Have a book lover on your shopping list? Everyone puts out a list of the best books or book-adjacent items for you to peruse, but I think I have the best suggestion of all.
Oprah still has her book club and she also posts “50 Gifts the Book Lovers in Your Life Will Adore,” some of which are pretty nifty. You can find plenty of similar lists online with a little bit of searching.
Naturally, I want to put a plug in for local authors who aren’t necessarily mentioned by national book clubs and bookstores. Browsing author fairs is a great way to find books that may be overlooked elsewhere. If you can’t get to a fair now, when you are ready to shop, search online for local author fairs that happened recently. All of the fairs that I attended this fall posted a web page listing the authors, their books, and contact info.
I am also a local author with books, of course. Although even my own books are not “The Best” gift for every booklover, maybe one would be a good fit for someone on your list:
- Agatha Annotated: Investigating the Books of the 1920s is perfect for Agatha Christie fans. Since she was writing over one hundred years ago, there are plenty of references that are unfamiliar to today’s reader. The mystery stays the same, but it’s much more fun to read it with this extra knowledge.
- Ruth by Lake and Prairie is a “Little House”-style story of a real girl who came to Illinois with her family in 1831. There is also a Ruth by Lake and Prairie Activity Book with word puzzles, dot-to-dots, easy recipes, and more that are a companion to the story.
- Book Rookie has great advice for folks who are newly published or are about to publish. I talked with fellow writers and gathered up their input on what basics are important for new authors when establishing their platform, taking part in author fairs, and so on.
- Six Degrees of Abraham Lincoln and Haunted by History are both breezy reads, a sort of “history lite” for folks who don’t want to commit to a big, dry volume.
There – marketing tasks out of the way, here is my top gift suggestion for book lovers:
Gifts such as new books, warm socks, and hot tea are a delightful promise, but what folks really want is permission to step away from their schedules and actually fulfill that promise. Giving someone a few hours of time is really the best book-related gift.
In Iceland, there’s a tradition called Jólabókaflóð, in which people read new books together on Christmas Eve while enjoying chocolate. Frankly, my Christmas Eve and Day are both stuffed full of activity, so curling up with a book is just not going to happen.
When our children were young, my husband gifted me a pricey subscription to a magazine about English country living, along with the promise that every month, when the magazine arrived, he would make sure I had some uninterrupted time to enjoy reading it.
Today, my responsibilities are different, but it’s still hard to step away and spend whole hours just reading for pleasure. I’m sure many of your loved ones are in a similar position. So this year, when giving your book lover a reading-themed gift, don’t forget to also give them time to actually read. That is truly the ultimate book lover’s gift!
Photo by Muhtelifane