Books as gifts
Gifting someone a book is a nerve-racking and complicated experience, right? Or am I just unbearably neurotic?
In theory, books are the perfect present. They are cheap (especially if you buy second hand), easy to personalise, and rectangular, which makes them very easy to wrap. I love to receive books as gifts, especially if they have handwritten inscriptions.
An aside: I also love to borrow from friends; having a novel pressed into my hands at a flat party with the accompanying words: “you will love this” is my very favourite way to receive a book loan, apart from maybe having someone press a novel into your hands with the accompanying words: “I hated this, but I want to know what you think.” There is nothing more seductive to me than another persons hatred.; I immediately have to watch/read/consume the controversial thing.
But anyway, buying books for people is difficult and here’s why.
I recently went on holiday with my boyfriend, my parents, my sister and her husband, and their two kids. I had the bright idea to buy a book for each of them to read while we were away (the kids were excluded from this plan, but I’ll throw in a toddler book rec at the end of this post anyway, as a special treat). I came up with this idea a few months before the holiday and bathed smugly in the pool of my own generosity for a while before I realised that I had given myself a trickier task than I first envisioned. Now, I am back from my week away, suntanned, sleepy and teetering on the edge of scurvy (I ate a lot of baklava), I am here to share what I have learned.
Boyfriend
My boyfriend is a big reader, and we make a point of reading a lot of the same books so we can chit and chat about them. We’ve both been reading quite a lot of literary fiction and classic novels lately, and while those kind of books are banging, they aren’t always the perfect holiday read. Matthew’s favourite genres for comfort reading and nostalgia are fantasy and science fiction, so I wanted to get him something smart and fun without the kind of elaborate prose that one may or may not struggle with after four poolside cocktails. The difficulty I ran into was that he has read most of the really popular novels in his preferred genres, and I am relatively inexperienced with said genres and therefore did not have many suggestions for niche stuff. Cue, bookstagram! I searched around for sci fi and fantasy books that were being recommended a lot, and I also searched up some of his favourites and applied the ever fruitful phrase - for fans of
My pick - Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
This novel, written by the same guy who wrote The Martian, is about the sole survivor of a space mission who is the last hope for a dying humanity etc. etc. blah blah blah. Lol, I’m only joking, but it’s not really my bag. I saw this recommended loads by bookish content creators whose taste I respect, and there were lots of blurbs from authors I know my boyfriend likes: Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Tim Peake (I know he is an astronaut not a writer but men love space so I feel like I should mention it anyway). I’m determining this choice a great success because he raced through it in two days and said it reminded him of the film Arrival, which is one of his faves.
Dad
My dad is a very smart man who almost exclusively reads fiction aimed at young teenage girls. He likes anything supernatural or fantastic: zombies, vampires, werewolves, faeries, dragons etc. and this means that he has, to my shame, read all of the Twilight books and enjoyed the series more than me or my sister. Non-fiction wise, he likes stuff about politics and housing, and the occasional Bill Bryson-esque pop-science kind of thing. I’ve bought him some fantasy novels in the past like Howl’s Moving Castle and The Dispossessed, but he never quite got round to them and so I wanted to buy him something he would actually read. And before you ask, yes he has read the Game of Thrones books and yes he liked them (and so did I). So I thought I’d veer towards non-fiction.
My pick - Politics on the Edge, Rory Stewart
My Dad loves talking about all the ways that Tories have fucked things up and he also (like most everyone I know) feels very disillusioned with the current state of politics in the UK, so, I thought he might enjoy this memoir of Stewart’s years in parliament which deals with the myriad of ways in which the British politics are broken. I thought this might be a tricky sell given that Rory Stewart was a conservative MP, but I knew that my Dad would get a lot out of it if he went in with an open mind. In the end the problem was not the author but the enormity of the hardback I ordered. I listened to this one on audiobook so I didn’t realise quite how long it was, and when it arrived I knew immediately it would be too bulky for holiday reading, and especially for my dad who reads mainly on a kindle or an ipad. Ah well, knowledge for next time! I should have given him a tenner and told him to buy it himself in e-book form. But it wouldn’t feel quite the same!
Brother-in-law
This was by far my hardest pick because unlike everyone else in my family, my sister’s husband is not a big reader. But what on earth does he spend his free time doing??? I hear you gasp, and I regret to inform you that he is a sports person. Despite this setback, I didn’t want to leave him out altogether, and furthermore I believe that there are no true non-readers, just readers-in-waiting. You just have to find the right book, and therein lies the key to unlocking an enriching reading life. So, no pressure! In the end, I took a recommendation from the guy who owns my favourite wine shop in Glasgow (Any Marchtown loverzzzz leave your support in the comments). We were talking about books as I was paying my tab once evening, and he told me that he hadn’t read anything cover to cover in years, but that this one non-fiction book had hooked him from the very beginning.
My pick - The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson
This is the only book on the list that I haven’t actually read, but I definitely will at some point. I’m not a big non-fic girly, but this book about H.H Holmes (a man widely considered to be the first serial killer) and the architect Daniel Burnham is supposed to be written in a novelistic style that keeps readers glued to the page. It’s marketed as nonfiction that reads like narrative fiction (I felt like this when I was reading One Summer by Bill Bryson) and I thought that would be a good pick for someone who is newish to reading but loves general knowledge facts and is great in a pub quiz. I am going to rate this choice as a success even though only thirty or forty pages were actually read on the holiday, because he said he liked it and he is a parent to two very small children and therefore has little to no free time to read .
Sister
This one was easy! My sister likes novels and tends towards easy to read stories that are compulsive and comforting. She also doesn’t have much time to read because of the whole parenting situation so I thought this one might be good for those pockets of time during the wee hours that new mother’s often spend breastfeeding (and, so I hear, online shopping. If you’re reading this, Geni, maybe it’s time to step away from the ASOS premier delivery).
My pick: Hello beautiful, Ann Napolitano
This book is huge for a reason. Hello beautiful is a big, weepy family drama about the Padavano sisters and the man that entangles himself with them. Touted as a modern Little Women (but with added male perspective!!!! Which was unexpectedly my favourite part!!!) this was a lovely emotional read that I know she will enjoy. When she gets round to it; those pesky kids!
Mother
This novel was the easiest to gift, and the inspiration behind the whole family-holiday-book-buying-extravaganza in the first place. My mum loves novels about families and motherhood, and she also loves anything set on or around Cape Cod, where she made a pilgrimage for her sixtieth birthday.
My pick - Sandwich, Catherine Newman
I’ve already waxed lyrical about how much I loved this book (See my post Everything I read in September.) so I’ll talk about why I wanted my mum to read this instead. She started reading Sandwich straight away, and told me she loved it almost immediately. We talked about my Grampa (who died last August) a lot on this holiday, and our conversations reminded me of some of the plot points in this novel, which is set in that strange limbo period in a middle-aged persons life where they are old enough to have grown up children but young enough to have living parents. I was happy to gift my mum a book about a family holiday while we were actually on a family holiday, even if ours wasn’t as tranquil as the one depicted here. Three year olds hate tranquility, they prefer ice cream and yelling.
So, there you have it! A very niche gift guide for family book buying or a ramble about the nuances of my families personalities. I would highly recommend buying people books for no particular reason; not only did I get lots of points for being the best girlfriend/daughter/sister/in-law, I also really enjoyed matching the people I love up with books. But don’t tell anyone. I’ll be back soon with my roundup of everything I read on holiday. Bye sexy! xo
Finally, as a surprise for getting to the end of this actually quite long post, a kids book recommendation! I got my three year old niece a couple of the Little People, Big Dreams books for her birthday and she really loved them. They are simply written biographies about musicians, politicians, activists, athletes etc. with very cute illustrations. It’s a great way to introduce the small people in your life to public figures and they aren’t as boring to read over and over as other kids books. I got my niece the Dolly Parton and Emmeline Pankhurst ones, because I want my niece to be very glamorous and also a feminist.