Matt Love is the publisher of Nestucca Spit Press and the author/editor of seven books about Oregon, including Gimme Refuge: The Education of a Caretaker and Love & The Green Lady. Brian Doyle called him “nutty brilliant” on Day 3 of this series. We have noticed that when people write about Love and his work, they often use the word  ”love” as a verb or adjective. Says Brian Juenemann in a recent column in the Eugene Register-Guard: “Love’s primary object of affection is clearly the Green Lady, but the book is really a love letter to the places — often after much searching — to which we truly belong. Love spent nearly two decades in Portland but discovered he’s not the kind of guy who needs the bright lights burning. He prefers a sunset.”

Love is a regular contributor to The Oregonian and writes the “On Oregon” blog for Powells.com. In 2009, Love won the Oregon Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. He lives in South Beach and teaches English and journalism at Newport High School. He’s currently working on a book about the filming of Sometimes a Great Notion. We interviewed him about his work here.

Here’s his gift list, with Broadway Books as his favorite NW indie store.

The Great Leader by Jim Harrison. A couple of decades ago, I picked up the novel Dalva by Jim Harrison and read it almost straight through. The experience changed my life, made me want to one day relocate to rural American (in my case the Oregon Coast) and I have since read every novel, book of poetry and work of non-fiction that Harrison has produced. How he hasn’t won more recognition and awards is beyond me. Well, actually not—he doesn’t write about New York and he doesn’t teach in a creative writing program. His latest novel, The Great Leader, is about a retired detective and a cult leader and has some of the best writing in the history of literature on the subject of female butts.

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter. Portland, Oregon circa 1950. Seedy. Pool hustlers. Booze. Petty theft. Punks. Dames. Prison. Prison love. Carpenter wrote this fantastically gritty novel set in Portland and it came out in 1964. Clearly it was a precursor to how Gus Van Sant would later immortalize the Rose City two decades later with Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. Long out of print, New York Review of Books imprint rereleased it 2009 with a wonderful introduction by George Pelecanos. I couldn’t put it down.

Herzog on Herzog, edited by Paul Cronin. A book-length interview with the German filmmaker that I read over the summer that totally blew my mind. Every writer, musician, artist and filmmaker who has ever run up against the idiotic establishment telling them their art wasn’t good enough for presentation should read this book. Herzog has always done it his own ecstatic way and never taken “no” for an answer if he had a vision for a story. Look where it got him.

Zazen by Vanessa Veselka. Portland teems with writers of all kinds: aspirants, phony memoirists, big shots, indie darlings, manic bloggers, zine god stars, and all the rest in between. The best book by far I read this year from a Portland writer is called Zazen by Vanessa Veselka. In this novel, Veselka skewers the self-consciously earnest, eco-aware inhabitants of the city and one can almost taste her lament for the old gray Portland when people didn’t talk about beer and riding a bike wasn’t a political protest.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. You’ve probably seen the movie. Quite possibly you read the novel back in its counterculture heyday. Maybe you’ve never picked it up at all. Read it again or for the first time this coming year because 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of this Ken Kesey classic. Kesey was 27 years old when One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest came out, and it deserves a resurrection if only for the incredible imagery of what damming Celilo Falls on the Columbia River in 1957 did to our regional psyche. I teach it every year.

Christine Deavel is a poet, a poetry bookseller and a consummate book recommender. Her versatile gift list offers suggestions for the artists, poets, toddlers and would-be surrealists on your list. Deavel’s debut collection of poetry, Woodnote, was the winner of the 2011 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. We interviewed her about the book here. When we asked about her favorite NW store, Deavel said she’s “inordinately fond ” of Open Books: A Poem Emporium, which she co-owns with her husband, the poet J.W. Marshall. She says she’s also a happy shopper at Elliott Bay Book Company. Here’s her list.

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. A gift, this book sat on my shelf for years, unread. I was skeptical that it had anything to tell me, figuring it would be “self-helpy.” Then one day of many days in which I was not only not writing but confused about what writing meant to me, I took it down and read it swiftly and gratefully. A quietly graceful and clear book, it offers realistic yet encouraging words about what it means to make artmaking a part of your life. Though written by two visual artists, it would speak to those who practice any sort of art. It can be a powerful gift for a would-be poet/painter/potter (mature high-school student and above) or for an artist questioning the place of her art in her day and in the world.

A Book of Surrealist Games compiled by Alastair Brotchie and edited by Mel Gooding. The perfect stocking stuffer for those who like the quirky, playful and inventive, from goth teenagers to iconoclastic grandmas. A little book (it’s a mere 4 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches), it is nonetheless filled with surrealism, for these are games that were created and played by the now famous Surrealists—Andre Breton, Tristan Tzara, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, and others—from the 1920s onward. They are meant to pull participants out of their conventions and lead them into unusual creations (a welcome response to certain stultifying holiday gatherings, perhaps). This wee volume also serves as a fine and unusual history book.

The Mary Ruefle Gift Pack. OK, I’ve invented this—the MRGP doesn’t come in its own embossed box with lovely rope handle for carrying. Rather it’s what I would gather up in my usual comics-page wrapping paper to give to a smart, adventuresome adult reader of poetry and prose. Included would be three of the amazing Mary Ruefle’s books: her Selected Poems, which received the 2011 William Carlos Williams Award and is a rich gathering of her beautiful and strange lyric poetry; The Most of It, a collection of her equally deliciously odd and wonderfully crafted prose pieces; and A Little White Shadow, a stunning small volume that is the result of Ruefle’s whiting out pages from a little known 19th century book, leaving a few words on each page and thereby making a haunting, vivid new book. All three of these show a bright, contemplative, original writer at work, and one who is deeply humane. They should delight, disconcert and touch their recipient.

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. Who knew a discussion of the merits and faults of iambic pentameter could be such a pleasure? Of course, this funny, touching novel is much, much more than that. The bumbling yet often perceptive Paul Chowder seems incapable of writing the introduction to the anthology of poetry that he has edited. As his world crumbles around him, he contemplates what good poetry is, how much poetry matters, and who has—and is—writing it. An extremely entertaining and surprisingly insightful book that would resonate most with readers who have some familiarity with the world of poetry.

Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Facsimile Edition. A special gift for a special someone (because it’s not cheap). This is a gorgeous, slip-cased book that is in essence a full-size replica of the book that held the young Emily Dickinson’s collection of pressed plants. It has been beautifully reproduced, right down to her handwritten labels for the specimens. For an Emily Dickinson devotee, it’s enough to make one swoon, though a lover of botanical books would find it a treasure as well. Also included are several informative essays and a plant catalog. To open it and turn its pages is a transporting experience.

The Sheep of Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple. These books for toddlers will have you giggling and reading aloud even if there’s no toddler near, so be warned. Among my favorites are the inaugural Sheep in a Jeep and the later Sheep in a Shop, with crisp rhyming words by Ms. Shaw and charming drawings by Ms. Apple. Not your average, docile flock, these sheep are always heading out on little adventures (or rather, misadventures). Here they decide to go for a ride—”Sheep in a jeep on a hill that’s steep”—and to the country store to buy a birthday gift—”Sheep decide to buy a beach ball. Sheep prefer an out-of-reach ball.” One way or another, all is resolved in the end—”Jeep for sale — cheap.”