Bookclubs’ Gift Ideas For Book Lovers

Just a few days left to shop for your bookish fam and friends! Bookclubs is here to help you with some last-minute gift ideas for all the readers on your list. You can even gift your favorite bookclubber a subscription to Bookclubs' new Shelf Service, our book delivery service that automatically mails a copy of your latest book club book so that you never get behind on your book club reading again!

Books make fantastic presents for even the pickiest recipients – you can never have too many!  Curated by our staff, these recommendations – for everyone from the foodie to the history buff to the romantic  – are sure to satisfy.

When shopping this holiday season, we encourage you to support independent bookstores when you can.  If you’re doing your shopping online, you can still support your local bookstore by shopping through Bookshop.org for hardbacks and paperbacks, and Libro.fm for audiobooks.  A portion of the profits from every sale goes directly to independent bookstores. Check out their great holiday promotions and support local book sellers – and Bookclubs – when you shop online this holiday season.

 

 

1. What better gift than Bookclubs gear for the favorite book clubber in your life?  With an "Ask me about my book club" mug, your gift recipient will never run out of water cooler conversation.

2.  In addition to mugs and water bottles, our chic Bookclubs sweatshirts, tees and totes can be ordered up until December 4 for Christmas delivery.

3. For the book lover who seems to have read everything, Bibliophile: Diverse Spines is a beautifully illustrated book of book recommendations that both looks good on the coffee table and serves as inspiration for what to read next.  Comes as a calendar too, and if you like the illustrations you can also check out the original Bibliophile book, notecards, or reading journal.

4. For the epicurean book lover, Tequila Mockingbird pairs favorite books with cocktail recipes.  Gift it with a bottle of liquor, a cocktail shaker set, or cocktail glasses.  

 

 

Have a gift recipient who never seems to find enough time for reading? No problem!  These short story and essay collections make it easy to read just a little bit at a time.

1.  Inciting Joy is a beautifully-written collection of essays that explores how the connections between us can create joy.

2.  Featuring dazzling snapshots of life in a Cambodian immigrant community in California, Afterparties brims with life and wry, affectionate humor.  

3.  Shit Cassandra Saw is a fun and furious debut collection of short stories that rewrites womanhood with a cast of complex, contradictory, brave and bizarre heroines.

4.  We loved this Bookclubs Author Chat pick by up-and-coming Irish talent Niamh Mulvey. Her debut collection, Hearts and Bones, explores what love does to us, and how we survive it.

 

 

1. Peter Serpico was born in Korea but adopted at age 2 and raised in Maryland, so he learned Korean cooking as an adult.  Serpico worked for David Chang at Momofuku before branching out with his own eponymous restaurant in Philadelphia. Despite Serpico's high end bona fides, Learning Korean is an approachable cookbook for the home cook.    

2. We love a cookbook that also tells a story, and actor and restaurateur Danny Trujo's cookbook, Trujo's Tacos, is full of both outstanding Mexican recipes and tales from his own eventful life.  

3. From classic recipes to inventive flavor combinations and toppings, The Perfect Scoop is the home ice cream maker's bible.  David Lebovitz's intro stories are always a joy to read as well.  Pair it with an ice cream maker and hope that your gift recipient makes some for you!   

4. Ina Garten's cookbooks always make great gifts; they're beautiful, easy to follow, and her recipes are reliably delicious. Go-to Dinners is perfect for anyone looking to add go-to recipes to their family meal rotation from one of America's favorite chefs.

 

 

1. True Biz is an entertaining novel, but it will also open your eyes to the rich cultural history and ongoing challenges faced by the deaf community.  The tour through the grammar and history of American Sign Language is a highlight.  

2. His Name is George Floyd is a riveting account of the man, and of the societal forces that shaped his life and death.  Not to be missed.  

3.  An engrossing memoir of family and the lasting impacts of living with undocument status, Children of the Land highlights the human ramifications of US immigration policy.   

4.  From the author of the fantastic novel Sing, Unburied Sing, Men We Reaped is a focused memoir exploring the whys of the lives and deaths of five young black men that the author lost at far too young an age.  

 

 

1. The cutest future bookworm onesie or t-shirt for the littlest future readers

2. Little You is a beautiful and sweet board book to celebrate the special little one in your life

3. The latest from the award-winning author / illustrator combo of Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson (Last Stop on Market Street, Carmela Full of Wishes), Milo Imagines the World delivers an important lesson about not judging a book by its cover.   

 

 

1.  How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency. Odell sees our attention as the most precious--and overdrawn--resource we have. For anyone interested in this book, join the public Creative Mornings Book Club. 

2.  Just in time for the cold weather! Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times offers up an inspiring portrait of winter not as a barren but rather a transformative period of "withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.” 

3.  Pollan's examination of the therapeutic uses of psychedelics covers everything from the history of traditional, medical, and recreational psychedelic use and scientific research to the experience of using them and Western cultural implications. Gift How to Change Your Mind to anyone curious about concepts of consciousness, acceptance, and healing. 

4.  Written by a Zen Buddhist monk, A Tale for the Time Being is one of those rare novels that engrosses you fully while also teaching you about philosophy and forcing you to think about the nature of existence. 

 

 

1. For those who like a side of social satire with their romance, The Arc skewers the tech startup/VC world, the over the top women's health industry, and our general over-consumerism while still serving up a fun love story between two deftly realized characters.

2.  CoHo fans rejoice: It Starts With Us, the highly anticipated follow up to It Ends With Us digs into Lily and Atlas's love story from Atlas's perspective. The perfect gift for contemporary romance readers and anyone curious about Colleen Hoover and her reign over the bestseller charts.

3.  A quirky romance that lovingly pokes fun at the genre's tropes, Book Lovers centers the hard-nosed city professional who inevitably gets dumped when the hero of a more traditional novel meets a sweet small town girl.   

4.  Young Mungo is the brilliant second novel about queer love and working-class families from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain. The titular protagonist works hard to hide his true self from all those around him but dreams of a future where he can be himself with his friend and lover, James. 

 

 

1. Anyone who has read her diary (and who hasn't?) will be completely absorbed by The Betrayal of Anne Frank.  The book follows a group of investigators and a retired FBI agent who uncover every stone and employ modern investigative techniques to answer the question: who exactly betrayed Anne and her family, leading the Nazis to their door after over 700 days in hiding?

2.  Hollywood's Eve captures the zeitgeist of 60s and 70s Hollywood through its recounting of the eccentric life & times of Eve Babitz, self-proclaimed adventuress, visual artist, writer and LA It Girl.  

3.  Empire of Pain follows three generations of the Sackler family and the mark they leave on the world, culminating with the opioid epidemic.  For fans of intergenerational sagas and anyone curious about just how we ended up in this devastating public health crisis.  

4.  The story of one woman returning to her homeland, South to America explores the history, culture and people of the American South.