Both of our entries today in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide are tied to today’s new music specialty programs that debut this afternoon on our sister internet radio station, The AIR. With The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide in mind, we managed to cook up new episodes that debut on Wednesday afternoon, as The AIR brings you new installments of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, each of get right into the gift-giving spirit. You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

Our second entry today in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is for two very different books about Stephen Sondheim and will likely be the perfect gift for the fan of Broadway musicals on your holiday shopping list.

Hirschfeld’s Sondheim: A Poster Book
by David Leopold (Author), Al Hirschfeld (Illustrator), Bernadette Peters (Introduction), Ben Brantley (Foreword)
Harry N. Abrams
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1419784156
$29.99 (discounted at Amazon)

The first of our two Sondheim books is a gorgeous art book. I already got a copy for Mel and she absolutely loves it. It’s a poster book and is just stunning to look at.

Let’s go to the publisher’s blurb for the details:

This handsome volume presents 25 favorite Al Hirschfeld portraits drawn from Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. The art prints in this oversize poster book can be easily removed and framed, making it an ideal gift for Sondheim fans.

This first volume in a series of deluxe Hirschfeld poster books contains art drawn from life before the opening night of each of Sondheim’s productions. On the reverse side are rare, ancillary images from the archives, as well as an introduction by Bernadette Peters, an essay by Ben Brantley, and text by David Leopold, Hirschfeld’s archivist and creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation.

Hirschfeld’s images capture the essence of the performances even better than the photographs of the shows. All of Sondheim’s best-known plays are included—West Side Story, Follies, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, and Sunday in the Park with George.

Al Hirschfeld drew his first Sondheim show in 1957—West Side Story. In his iconic, illustrative style, Hirschfeld captured almost all of Sondheim’s Broadway shows and several films featuring the composer’s songs and scripts.

Sondheim was a Hirschfeld collector, acquiring drawings directly from the artist and through his friends and collaborators like Hal Prince. In his last interview just five days before his death on November 26, 2021, the New York Times ran a photo of Sondheim in his home with an image of Hirschfeld’s Putting it Together in the background.

All images for this book have been scanned from the archives of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, ensuring the highest possible quality.

That pretty much speaks for itself. This book is the work of a master cartoonist, one of the most acclaimed in the world, and his subject matter is the work of another master, acclaimed around the world.

It’s perfect for any fan of cartooning, musical theater, Hirschfeld or Sondheim. Hirschfeld’s Sondheim: A Poster Book can be ordered from any bookseller by using the ISBN code.

Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend
by Barry Joseph (Author)
Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1493085835
$35.00 (discounted at Amazon)

Coming from a completely different direction, this book looks at Sondheim, not so much as a brilliant songwriter and composer, but as a gifted creator of puzzles and games.

Again, I will let the publisher explain:

By near-universal consensus, Stephen Sondheim was the greatest musical theater composer of his generation-celebrated, among other things, for the wit, sophistication, and intricacy of shows from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George. But a less well-known avenue for his brilliance was his lifelong fascination with designing and constructing intricate puzzles and games, from treasure hunts to crosswords to parlor and board games.

Matching Minds with Sondheim is a journey into this rich but largely unmapped aspect of the composer’s creative life, illuminating how Sondheim’s playful designs delivered moments of clarity and connection for friends, colleagues, and anyone who’s ever been captivated by his genius. This book opens, for the first time, the door into what Sondheim called his “puzzler’s mind,” helping readers to better understand the man, his work, and-if they accept the challenge-themselves. Gaming expert Barry Joseph draws from over eighty years of Sondheim’s activities, including extremely rare and never-publicly-seen puzzles and game designs, scores of original interviews with the celebrity friends who played them, archival deep dives, and illuminating analysis from both puzzle designers and theater professionals from around the world. Packed with illustrations and insights, this book does more than describe Sondheim’s life in puzzles: It allows readers to match minds with the maestro by attempting to solve his puzzles and bring Sondheimian games into their own homes.

Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend is a great gift for the Sondheim fan who may have already devoured the other books devoted to the man who gave us Sweeny Tood, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and Into The Woods. It’s also a pretty swell gift idea for the gamer or cryptologist on your holiday shopping list.

Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend can be ordered from any bookseller by using the ISBN code.

Since it doesn’t take a lot to get Mel Larch to pay tribute to Sondheim, we had a pretty easy time putting together a new Curtain Call to tie into the above books.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, Mel had great time assembling a mixtape show dedicated to the late Broadway legend, who coincidentally passed away four years ago, today.

Drawing tracks from productions of “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” Sunday In The Park with George, Sweeny Todd and other classic shows, Mel brings you a fitting salute.

Check out the playlist:

Curtain Call 162

“Old Friends” sung by Stephen Sondheim
“Losing My Mind” sung by Bernadette Peters
“I’m Still Here” sung by Petula Clark
“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” sung by Imelda Staunton
“The Worst Pies in London” sung by Michael Ball and Maria Friedman
“Comedy Tonight” sung by Rob Brydon
“You Gotta Get A Gimmick” sung by Anna Jane Casey
“Send In The Clowns” sung by Judi Dench
“Side by Side” sung by Jack Cassidy and Chita Rivera
“Putting It Together” sung by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters and company
“Marry Me A Little” sung by Lauren Molina
“Bishop’s Song” sung by David Hyde Pierce”
“Sunday In The Park With George” sung by Bernadette Peters
“My Friends” sung by Michael Ball
“Old Friends” by the company of Old Friends

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A two-hour mini-marathon of classic episodes can be heard Mndays, starting at 9 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.