If you're in the market for last-minute gifts for readers, here are a few options.

"FRANK, SAMMY, MARLON & ME" BY EDDIE SHERMAN; WATERMARK, HARDBACK, $22.95

The veteran three-dot columnist, who arrived in Honolulu as a sheet-metal worker with the Defense Department in the early 1940s, has seen it all when it comes to celebrities and he tells it all (or most of it) in a series of talk-story-style essays each named for a different star, from Arthur Godfrey to Elvis Presley.

Sherman harks back to another time, when Hollywood studios courted columnists and pushed celebrities to hobnob with the press and participate in publicity stunts— so long as the press knew the rules about what was on the record. Sherman went sport fishing with Richard Boone, brought Marlon Brando home to dinner and sparred with Sugar Ray Robinson. It was a time when columnists often became part of the story. Can you imagine a manager today asking a reporter to run out to the airport and pick up a major star and help him get settled? Or an agent talking a promoter and a hotel into taking a chance on a singer down on his luck?

Sherman's 40 years of memories make good reading and the photos from his files are priceless.

"A CENTURY OF ALOHA: THE CREATION OF MODERN HONOLULU" BY MACKINNON SIMPSON; MUTUAL, HARDBACK, $25.95

Writer, historian and book designer "Mac" Simpson brings his considerable skills to bear on a pictorial history of Honolulu between 1905 and 2005. Though there is some text, this well-designed oversize book is really about pictures, each with its own informative caption.

A session with this book recalls the days when your new Life magazine would arrive and you'd sit, staring at the photographs, finding more and more to see in each. Put this one on the coffee table and listen to the conversation and memories flow.