Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide	Christmas Stories

Sure, you can turn to Oprah or the New York Times bestsellers list for gift ideas, but you won’t be the only one looking there. Whereas local subjects and local authors—these can’t be found in airport kiosks. Instead, you can find them in special sections at local booksellers and gift shops, including Talking Leaves Books (951 Elmwood Avenue, 3158 Main Street), Rust Belt Books (202 Allen Street), the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society gift shop (25 Nottingham Court) and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery gift shop (1285 Elmwood Avenue).

These are just a few of the books you’ll find on their shelves:

Power Failure: Politics, Patronage and the Economic Future of Buffalo, New York

By Diane Dillaway

(Prometheus Books, 2006)

In the introduction to her book Power Failure: Politics, Patronage and the Economic Future of Buffalo, New York, released last year by Amherst-based Prometheus Books, author Diana Dillaway notes that those who hold political and economic power—and who are in a position to lead by virtue of that power—are not always willing or able to provide leadership.

“In fact,” she writes, “Buffalo’s business, political and community leaders—with some rare but interesting exceptions—were zealous in their defense of the status quo in the face of an economic slowdown, and, later, spiraling decline.”

Power Failure offers a series of case studies in Buffalo’s failures of leadership and missed opportunities over the past half century. The decisions that Dillaway chooses to profile represent a Wailing Wall of Buffalo’s past miscues: locating UB’s new campus in Amherst instead of downtown; hemming and hawing on the rapid transit system; turning away the possibility of a downtown football stadium; thumb-twiddling on waterfront development; failing to engage the city’s African-American community in decision-making processes, such as they were; refusing to face the decline in the city’s heavy industrial base, and the consequences of that decline, until it was far too late.

It may seem depressing fare for the holiday, but it is edifying, and it comes with a parlor game written into it: Dillaway granted anonymity to many of her local sources, but her descriptions of them and the opinions they offer make it possible to guess at their identities.

The Rise and Fall of a Frontier Entrepreneur: Benjamin Rathbun, “Master Builder and Architect”

By Roger Whitman (Scott G. Eberle and David A. Gerber, Editors)

(Syracuse University Press, 1996)

Benjamin Rathbun was Buffalo’s most prolific builder in the 1830s, when the city was booming beyond all expectations. In 1835 alone, he erected 99 buildings, and he ran a vertically integrated development company that would hardly be possible today—he owned timberland and stone quarries, brick factories and metalworks. He employed more than 2,500 people. He also was at the center of one of the young city’s great scandals, financing his operations with money borrowed on notes forged by his brother and his nephew. (Or did he? A young muckraking journalist, Thomas Low Nichols, claimed that Rathbun was railroaded by a cabal of city fathers who were wary and jealous of his growing wealth.) Regardless, Rathbun took the blame for their perfidy, spent five years in jail and left Buffalo forever. A terrific account that opens a door on the city’s early history, The Rise and Fall of a Frontier Entrepreneur: Benjamin Rathbun, “Master Builder and Architect” is available at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, where you can also read Rathbun’s own account of the scandal.

Through the Mayors’ Eyes: Buffalo, New York 1832-2005

By Michael F. Rizzo

(Lulu.com, 2006)

The history of a Buffalo as told by the 54 men who have served as its mayor, Through the Mayors’ Eyes is available at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society. The book, by Buffalo native Michael Rizzo, includes a wealth of images, including the official portraits of the city’s mayors.

City on the Edge:

Buffalo, New York, 1900-present

By Mark Goldman

(Prometheus Books, March 2007)

This is the third installment in Mark Goldman’s series of histories of Buffalo. (Goldman has said it’s a trilogy, and therefore finished, but my money says he’ll write more.) The first, High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York, was published nearly 25 years ago; the second, City on the Lake: The Challenge of Change in Buffalo, New York, followed seven years later. Taken with this third book, Goldman has pieced together a thorough, readable and cogent account of Buffalo’s rise and decline, replete with stories taken from a variety of narrative perspectives—from the corridors of power to the neighborhood tavern, from the accounts of the contemporary journalists to the distanced analysis of a trained historian. The third is in some ways the most comprehensive of the lot, but all three make a fine gift set for a local history junkie. They are all available at Talking Leaves Bookstore.

Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Favorite Addiction

By Jake Halpern

(Mariner Books, 2007)

Fame is nothing new. Through the ages, countless characters have captured the imagination of biographers and artists—sometimes due to their legendary beauty, their revolutionary thought, their courage, their political power or some other quality that makes them stand out in their times. Buffalo native Jake Halpern’s Fame Junkies focuses on the nature of fame in contemporary America. Using anecdotal descriptions of aspiring stars, personal assistants, entourage insiders and diehard fans along with troubling surveys of young people, Halpern paints a portrait of a country obsessed with the superficial trappings of stardom. Statistics play a key role in illustrating his point. For example, more people watch American Idol than the three major network news shows combined. In 2004, these major TV news outlets spent 26 minutes covering genocide in Darfur but over 130 minutes covering the Martha Stewart stock spectacle. Equally sad is the idea of “basking in reflected glory,” or BIRGing. As individuals, many of us lead increasingly more isolated and lonely lives. Smiling celebrities with fabulous lifestyles serve as surrogate “friends” who can always pop into our living rooms by simply pressing the remote. Halpern, a widely published entertainment writer and NPR contributor, convincingly illustrates how that comforting feeling is at the root of a national obsession that made “Paris Hilton” the most Googled name in 2006.

The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up:

A True Story

By Rich Blake

(Harmony Books, 2007)

In April, 2005, local Buffalo news outlets began reporting a development so unexpected as to defy explanation. A Buffalo firefighter named Donny Herbert, who’d been severely injured and deprived of oxygen in a fall through a snow-covered roof, had spent nearly ten years in an unresponsive state. Suddenly, he began to speak. For the next 16 hours, as family and friends rushed to his bedside, Herbert was given the opportunity to visit with loved ones again. Tears burst forth when he realized that his infant son was now a teenager. For those close to him, it was the answer to a decade’s worth of prayer. But his revival would be brief, and he gradually slipped away again before succumbing to pneumonia in February 2006. His story quickly spread and would eventually make it onto 60 Minutes. Author Rich Blake, a cousin of Herbert’s widow Linda, relates with touching intimacy the story of a loving family left to care for their heroic father. A true story of unwavering faith, the book is a perfect read during a season devoted to miracles.

Niagara Falls Confidential: Murder, mayhem & madness in the honeymoon capital of the world!

By Mike and Rebecca Hudson

(Tuscarora Books, 2007)

Next time folks come to visit from out of town, but before you take them on the obligatory trip to see the wonder of the world that is Niagara Falls, why not put a copy of this book on the bedside table in the guest room? Written by husband-wife team of Mike and Rebecca Hudson, this tremendously entertaining book is 15 chapters of the most shocking, scary and sinister episodes in the history of the cataract city. It’s like reading a localized version of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. We get to meet Billy Shrubsall, the class valedictorian who bludgeoned his mother to death with a baseball bat on the eve of graduation in 1988. It turns out that act was just one example of a violent nature that would eventually put him behind bars in Canada. Like watching the Sopranos, tough guy? Why not study up on Stefano Magaddino, one of the most powerful Mafia bosses in US history. It was said that some of the caskets leaving the Magaddino Memorial Chapel on the corner of Niagara Street and Portage Road contained more than one body. There’s also the story of Big Ed Delahanty, the early baseball great and boozehound whose body washed up below the Horseshoe Falls on July 9, 1903, after falling into the water from a bridge after being kicked off a train for drunkenness. He was returning home after being kicked off his team in Cleveland for missing a game due to debauchery. And whoever disliked flamboyant defense lawyer Jimmy LiBrize showed his distaste for him by brutally killing him in his office two days after Christmas in 1969 using a hammer, a knife, and…a can opener. There are also chapters devoted to miscellaneous weirdness like UFO sightings, haunted locations, bank robberies and shootouts complete with car chases, as well as a quick, but detailed, profile on Nikola Tesla and the back-story on the famous “Step by step. Slowly I turn” comedy schtick, Both authors write for the Niagara Falls Reporter, the feisty weekly paper that never shies from telling things as they are with an unflinching eye. Their book is a scandalously open-and-shut guilty pleasure.