Gifts for Book Lovers

I love reading other people's lists about what to buy the book lover in your life during the Christmas season, so I thought I would do some checking around and find some things that I personally would recommend.  Here we go:

1. Reading Journals.  One day this past year the weirdest thing happened to me.  I received two reading journals from two completely different sets of people in my life, and it wasn't Christmas or my birthday.  Believe me, I felt loved.


This one is called Reading Journal:  For Book Lovers.  My two aunts, Amy and Susie (aside:  these are the wonderful women who introduced me to Jane Austen...I will be forever grateful), gave this to me because they know that reading is the passion of my life.  It is a nice little hardback with many pages to list individual books you have read.  It actually gives you two pages per book, including space for the title, author, rating, category, date started and finished, notes about the book and what subjects that book inspired you to learn about.  Then, randomly through the journal are pages for such things as favorite authors, books, children's books, places to read, and quotes from books.  There are also several other pages for various book trivia related specifically to you.  This includes such things as a page of literary superlatives (books that made me laugh the most, books that made me cry, characters I'd most want to be, places in books I would want to visit, etc.), a flow chart mapping how one book lead to others, literary face-offs (If I were an Austen heroine I'd be...; If I were a literary villain I'd be..., etc.), and several others.  My favorite aspect of this particular journal, though, is that there are several book lists in the back with boxes you can check off as you read the books.  These lists include several lists of awards like Pulitzer Prize Winners and Man Booker Prize Winners, as well as others; The Modern Library:  100 Best Novels; The Readers' List; BBC Top 100 Reads; Time Magazine Top 100 Novels; Oprah's Book Club Picks; and genre lists including Adventure favorites, Epic Novel favorites, Gothic/Horror favorites, Graphic Novel favorites, International favorites, Mystery/Detective favorites, as well as Romance, Science Fiction, and Spy Novels favorites.  Despite the length of this blog entry, I have not listed everything included.  I love this little book.

My Best-Friend-Since-Kindergarten gave me this journal.  I have used it so much.  It has three general sections:  Books to Read, Favorite Books and Passages, and Books Borrowed and Lent.  I constantly have books and DVD's lent out, and this journal has been invaluable in helping me keep track.  Thanks, Wendy!  I would recommend this journal for the person who is creative and needs a little less guidance in figuring out what to read and how to write about books, or who just wants to generally keep track.

There are many other journals about books out there, and almost any would be good for the reader in your life.  I linked to these two because I happen to be familiar with them and like them both a lot.

2. Books about books.  I have so many books about books, that I could not begin to list them all, so I thought I would highlight my two favorites, Book Lust and More Book Lust, both by Nancy Pearl.  (I want to assure those of you that know me personally that these books are not about lustful books.  They are about lust for books).  These books are permanent residents of my night stand.  Nancy Pearl is a librarian-cum-NPR commentator-cum-literature professor who authored/compiled these charming little books organized into categories you will never see anywhere else.  If there is a genre within genre within genre that you read, you will find it in her tables of contents.  Some examples of her categories of books include American History (a list of fiction and a list of nonfiction); A Dickens of a Tale; First Novels; Humor; I Love a Mystery; 100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade; Fiction for Foodies; Winston Churchill (various biographies); Florida Fiction; You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover; Russian Heavies; King Arthur; A...My Name is Alice; and I could go on and on.  Between the two books she has over 200 categories, so if you are casting about for your next read, if you have these two books handy, you will be able to find something that interests you.  Amongst the categories of books, she also lists various authors that are "Too Good to Miss."  When you turn to one of these sections in her books, you will find a brief description of the author's writing, as well as a list of his or her works.  Examples of authors that are too good to miss are P.G. Wodehouse, Lee Child, Ian McEwan, Carol Shields, and Iris Murcoch, among many others.

3. Kindle or NOOK (or iPad).  I'll let you do your research...WiFi or 3G, Color or E Ink...so many choices.

I actually just bought a NOOK color and  I am mostly happy with it, although, I can certainly see the advantages of going with a Kindle.  I bought the NOOK Color because of the color touch screen and because so far this is the only eReader that is backlit.  I have found several disadvantages, though.  Since it is a color screen, it does not have the amazing eInk and will be very difficult to read outside.  It is also only WiFi...no 3G model yet, so I can only get my books instantly if I am in a WiFi Hotspot, and since we don't have WiFi at our house yet, this is a problem.  When I bought it I thought I would be able to sync it to the computer with the included USB cable, but so far this is not possible.  The USB cable is only for adding pictures, music, and I think short videos to the NOOK.  I am hoping that they have a software update that allows you to sync from the website, as I'm told by a friend this is possible on the regular NOOK.

This is the wave of the future, folks, and even though I will never be completely without books with paper pages (Heaven forbid!), I am excited that I will be able to store so many books without taking up so much space in the house.  Do you think they will ever be able to invent a NOOK or Kindle with that new book smell, though?

By the way, don't buy the NOOK products through these Amazon links.  Buy them from Barnes and Noble.  Amazon has these prices jacked up way higher than they are at B&N because NOOK is the Kindle's biggest competitor.


More to come soon...