With Christmas now less than two weeks away, I’m starting to get that ever so slightly panicky feeling. I think that people generally divide into two types: those who are incredibly organised, start early and finish most of their Christmas shopping by Black Friday; and those of us who can’t even think about it until the first window on the Advent calendar is open (at the earliest!) and then get it all done in a frenzy in the last week or so. I am in the latter category. If that’s you too, then you might still be looking for gift ideas. Last week I posted three blogs of book recommendations for children and adults, but I recognise that it’s not always easy to choose a book for someone else.
So, if you know a book lover, but can’t necessarily predict what they might like, here are a few ideas for you.
Bookends

I’ve seen loads of these this year, and they are great because you can combine two interests that your recipient has, eg bookends in the shape of bikes, dogs, children’s characters and many more. The Literary Gift Company has a great selection.
Tote bags
I have picked more canvas bags from courses, conferences and open day events than ever I had plastic bags! Most are just cheap advertising and will probably end up in landfill, sadly, but the literary ones I’ve seen are just beautiful. I love the Penguin classics ones which come in a whole range of titles.
Stationery

In my experience, most book lovers are also stationery lovers and list makers. There are some fabulous notebooks with literary covers, notecards, pens and pencils. My blog and websites like Goodreads enable me to keep track of what I’ve read these days, but I still love a reading journal. I love all the notebooks in the Listography range and the literary themed one is great too. Available from the obvious high street outlets and online retailers.
Bookmarks
It’s an expensive time of year and sometimes you just need a little token. Bookmarks are wonderful for popping into a card and can be as simple or as elaborate as you want, can convey a warm message, humour, be beautiful or functional (eg have a reading light on the end!). Go as cheap or as pricey as you want, maybe even make yourself, like these gorgeous watercolour ones from The Hob-bee Hive
Games

Particularly good for kids, for example, there’s a great range of Roald Dahl themed options, such as Matilda playing cards and a game in the Brain Box range. There is also Roald Dahl Monopoly and, for the grown-ups, ‘Bookopoly’.
I hope that has given you a few ideas. There is always, of course, the option of a book token, either for a specific store or a National Book Token. Again, great for kids as it will actually get them into the bookshop, browsing and making them think about what they’d like to read.
If you have enjoyed this post, I would love for you to follow my blog. Let’s also connect on social media.
Becoming by Michelle Obama





Ottolenghi Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi


The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator – Matilda Woods
Ladybird Tales of Adventurous Girls
Dog Man Lord of the Fleas – Dav Pilkey
Flamingo Boy – Michael Morpurgo


Dumplin’ – Julie Murphy









Cooking Up a Storm: The teen survival cookbook – Sam Stern & Susan Stern
As I have been told many times by some of the people in my household, today is the official start of Christmas as it is the first Sunday of Advent (sounds like a bit of an excuse to me since we are not a religious family). Not quite feeling it myself yet, but then I tend to prefer to hold off for another week or two so as not to feel too exhausted by it all when the big day finally arrives. There is no doubt though, when you have children, or just a larger extended family with some children in it, you kind of have to get a little organised otherwise things can get a bit stressful.
Nell is in her late teens and lives with her father, a very religious alcoholic, and her sister, Harper, who has cancer. They are from Manchester but moved to Norway, ostensibly for Harper’s medical treatment. The girls’ mother, we learn, left when they were young and they have had no contact since. Nell is a confused young woman; she is the primary carer for her sister, their father either working or incapable most of the time, and she wants to be a singer-songwriter back in Britain, but finds herself cut off from any possibility of making a career in that field. She attends a local school where she experiences bullying and isolation. She decides to go back to the UK, without her family’s knowledge, for an audition, but gets into a spot of bother en route and meets Lukas, a handsome but mysterious boy. At first it appears he rescues her but we learn later that he in fact engineered the whole episode in order to entrap her.
I have made an exception and decided to read Notes on a Nervous Planet again. I’m surprised at how different the reading experience is versus listening. Firstly, the author has a wonderful reading voice and I suppose because it is non-fiction and is very much about his experiences of anxiety and depression, you can sense that it comes straight from the heart. I really think that the narrator of an audiobook plays such an important role in the experience. For example, I loved Hilary Huber’s narration of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, but I struggled with the reading of 1984 by Andrew Wincott…who is Adam in The Archers. I just couldn’t get Adam out of my head!
The books open in 1988 when the central character Frank opens a music shop in a rundown area (Unity Street) of an unnamed city. Frank is passionate about music, something that was instilled in him by his late mother, the eccentric Peg. It is probably the only the good thing that Frank got from her, and as the book goes on, we learn much about the lack of love and security in his childhood. This is important as it helps us to understand Frank’s actions later on. The other thing that Frank is passionate about is vinyl; he refuses to sell either cassette tapes or the new-fangled CDs in his shop, much to the chagrin of the salesmen who tell him he is a dinosaur and will have to change with the times. They gradually abandon him.
The story concerns Romy Hall, a young woman whom we first meet in a prison van en route to Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, somewhere in California. Romy was convicted of a brutal murder and has been given two life sentences plus six years. Romy worked as a lap dancer at The Mars Room nightclub in San Francisco and it was a former customer at the nightclub that she killed. Romy is at once similar but different to her fellow convicts. For one thing she has a seven year old child, Jackson, whose welfare she becomes increasingly concerned about during her incarceration, and she also completed high school, so she is considerably more educated than many of those around her.
So much so that I had to have a break from all the heaviness to read something a little more uplifting and which didn’t tax my brain quite so much. I wasn’t very well last week and simply couldn’t face into The Mars Room (next on my Man Booker list) – if you have heard it is bleak, well it is! So far (not quite finished it yet). So, with my blanket, hot water bottle and cups of tea to hand I settled onto the sofa and read Rachel Joyce’s The Music Shop cover to cover in one day. I simply could not put it down.
This book came to my attention last year. I really liked the sound of it and recommended it in one of my ‘what to look our for this season’ blogs, so it was on my TBR list. Then I saw Rachel speak at a Writers & Artists Conference I was at in September. She was such a wonderful speaker, really warm, authentic and engaging, that I had to get a copy of this book and have been eager to start it. It was a joy and just what I needed, when I was feeling unwell and when my brain was starting to hurt from the Man Booker. Look out for my review of The Music Shop next week.