If they’re wordsmiths

• With his trademark wit and wisdom, the talented Don Watson will make your parents cringe and laugh in Watson’s Worst Words.
• In A Shakespearean Botanical, Margaret Willes marries the beauty of Shakespeare’s lines with hand-painted engravings of the plants he describes, and provides an intriguing look into daily life in Tudor and Jacobean England.
• Mary Norris has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker’s copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she brings her vast experience and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, at once a memoir and trove of practical advice.
• Australian critic Robert Hughes wrote with brutal honesty about art, architecture, culture, religion and himself. The Spectacle of Skill presents a varied selection of his writings.
• Miles Franklin Award-winning author Alex Miller has brought together a collection of his essays and stories for The Simplest Words: A Storyteller’s Journey.

If they’re dedicated Classic FM listeners

• Australian soprano Greta Bradman takes the listener on a magic carpet ride, from the Baroque and Classical eras, to the ardent romanticism of Bellini and Verdi, with her album My Hero.
• In Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, singer and scholar Ian Bostridge explores the historical, political and personal complexities of Schubert’s Winterreise.
• A Very Brandenburg Christmas from the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Choir will be a hit with parents who love carols and Christmassy cheer.
• The Classical Cello Collection is an astonishingly beautiful 15-CD collection of music from French-born Chinese American cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
• The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty, gluttony, nervous breakdowns, bizarre behaviour and terrible, terrible toilet humour. Christopher Lawrence tells all in Swooning: A Classical Music Guide to Life, Love, Lust and Other Follies.

If they love spending time in the kitchen

• Mietta’s Italian Family Recipes is at once a cookbook, history book and gorgeous object. Acclaimed chef and food writer Mietta O'Donnell died in a car accident in 2001, and this is a much-needed reprint of her earlier book, complete with additional material.
• A truly luxurious gift for a serious foodie, Peter Gilmore’s Organum is ethereal and stunning with each recipe created from four elements: nature, texture, intensity and purity.
• Benny Roff celebrates the gin-soaked, gangster-frollicking era with 200 recipes for cocktails in Speakeasy: 200 Underground Cocktails. The 1920s-style illustrations throughout are a real treat.
• Acclaimed chef Luke Nguyen has traversed the culinary landscape of France to discover the flavours, ingredients and dishes that have influenced Vietnamese cooking for Luke Nguyen’s France. (And if your parent is a bona fide francophile, you can find more ideas for lovers of Paris here.)
• It’s rare to find a cook or chef who likes to make their creations in complete silence. For some nostalgic pop, Don’t You Believe What You’ve Seen or You’ve Heard looks back at the year 1975, when Skyhooks were the biggest thing to hit Australia since the Beatles. (You can browse more great albums here.)

If they’re philosophers at heart

• James Rebanks’s family has farmed in the same area for more than six hundred years. In The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District, he takes readers through a year of his life to provide a unique snapshot of rural life.
• Andrew Ford’s Earth Dances: Music in Search of the Primitive is a fascinating and original investigation into the ways that music and primitivism intersect.
• On Bunyah depict Les Murray’s rural home town and its surrounding landscape as only he knows it, with a curated collection of his best-loved poems.
• From Australia’s enormously popular (and only!) marsupial Walkley award-winning cartoonist comes a collection of his greatest hits from 2009 till now. First Dog on the Moon’s A Treasury of Cartoons is the perfect gift for parents with a sense of humour about the world’s problems.
• Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life They Change It is a humorous and philosophical trip through life.
• In the 14 essays included in The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson investigates the essential questions of faith in contemporary life.

If they’re in need of some holiday reading

• Bill Bryson’s books are perfect holiday reads – funny, insightful and endearing. The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island is his follow-up to his bestselling Notes From A Small Island.
• If they love to get stuck into a gritty crime read, Even Dogs in the Wild is Ian Rankin at his finest, with a story that investigates the darkest corners of humanity.
• Or, if your parent is partial to an immersive historical fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks delights once again with The Secret Chord, transporting readers back to the time of King David.
• For fans of Big American Fiction, there’s John Irving’s new novel, Avenue of Mysteries, which has impressed many a reader here at Readings.
• Lucy Treloar’s debut novel, Salt Creek, is set in the Coorong, a remote, beautiful and inhospitable coastal region of Australia. This evocative story takes place in the 1850s and follows a family that has fallen on hard times.

If they want to spend more time outdoors

• In Birdscaping Australian Gardens: Using Native Plants to Attract Birds to Your Garden George Adams provides everything you need to know to create a refuge for birds in your home, and in doing so help to preserve Australia’s amazing natural heritage and biodiversity.
• Find even more practical projects for small-space edible gardening and backyard fun from the much-loved Little Veggie Patch Co in The Little Veggie Patch Co: DIY Garden Projects.
• Wine enthusiasts will enjoy Wine Trails: 52 Perfect Weekends in Wine Country, which shares detailed itineraries for the most interesting wineries in 52 wine regions near major cities.
• Green Nomads is a beautiful book of Australian landscapes; former MP Bob Brown sets out across Australia, visiting Bush Heritage sites and sharing the beauty and diversity they represent.
• Walking the Camino captures the trials and tribulations of six modern-day adventurers equipped with only a backpack, a pair of boots and an open mind on the epic 500-mile pilgrimage along Spain’s 1200-year-old Camino de Santiago.

If they love reading true stories

• The life of one of Australia’s most intriguing public figures, former Prime Minister Paul Keating, as told to the country’s most influential political interviewer, Kerry O’Brien, Keating is the must-read political memoir of the year. You can find more political memoirs and biographies here.
• Gloria Steinem is a true icon. Feminist, writer, activist, My Life on the Road is her story.
• Not Just Black and White is an extraordinary memoir told by mother and daughter, Lesley and Tammy Williams – a frank and moving testimony to the injustices and discrimination faced by Indigenous Australians.
• Rob Mundle shares another sweeping and powerful account of Australian maritime history in Great South Land: How Dutch Sailors Found Australia and an English Pirate Almost Beat Captain Cook…. Find more true stories of exploration and discovery here.
• In The White Road, bestselling author Edmund de Waal travels the globe to tell the story of his obsession with porcelain (or ‘white gold’) and the lure it held for the Europeans who encountered it.