At home this Christmas

Robots are slaves without the guilt factor and, in this version of the future, everyone is sensibly taking full advantage. But what if technological advances have taken robotkind further than their masters planned? What if they are now capable of disobedience, even crime? And what if - as technophobe cop Will Smith is starting to believe - they've decided to act on that capability? Based on an Isaac Asimov story, this is a cracking futuristic thriller with a higher than usual IQ level. This special edition has a whole disc of superb extras, including hidden eggs.

CD
Various: Ronnie Scott's Forty Five
UJC/Universal

Hard-pressed for a gift for the jazz-lover in your life? This double-CD celebration of 45 years of the much-loved Frith Street jazz club is one solution. With tracks by everyone from Herbie Hancock to Diana Krall, the inclusions are predictable and far too weighted towards the present. There are huge gaps, since some players failed to record with Universal, but it's hard to argue with Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin or Regina Carter - and why would anyone want to try?

Book
Great Ideas by various authors
Penguin, £3.99 each

There are 20 books in this series, sold separately, but together forming an accessible introduction to the history of Western thought. Ranging from Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life to George Orwell's Why I Write, each neat, pocket-sized book contains a philosophical tract or piece of political writing that in some way changed the course of history. Some are well known - Virginia Woolf's feminist polemic A Room Of One's Own; others well known but barely read, such as Arthur Schopenhauer's On The Suffering Of The World. You can accuse Penguin of dumbing-down philosophy with a marketing ploy, but you cannot deny that the project is a great idea.