From a sleek espresso machine and leather-trimmed gloves to the coziest cashmere zip-up and high-tech headphones, these are the best Valentine’s Day gift ideas for the most special guy.

Certainly no more so than the 4-ton pile of cow manure with a sign reading, “To Alice on Mother’s Day” the beloved South Carolina author Havilah Babcock once gave his wife. We writers have long known ...