Booksgiving

Issue #59?

It’s no secret that I love books.

But I also have a pet peeve. . . I’m not a fan of receiving books as gifts. Yes, I know it sounds odd. It may be an extension of a general principle of not telling others what to do (except my kids who get an earful). A book is a significant commitment, and receiving a gift feels like an obligation to read when the book may be more interesting to the giver than the receiver. ?

Once, I opted to receive a gift card so I could buy the book I wanted. It worked out well (Pico Iyer’s A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, if you must know), but there’s something personal that seems lost in that exchange. ?

A friend has this principle called “Keep the love, return the gift” for these situations. “Return” could mean using the gift receipt to get another book, giving it to someone else who may really want it, etc. The important thing is the first part of that phrase. I like it. But it’s still not what I want to do as it requires work on the recipient’s part.

Then, recently, I befriended a bookstore owner who is a great supporter of the fight against autism and Parkinson’s (and has affected family). It all fell into place when my wife and I discussed it.

All we have to do is to ask people to tell us what they want, order it through my friend’s bookstore, and off we go to happily-ever-after land. So that’s what we did.

What’s cool is that we end up with a curated book recommendation list that’s unlike anything on websites, newspapers, or recommendation engines. Each one is a book desired by someone we know and now we have a fun list to revisit when looking for another book to enjoy. (The list is below if you’re interested)

This holiday season, ask a friend for a desired book and gift it – preferably through: https://www.wordsbookstore.com/about-us

Happy booksgiving! May your holiday be filled with love and light! ???

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Prize Winning/Notable Book/Author

James by Percival Everett

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Breaking Through: My Life in Science by Katalin Kariko

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Martyr by Kaveh Akbar

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips?

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Area X by Jeff VanderMeer

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

The Least of Us Sam Quinones

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Best American Short Stories 2024 by Lauren Groff

Author Repeat

The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Eruption by Michael Crichton, James Patterson

A Case of Need by Michael Crichton

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Food and Nature Books

An Immense World by Ed Yong

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan and David Allen Sibley

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Ottolenghi Comfort, A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh

The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread

The Fermentation Kitchen by Sam Cooper

Garden Grown by Julia Dzafic

Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking by Krish Ashok

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Fantasy

Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolf, Ada Palmer

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Murtagh by Christopher Paolini

We Shall Be Monsters by Alyssa Wees

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

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How To/Guide

How to Build a Car by Adrian Newey

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization by Hungry Minds

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Entertainment

Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino

From a Certain Point of View by Olivie Blake, Saladin Ahmed, Charlie Jane Anders

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Putting it Together: How Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George” by James Lapine

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Thief

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

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Political-ish

Love Your Enemies by Arthur Brooks

Erasing History by Jason Stanley

The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Lionel Giles

Created Equal by Michael Pack, Mark Paoletta

Nature, Culture and Inequality by Thomas Piketty

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Architecture and Poetry

Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton

Manual of Section – Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David J. Lewis

A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost

Actual Air by David Berman

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Toughness

Embrace the Suck by Brent Gleeson

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

81 Days Below Zero by Brian Murphy

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Other

Going Infinite by Michael Lewis

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

Happy Go Lucky by David Sedaris

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder

The Custom of the Sea by Neil Hanson

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

This is Strategy by Seth Godin

If You Tell a Lie by Lucinda Berry

Rusty Brown by Chris Ware

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

I Owe You by Sophie Kinsella

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Gods, Demons and Others by R.K. Narayan?

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo

The River Why by David James Duncan

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

The Source by James A. Michener

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop, Amy Sherman-Palladino

Quarter-life by Satya Doyle Byock

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly

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