Our wise bookseller Agatha answers all your tricky questions.

I’m half-way through a book I received as a Christmas gift and have just considered throwing it across the room. If the gifter asks me what I thought, is it rude to come clean about how much I hated it? Should I just pretend I enjoyed it?

In this situation, you’re going to need to do some risk assessment: How often do you receive gifts from this person? How likely is it they will gift you a similar book again? How likely it is they will be offended if you’re critical of their gift? Do the two of you often talk about books together?

As a general rule of thumb, I’d reply with a watered-down version of the truth and in the meantime, go down to a second-hand bookshop and rather than throw it across the room, exchange this book for one you’d prefer.

I’m a fan of good non-fiction and looking for recommendations from 2014? (And no ‘personal essays’.)

Last year was a fantastic year for non-fiction. If you’re a fan of Australian books, try Don Watson’s The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia or Tim Low’s Where Song Began: Australia’s Birds and How They Changed the World. Both were included in our list of Best Non-Fiction for 2014 and you can find our full list (with mini-reviews) here.

Other notables from 2014 (all books which appeared on multiple ‘best of the year lists’) included The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong and Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos.

Finally, if you are open to biographies, both The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore and H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald are wonderful reads that move beyond the personal to explore wider questions and ideas.

This year I want to save money by making my own lunches but I’m very much an amateur home chef. What’s an easy cookbook to start with?

David Bez’s Salad Love: How to Create a Lunchtime Salad, Every Weekday, in 20 Minutes or Less has been a hit with our staff and seems custom-built for your dilemma. The layout is clean and efficient which makes the recipes easy to follow, and each one is beautifully photographed which, as a fellow amateur home chef, I consider necessary. While 20 minutes feels like a bold claim, I can assure you it’s actually very close to being the truth for the recipes I’ve tried – and I am a very slow chopper.

Another cookbook which our staff recommend for making lunchtime salads is Hetty McKinnon’s Community: Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen. I’ve been told her recipes have the added bonus of lasting you a few days.

All questions answered on our blog are kept anonymous and questions are chosen at Agatha’s discretion.