In the first of our totally-and-completely-fail-proof-Christmas-shopping-guides-for-2013, here are our gift ideas for parents.

If your parents love art

• In Art as Therapy ($39.95, ) Alain de Botton & John Armstrong argue that approaching art as a form of therapy can help us with our most intimate and ordinary dilemmas.
• The photographs collected together in Mark Strizic: Melbourne - Marvellous to Modern ($29.95, ) shows us many aspects of Melbourne, from its magnificent architectural heritage to its intimate and vibrant laneways.
• In the first major text devoted to Del Kathryn Barton’s work, Del Kathryn Barton ($69.95), Julie Ewington offers a portrait of a life indelibly marked by a deeply ingrained sense of an abundant natural realm
• With The Vatican: All the Paintings ($69.95 ), you can bring home your very own complete collection of old masters, plus more than 300 sculptures, maps, tapestries, and other artifacts, along with notes from art historian Anja Grebe.
• S. Ehmann & S. Borges celebrate contemporary refuges from around the world in Rock the Shack: Architecture of Cabins, Cocoons and Hide-outs ($89.95).

If your parents are interested in other people’s lives

• Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and editor of The New Yorker David Remnick applies his unique journalistic voice to paint a portrait of rock legend and working-class poet Bruce Springsteen in We are Alive: A Portrait of Bruce Springsteen ($19.95).
• Poe Ballantine’s Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere ($29.95) is a very funny and smart memoir about failure, family and having your neighbour disappear only to be found dead 3 months later.
• Part road trip, part biography, Robert Hillman′s account of Gurrumul’s life and music, Gurrumul: His Life and Music ($39.95 ) offers rare insights into the sources of his inspiration.
• Paul McNamee is a legendary figure in Australian tennis and in Game Changer: My Tennis Life ($32.99), he shares his story, candidly providing insights into an ever-changing life in tennis.
• This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage ($29.99) is an irresistible blend of literature and memoir revealing the big experiences and little moments that shaped Ann Patchett as a daughter, wife, friend and Orange-prize winning author.
• In Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family ($29.95), Gabrielle Carey intertwines the histories of the reclusive Australian writer Randolph Stow, and that of her acutely reserved mother, Joan, who both grew up in Geraldton, Western Australia.

If your parents are political junkies

• Pamela Williams’ exposé of the fortunes of Fairfax Media, Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge ($34.95 ) won 12 awards at this year’s Walkley Awards, making it a must-read for anyone with an interest in current affairs.
• For something a bit lighter, Russ Radcliffe’s Dirt Files: A Decade of Best Australian Political Cartoons ($39.95) features over 400 of the finest political cartoons to have appeared in Australia from 2003 to 2012.
• Bewitched and Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years ($24.95) is a provocative analysis of Australian attitudes towards the nation’s first female Prime Minister.
• Speaking of female prime ministers… In the much talked about television series Borgen ($44.95) Birgitte Nyborg unexpectedly becomes the first female Prime Minister of Denmark.

If your parents sing along with the radio

• The Hush Music Foundation and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra bring together twelve of Australiaʼs finest composers for Hush Collection: The Magic Island ($24.95).
• The new album from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Live From KCRW ($21.95), features a stripped-down line-up performing lots of classics alongside four songs from their recent album Push The Sky Away.
• The 2014 edition of So Frenchy So Chic ($29.95) includes the best new music to come out of France over the past twelve months.
• Darkside ($29.95) is a 2013 philosophical comedy radio drama written by Tom Stoppard and based on the themes of Pink Floyd’s 1973 progressive rock album, The Dark Side Of The Moon.
• For something really special, The History of Classical Music on 100 CDs ($199.95 ) would suit any classical music lover.
• Inside Llewyn Davis ($21.95) is the Coen brothers’ first collaboration with the Grammy and Academy Award-winning T Bone Burnett since the acclaimed O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

If your parents are foodies

• Recipes & Refuge: Stories of immigrants and refugees told through food ($33) brings together the tales of people who have sought refuge in Australia and explores the common links we all share through food.
• Hitting back against the recent anti-sugar propaganda, nutritionist Cassie Platt presents Don’t Quit Sugar: Why Sugars are Important for Your Health ($29.99).
• In On the Noodle Road ($29.99), Jen Lin-Liu sets out along the ancient trading route of the Silk Road to discover who actually invented the noodle, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.
• Renowned for her ‘Sweet Greek’ produce shop, Kathy Tsaples shares her favourite recipes learned in her mothers kitchen in Sweet Greek: Simple Food: Sumptuous Feasts ($39.99).
• Practical and inspiring Jamie Durie’s Edible Garden Design reveals how to create productive edible gardens that look great.
• For wine drinkers, it’s hard to go past James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion ($29.99 ) for 2014.

If your parents are hooked on crime

• The new Ian Rankin Saints of the Shadow Bible ($25.96 ) brings together John Rebus, the old-fashioned cop in a modern world, and Malcolm Fox, the cop that investigates other cops, for a thrilling read.
• There’s also a new Kerry Greenwood out! In Murder and Mendelssohn ($22.99) Miss Phryne Fisher returns for her 20th adventure with musical score in hand.
• In Murder in Mississippi ($29.95) John Safran covers a murder trial in Mississippi, presenting a funny, confronting and sometimes uncomfortable portrait of race and murder.
• Written and directed by Jane Campion, Top of the Lake ($39.95) is a New Zealand series which follows a gutsy but inexperienced detective called in to investigate a missing pregnant girl.
• Gillian Anderson (from The X-Files) shines in The Fall ($39.95) as Stella Gibson, a successful, highly driven homicide detective on the hunt for a serial killer.
• Banshee ($39.95) charts the twists and turns that follow Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), an ex-convict who improbably becomes sheriff of a rural, Amish-area town while searching for a woman he last saw 15 years ago, when he gave himself up to police to let her escape after a jewel heist. (Phew!)

If your parents love to travel

• The long-awaited final volume of the trilogy by Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos ($44.95 ) is a perfect gift for travel-lovers this Christmas.
• Shannon Bennett, one of Australia’s foremost chefs, takes readers on a personal tour of his favourite city with Shannon Bennett’s Paris ($14.95 )
• In the mid-eighties John McBeath and his partner Sue left Australia for India with the dream to open a European-style pensione in an old Portuguese villa in Goa. What Westerners Have For Breakfast: Five Years In Goa ($29.95) is the story of what happened.
• In Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo ($34.95), Tim Parks brings us a fresh portrait of Italy today through a wry account of its train system.
• Utilising stunning cutting edge time-lapse cinematography, landscape photographer, Murray Fredericks presents the stunning documentary Nothing on Earth ($24.95) of the movement of the ice through geological time.
• Filmed in one of the most extreme and hard-to-reach locations in the world, Galápagos with David Attenborough ($29.95) is the multi-award winning natural history broadcaster’s unique exploration of the environments and species of the Galapagos.

If your parents are history buffs

• In The Great War ($39.95 ), acclaimed cartoonist Joe Sacco depicts the events of that day in an extraordinary, 24-foot-long wordless panorama.
• Minutely researched and rich in revelations, Graham Robb’s The Ancient Paths: Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe ($29.99) brings to life centuries of our distant history and reinterprets pre-Roman Europe.
• Bill Bryson travels back in time to a forgotten summer when America came of age, took centre stage, and, in five eventful months, changed the world for ever in One Summer: America 1927 ($39.95 ).
• Henry Reynolds’ Forgotten War ($29.95) completely debunks the notion of peaceful colonisation in Australia and is one of our Top Ten Non-Fiction Books for 2013.
• Groundbreaking and absorbing, Clare Wright’s The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka ($45) is the uncut story of the day the Australian people found their voice, revealing the stories of thousands of women from that time.
• In Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia ($29.99), David Hunt recounts the strange and ridiculous episodes that conventional histories ignore.

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