures, paint them, and imagine playing, or you can convince friends to take the plunge with you and then descend into plastic-induced poverty together, or if you’re feeling particularly adventurous you can go to your local games store and pray that the local scene isn’t full of fascists. Alternately you can just save your money, play the video games, and make jokes about 40k on your newsletter. 

I recommend Orks. 

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For everyone: Henry Snow’s Control Science: How Management Made the Modern World, $30

A four century history of how the rich control the rest of us, and the lies they have told to justify it. Inside you can find charming and alarming anecdotes about the failed grocery wholesalers, long-dead philosophers, and modern-day billionaires responsible for all your suffering. With global history from Zambian mines to Japanese textile mills, it draws on new archival research and historiographical foundations to produce a rigorous but accessible deconstruction of “self-interest.” If you believe you’re more than the selfish automaton that many economists claim you are, you should buy this book to spite them! That’s why I wrote it. What could be a more powerful combination than spite and hope? And what could be a more seasonal combination, for that matter? Santa Claus even appears in chapter 8. The Grinch, unfortunately, does not.

You know what, don’t even read about this one. You just need it. You know you need it. Probably the hardcover specifically. Won’t that look nice on your coffee table?
It’s coming out in May, which means you can preorder it now and it will be a nice surprise when it actually arrives. If you purchase it right now, you can ignore without guilt my next five months of calls to pre-order!