If they love to travel

• Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel shares a list of 500 amazing sights and attractions from around the world, ranked by Lonely Planet’s global community of travel experts.
• Part travel guide and part coffee table book, New York: An Inspired Wander Through Manhattan And The Brooklyn Boroughs looks beyond the well-known façades of this iconic city, and into the depths of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
• In 1988, Lydia Bradey became the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. Together with Laurence Fearnley, she shares her story in Going Up is Easy.
• The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit is a gorgeous history of Italy, told through its citrus fruits.
• Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco is at once a rambling walking tour, a natural and human history, and a celebration of place itself.

If they’re still trying to survive high school

• Tyler Oakley took the internet by storm when he uploaded his first video eight years ago, skyrocketing to fame with his signature blend of quirky comedy, personal material and strong opinions. His memoir, Binge, makes for an inspiring read.
• For some terrific YA fiction about what it’s like to be a teenager, John Green and David Levithan’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On are both excellent picks.
• If your sibling is “so over” studying the classics, Mallory Ortberg’s absolutely hilarious Texts from Jane Eyre will give them a new lens to look at these works.
• For something fun and exciting, try graphic novel Nimona from Noelle Stevenson. At just 23 years old, Stevenson has just been nominated for a National Book Award for this wonderful read.
• Music icon and Portlandia star Carrie Brownstein captures the experience of being an outsider perfectly in her memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl. Her writing is sharp, lyrical and addictive.

If they’re moving out of home

• The recipes in this foul-mouthed cookbook may surprise you in their deliciousness and accessibility: Thug Kitchen: Party Grub is a great way to start finding cooking fun.
• If your sibling has a tendency to create mess wherever they go, they might be in need of Marie Kondo’s The Life-changing Magic of Tidying: A Simple, Effective Way to Banish Clutter Forever, which even changed some lives here at Readings.
• Modern technology meets vintage aesthetics with Luckies Smartphone Projector 2.0. Made from cardboard, this projector is light, compact and totally portable.
• A calendar is an easy gift for someone setting up their new home and we highly recommend the Darth Vader and Friends Calendar which is sweetly funny. Find more calendars here.
• Everyone knows moving is stressful and if we’ve learned anything this year it’s that colouring in is the perfect antidote for such stress. May we suggest The Official A Game of Thrones Colouring Book or browse our selection of titles here.
• Meghan Daum’s acclaimed cult classic, My Misspent Youth, is back in print and a wonderful collection of essays about what it means to grow up.

If they’re serious pop culture fanatics

• The Ultimate Star Wars is the perfect gift for the Ultimate Star Wars Fan in your life.
• Hadley Freeman’s Life Moves Pretty Fast is her love letter to eighties movies, and it’s an utterly charming one.
• Part biography, part critical appreciation, part love letter, and all fun, The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray: A Critical Appreciation of the World’s Finest Actor chronicles every single Murray performance in loving detail.
• Australian music critic Anwen Crawford’s contribution to the terrific 33⅓ series is a whip-smart and fascinating look at Hole’s second album Live Through This.
• The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-Baked Heroes from Comic Book History is essential reading for any comic fan, and particularly for those who love how truly strange this universe can become.

If they don’t read books (but you really wish they would!)

• If they watched (and wouldn’t stop talking about The Bachelor), Rosie Waterland’s (whose recaps of the show made her a name online) memoir will catch their interest. The Anti-Cool Girl is a dark, funny and subversive story of surviving the worst that life can throw at you.
• Let the master of horror win them over with The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Stephen King writes gripping, page-turning fiction and his short introductions to each story of this collection are intriguing snapshots into the writing life.
• The unusual structure of Illuminae, co-written by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, sees the story being revealed in documents and missives as opposed to slabs of text which might ease them into the idea of reading.
• Shaun Tan’s The Singing Bones, which features his exquisite sculptures inspired by retellings of Grimm’s fairy tales, has been the source of many amazed gasps in our shops and may just awaken (or re-awaken) a love of fairytales in your sibling.
• Bream Gives Me Hiccups is the fiction debut from Jesse Eisenberg, and the stories inside are light-hearted and droll, with a touch of David Sedaris.

If they’re animal lovers

• Susan Casey’s Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins opens with a magical encounter with these creatures, but quickly enters darker territory as the author chronicles their treatment at the hands of humans. An imperative and compassionate read.
• Sue Taylor will inspire bird lovers to pack their binoculars and hit the road with her book, Best 100 Birdwatching Sites in Australia. You can find more suggestions for bird lovers here.
• Photographer Lynn Terry didn’t know what to expect when she started taking snaps of dogs in a vintage photobooth to raise awareness for local animal shelters but the result is adorable and Tails from the Booth is a must-have for anyone who’s dog-crazy. You can find more suggestions for dog lovers here.
• And fans of cats will be delighted by Doogie Horner’s collection of Some Very Interesting Cats Perhaps You Weren’t Aware Of. You can find more suggestions for cat lovers here.
• An absolutely stunning object to hold, Story of Life: Evolution is a graphic, fold-out guide to evolution and life forms featuring illustrations from the amazing Katie Scott.

If they’re interested in current affairs

• In Pacific: The Ocean of the Future Simon Winchester thrillingly depicts the evolving patterns of commerce and trade, the violent weather and the fascinating histories that intersect at the world’s largest body of water.
• The Short Blacks series present shots of amazing Australian non-fiction writing on topics as diverse as depression, alcoholism, Julian Assange and more. This box-set includes all twelve titles currently available for a special price.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me is one of the most talked-about books of the year. Through anecdotes and reflections, and analysis of history and language, Coates describes what it means to inhabit a black body in America today.
• The ever popular George Megalogenis asks how Australia can maintain its winning streak in Australia’s Second Chance: What Our History Tells Us About Our Future.
• Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped is a searing call-to-action from Garry Kasparov, who compellingly argues for a forceful stand against Vladimir Putin.