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It takes courage and conviction to create change, be that in literature, art, fashion or politics. These bountiful, gift-worthy books trace the lives of individuals who found a course beyond the commonplace, and one that was often at odds with what society expected of them. When Jane Austen first published Sense and Sensibility two centuries ago her name was not on the title page, so irregular was the notion of a female author.
Lucian Freud’s unique approach to his subjects — intimate and meticulous and like nothing that had been seen before — can be both enjoyed and better understood in the pages of the first catalogue raisonne of his paintings. The impact of the fashion and lifestyle sold at the 60s boutique Granny Takes a Trip radiated far beyond its Kings Road location; and Michelle Obama redefined the intersection between personal and political via her fashion choices as the first black First Lady of America. Let these books help you consider who you want to be and what you want to achieve as 2025 closes.
The Look
By Michelle Obama with Meredith Koop, £35, Spruce
The day Barack Obama was elected as Democratic senator in Illinois, his wife, Michelle, was wearing an outfit she had hurriedly picked up in Barney’s. She soon realised that she would need a more coherent approach to the way she presented herself to the world and that her clothes could be part of the story she wanted to tell as the first black first lady of America.
In this sumptuous book, full of glossy photos of Michelle, we see how her story and style evolved together. In the text she explains how she championed designers who might have been overlooked in the context of presidential occasions, including Tracy Reese, Narciso Rodriguez and Naeem Khan: “A Black woman, the son of Cuban immigrants, and an Indian American, respectively, each of these artists represented the diverse talent of American fashion design that I wanted to showcase to the world.”
Michelle Obama wearing a vintage dress in 2011
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY CHUCK KENNEDY
The book follows her life in fashion through both of her husband’s terms as well as their existence beyond the White House. Obama’s fashion ethos is one that we might all emulate. “My first questions when considering any outfit or look were: ‘Do I love it? Does it reflect who I am?’”
To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
• Michelle Obama at 61: ‘I feel as free now as I did when I was a kid’
Pride and Prejudice
By Jane Austen, £125, British Library
All sorts of Austen-related fun is happening in this, the 250th year since her birth. But nerdish bibliophiles might enjoy this the most: a first edition facsimile of Pride and Prejudice, recreated from the edition held by the British Library. It is presented in three volumes — like the original when it was first published in 1813 — with age spots, smudges and printing errors.
The books are bound in period-appropriate brown, with a marbled cover. There is a useful introductory pamphlet by the curator Lesley Ruthven. Austen was 21, the same age as her heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, when she started writing Pride and Prejudice (initially titled First Impressions) in 1796. An attempt to publish the book in 1797 failed and after considerable reworking it was accepted by a publisher in 1812.
During her lifetime, Austen was not the acknowledged author of her books, with this one attributed to the “author of Sense and Sensibility”. The books — now appropriately acknowledged — come in a powder-blue presentation box with a secret compartment containing facsimiles of three of Austen’s letters.
• Jane Austen at 250 — and the truth about that Pride and Prejudice lake scene
Granny Takes a Trip: High Fashion and High Times at the Wildest Rock’n’Roll Boutique
By Paul Gorman, £40, White Rabbit
Granny Takes a Trip, the fashion emporium at the dodgy end of the Kings Road, was where the rock stars, artists and aristocrats of the Sixties and Seventies bought their velvet jackets, silk flares and, on occasion, their heroin. Paul Gorman tells its story based on the scrapbooks of Freddie Hornik, who took over from the original owners, Nigel Waymouth, Sheila Cohen and John Pearse, in 1969. The trio were in their early twenties when they opened the shop in 1966, selling Cohen’s stock of antique clothing amid a fug of incense.
Everyone came: the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan. The place was catnip for “aesthetes, exquisites, outsiders and the overlooked”, its fame soon spreading to America. This book is about more than a shop; it is about a cultural phenomenon, told with anecdotes, newspaper cuttings and photos that look to us as ancient and decadent as the Aubrey Beardsley prints on the shop’s walls did to its Sixties scenesters.
To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
• Are we stuck in a time loop reliving the 60s and 70s?
Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings
By Catherine Lampert and Toby Treves, £500, Yale University Press
This book, as vast and beautiful as some of Freud’s best-loved creations, is the first to attempt to catalogue all his paintings. There are four volumes, featuring more than 500 images — some never printed before. Chronologically ordered and each with full provenance, exhibition history, bibliography and explanatory text, they are accompanied by essays on Freud’s life, influences, materials and his evolving approach.
In 1954 he said: “My object in painting pictures is to try and move the senses by giving an intensification of reality.” Your senses will indeed be moved by Freud’s unique merging of realism and fantasy and by his “manic attention to detail”, but most of all by the extraordinary intimacy apparent in these works.
Freud liked to work with sitters in real life, asking them to pose for many hours. Often they were in his circle: his relations, lovers, friends. “I am more interested in what is inside their heads,” he explained.
• Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what’s top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List
