I find them a difficult gift otherwise, because even if you know the person’s taste, you never know if they have it already…

I have been trying to convince my family for YEARS, not to buy me anything BUT an Amazon gift card, and last year was the first time I could see any movement toward that goal. I like the idea of being able to pick out my own books and really, really appreciate being able to do so through a gift card.

So, yes, books do make a perfect gift for a reader…as long as you let the reader choose it for herself….are you seeing this family!?

I only give books if I know someone is into something new – our Godson was into drawing and admitted he was having problems drawing hands – I went and found a book on drawing the human anatomy so that when he opened the book I could help him look up the drawings I had seen and hope that the book would be helpful.

Another friend does wire jewelry making so I found a book on more advanced wire work as he was getting the tools but was having a bit of a hard time with the movement – luckily a DVD also came with the book just in case he is a visual learner like I am.

Another thing I will do is if I know what kind of books someone reads, I go to Amazon where there are lists of readers favourite books – so if I type in Robert Ludlum, I would get suggestions for other authors I might want to try. I admit, some are hit and miss but it’s better than a shot in the dark.

I also find it funny and a touch frustrating that my family only gives me book gift cards every once in a while. I get it, you don’t want to do the same thing every year but now that my mother only asks for Movie Gift Certificates for all events in which she gets a gift, I think she’s much more open to me and my Book gift cards

Cindy

However, I agree that it’s important to have some idea of the recipient’s tastes and preferences. Since I read across many genres, I usually find something to match every taste. Sometimes, however, you get duds. My Dad had zero interest in the Patrick O’Brian novel I bought him, though he had the entire Horatio Hornblower series on his shelves and supposedly liked nautical fiction (it later turned out that he may have owned the Hornblowers, but never read them). He had zero interest in the critically acclaimed crime novel set on Cuba I bought him, though he visited Cuba several times. He had zero interest in the humourous novel set aboard a cruise ship, though he used to build cruise ships for a living. He had zero interest in the DVD box set of Sons of Anarchy I got him, though he loves riding his motorbike. So now he gets socks or shirts or the like.

As for myself, I was a voracious reader as a kid and was always happy to receive books as presents. But I never read the books I got from one particular aunt, unless I was seriously short on reading matter. Because that aunt let her daughter, my cousin, pick the books. And my cousin was studying to be a teacher at the time and therefore always picked important books of high pedagogic value about the holocaust or poverty or the dangers of drugs or other depressing topics, which I inevitably hated. Coincidentally, that same cousin recently gave me a book for my birthday and once again she managed to pick something that I have very little interest in (literary women’s fiction about frustrated wives and mothers).

As a teenager I used to draw up wishlists of books I would have loved to get (and still got clothes I didn’t like and ugly bedsheets more often than not). Nowadays, I use the wishlist features of online retailers instead. I’m always happy to get gift cards, but gift cards or money were considered “too impersonal” in my family when I was younger.

As far as giving, for close family it’s books by request. But since we live so far from other family, I’m not in on those daily conversations that might give me a hint, so I don’t give books to those family members.