Want to buy books as gifts this holiday season? Start with these recommended choices

Good books worth considering for gifts for family and friends this holiday season.

It has begun. 

Beginning with that blackest of Fridays just days ago, you are expected to shop. You will be tempted and taunted with deals and steals, and retailers nationwide will urge you to indulge your consumerist inclinations.

We book people are not immune from this lust and greed. We, too, want you to shop your hearts out. But we do put ourselves a step above those other retailers, for the goods with which we entice you are good for you. We want you to buy our books, in print or digital form, take them home, and enrich your lives — and those of your families and friends.

This time of year, publishers pump out their best, gift-y-est, and often priciest and prettiest volumes to lure you to select books as gifts during this holiday season.

I have recently joined the ranks of the retailers; a few weeks ago my husband and I opened a small (and by small, I mean tiny) independent bookstore in Elkins Park called Open Book.

So which books in particular should you consider? Here’s a quick run-down of what’s caught my fancy and what I’ve read and liked lately.

Fabulous, quirky and really well-written novel by an author you may never have heard of but should have: May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes (and then go read more of her books).

Also on the dark and noir side: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters—a war widow and her daughter fallen on hard times take in boarders.

Terrific first novels:

The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland: a transcriptionist (yes, it’s a dying art) at a major NY newspaper has an odd random encounter with a blind woman on a bus that sets off a chain of events.

The Undertaking by Audrey Magee: this Irish journalist looks at WWII from the point of view of a German soldier and his bride from a marriage arranged by Nazis; a unique and interesting POV on the war.

Interesting non-fiction:
What If? by Randall Munroe, author of the popular online comic xkcd—great book for science geeks.

So We Read On: NPR’s Maureen Corrigan explores the stories behind the writing and publication of her favorite novel (and mine!), The Great Gatsby.

There are lots of new memoirs this season from many different perspectives:

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

So, Anyway…by John Cleese

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

My Brief History by Stephen Hawking

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

I always love to reread classics, so here are two I’ve recently reread and re-loved:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Oh, there’s so, so much more — I could go on! But I’ll wrap up with a list of the books on my bedside table waiting in line for my attention — all great fiction and all available now in paperback:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

& Sons by David Gilbert

Postscript:

I was pleased to see President Obama publicly supporting independent bookstores. The media covered his trip to Washington's well-known Politics & Prose bookstore. According to The New York Times, the president purchased 17 books. If you want to read what the president is reading, or get some good gift tips from his list of books bought, here are some of his selections:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (just won the National Book Award for young adult lit)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (also an NBA nominee)
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (I recently read and wrote about that one!)
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos (also an NBA winner for non-fiction)
The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Dr. Atul Gawande
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (just won the Man Booker prize)