‘Tis The Season – Gift Ideas For The Book Lovers In Your Life

Christmas is right around the corner and with Thanksgiving over, this is the perfect time to talk about Christmas gifts! Finding gifts for that friend of yours who has an obsessive reading hobby with their head always in a book, it can be tough sometimes to figure out what to get them, especially when you don’t want to keep giving them only books year after year. We’ve come up with some gift ideas that we hope makes your gift shopping a little bit easier

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Giving your friend subscriptions to literary services is one of the best gifts you can give because they can use it to get books that they actually like and eliminates you having to guess and decide for them. Our recs:

• Audible Gift Subscription
• Book of the Month 
• Scribd – Unlike Audible, Scribd lets you have unlimited books a month

COOKBOOKS

I love cookbooks (Leggy here!) and I have a ton of them that I read and do not even make a single recipe out of. I love the ones where the authors take the time to write the background of each recipe where I feel like i’m reading a book instead of just a set of instructions. I like funny and literary books from professional chefs and home cooks from all around the world, it gives me an insight into various cultures through food. Some of my favorites (and recs)for the year:

• Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings books (the first is better than the second but they’re both still very accessible to the average cook)
• Ina Garten’s “Cook Like A Pro” is super good (you can never go wrong with Ina)
• Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines (Taynement actually got me this for my birthday!)

• From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes from Tha Boss Dogg’s Kitchen by Snoop Dogg

Also, there are plenty of cookbooks that are exclusively dedicated to recipes from books. How fun is that!:

• The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinal Bucholz
• The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black 

• The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages That Feature Them by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen

• If cocktails are more of their thing hit them up with Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist by Tim Ferdele. Besides the fun title, it is a fun cover.

STATIONERY 

Every book lover I know loves them some stationery. Our recs:

• Beautiful journals for the beginning of the year, actual book lover’s journals that lets your loved one record their books and reviews for the year.
• Personalized pencil and book websites that’ll let you print their favorite book quotes on any item you get. There are book lover’s post it notes, note cards, note pads, calendars.

So much you can do in this category. You can’t go wrong with this! Oh and etsy is a huge gold mine for gifts like these, they are a tad bit on the expensive side but on the plus side, you’d be supporting small businesses.

COFFEE TABLE BOOKS

Coffee table book add such beautiful visual components to fascinating subjects and interests. I love coffee table books and if I were a grown up I’d have one too! There are so many insightful, educative and funny coffee table books to choose from. Our recs:

• The Barack Obama Pete Souza picture book is still one of my favorites and is a throw back.
• The Diary Of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-portrait by Carlos Fuentes
• The Bucket List: 1000 Adventures Big and Small by Kath Stathers
• Buckingham Palace: The Interiors by Ashely Hicks (especially since people haven’t come down from the high of the Royal Wedding!)
• Havana: Split Seconds by Abe Kogan
• I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 

JEWELRY 

Yes, we love the finer things in life too. There are so many literary inspired jewelry out there that are beautiful and so unique. Diamonds and books are forever so why not put them together? There are so many everyday accessories your loved ones wear that can be customized to show off their book nerd pride in really unique ways – bracelets, rings, necklaces, watches etc. Once again, Etsy is a gold mine for things like these. Our recs:

• This literary bracelet cuff inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
• This beautiful Cheshire cat earring inspired by Alice in the Wonderland
• This beautiful book page bracelet with words from Outlander

HOME DECOR

This is for your friend who likes book and more books and would love to be surrounded by them at all times. Our recs:

• Some people loveeee the smell of old books and libraries and guess what? You can get people candles that smell exactly like that!
• It’s Christmas so this hymnal book wreath is the perfect early gift for book lover decorating.
• Book shaped night lights    and throw pillows with their favorite book quotes on them
• Really cool book shelves, book coasters, shot glasses and so much more!
• A whole slew of Harry Potter kitchen ware from Williams Sonoma such as HP Cookie Cutters

GOOD OL’ REGULAR BOOKS 

If you are brave and want to take a chance on getting your loved one an actual book that they’ll love, it’s good to do your homework first. Try to find out what their favorite books and genres actually are before giving them a book you think they’d enjoy. When gifting books it is very necessary to not just give books that you enjoyed but consider if this is a subject they are interested in. Our recs:

• We have so many recommendations on our blog by genres like cozy mysteries, romance novels, fantasy that you can’t go wrong as long as you do your homework.
• Celebrity memoirs by people you know they like, for example the new Michelle Obama book “Becoming” is currently the best selling book of the year, Gabrielle Union’s “We Are Going to Need More Wine” is still one of my favorite collection of essays.
• Anne Bogel’s “I’d Rather Be Reading”
• A book about their favorite TV show like Kelsey Miller’s “I’ll Be There For You – the one about Friends”.
• For the Beyonce lover in your life – Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism by Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley

BONUS

If you decide to give the gift of Michelle Obama’s “Becoming”, you could go all out and complete it with this journal and candle (below) that will provide inspiration for your loved one. These can be found here.

This was a fun post to curate for us and we really hope you find something your loved ones will truly enjoy. Have a lovely holiday season!

 

leggy & taynement

 

 

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