Talk Show Gift Guide

Leave it to Stephen Colbert to come up with a Christmas special that is, in his words, “sincerely strange and strangely sincere.” Out on DVD almost the same day as it appeared on television, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All stars such luminaries as Elvis Costello, Toby Keith, Feist, John Legend and Willie Nelson.

This gift is useful, and the cook in the house will love you for it. Rachael Ray offers up this 10-piece, hard-anodized cookware set, which includes 1-1/2- and 3-quart covered saucepans; 6-quart covered stockpot; 3-quart/10-inch covered sauté, and 8- and 10-inch French skillets. The set’s glass lids allow cooking monitoring without sacrificing heat and nutrients.

Before she became one of the newest talk show hosts on daytime television, Bonnie Hunt, was – and still is – a sought after character actress. To celebrate her renaissance career, fans can pick up copies of Cars, Jumanji, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Jerry Maguire. In those films she played, respectively, Lightning McQueen’s main squeeze, Sally; the little girl all grown-up, opposite Robin Williams; Steve Martin’s wife; and Renee Zellweger’s sister.

This, the Fall 2008 entry in Oprah Winfrey’s book club, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel, by David Wroblewski, tells the tale of a young, mute man, who speaks only in sign language, Edgar Sawtelle. Sawtelle lives with his parents on their farm in remote Wisconsin, raising a breed dog, one of which, Almondine, is Edgar's lifelong friend. Trouble arrives in the form of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle. Soon Edgar's father dies and Claude attempts to become patriarch. But Edgar has other things in mind. Can you say Hamlet? This one is sure to keep the avid reader turning pages.

Who said there weren’t thrifty items on this list? Here’s a simple stocking stuffer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno fan in the house – or the classic car nut. Let them fill up on egg nog with their Jay Leno’s Garage mug. It commemorates both Leno’s enormous car collection and the online Web series that explores that massive collection.

Described as a collection of unusual, little-known, and sometimes even true, bits of trivia, the Late Show book of Fun Facts will keep you laughing. The little page-turner was assembled by the Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information (har-har) and is a compilation of bits already portrayed on David Letterman's show.

Catch Ellen DeGeneres doing what she does best: stand-up comedy. This album is described as refreshing and true-to-life. Parental guidance is suggested for many of the jokes, but Ellen makes it a family fare in the long-run. Topics are universal and are captured in some of the segment titles: “Camping and Hunting,” “Children”, “Scary Things,” and “'Depends' and Leg Warmers.”

Kick back and relax to this old standard from 1968. It’s Live with Regis and Kelly’s Regis Philbin singing such classics as “Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goodbye)” and “Baby Face.” This is Regis’s only pop-vocal album, and it wasn’t a hit at the time. Why not make it one now?