Eight gorgeous books to gift your crush

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Now a highly acclaimed film, Call Me By Your Name is the story of a passionate romance between 17-year-old Elio and his father’s house guest, Oliver, during a restless summer on the Italian Riviera. This is a sensual, gripping and intensely intimate book that digs deep into the swell of emotions that come with first love – fear, obsession, desire, hope – and offers an irresistible invitation to step inside the haze and sunshine of an Italy summer.


Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is an epic love story that spans three continents and numerous lives. When teenagers Ifemelu and Obinze first fall in love, their home, Nigeria, is under military dictatorship and people are fleeing for their lives. While Ifemelu manages to depart for America, Obinze is instead plunged into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. 13 years later, much has changed, and the two will need all their courage to meet again.


Insomniac City by Bill Hayes

When Bill Hayes arrived in New York City in 2009, he was 48, grieving the death of his partner and only had the vaguest idea of what to do next. A lifelong insomniac, he set off on late-night strolls, armed with a camera and furing these walks, he discovered the profound consolations of the city’s incessant rhythms. And he unexpectedly fell in love again – with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance is captured in funny and touching vignettes throughout the book. This memoir will heal and break your heart at the same time.


Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith

With her trademark warmth and sly humour, Ali Smith reinterprets the myth of Iphis, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Two sisters, Imogen and Anthea, work together at Pure – a creative agency with global aspirations. When Anthea becomes enamoured of an ‘interventionist protest artist’ nicknamed Iphisol, it soon transpires that his billboard-size corporate slurs around town are the bane of Pure’s existence, and thus beings a funny, subversive Scottish romp.


The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nobel Prize-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro has a talent for heartbreak and The Remains of the Day (which won the Man Booker Prize in 1989) is one of his most emotionally devastating novels. It is the summer of 1956 and Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, has embarked on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past. As he travels, he reflects on his life up to that point, with particular emphasis on his relationship with a former colleague, the housekeeper Miss Kenton.


Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

This glamorous novel is set in both 1960s Italy, and a modern Hollywood studio. From the lavish set of 1963 classic film, Cleopatra, to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Jess Walter introduces readers to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.


Love Poems by Dorothy Porter

Dorothy Porter wrote beautifully about love, sex, heartbreak and desire throughout her life. The eminently giftable Love Poems collects her most evocative love poetry in the one edition. Inside its pages you will find portraits of longing and infatuation, of bliss and passion, of uncertainty and devotion.


Frog and Toad: The Complete Collection by Arnold Lobel

Frog and Toad brings together all 20 of Arnold Lobel’s stories about the lifelong friends. These two gentlemanly amphibians are utterly endearing, and the frank affection they demonstrate for one another is truly touching. This handsome treasury is a lovely tribute to companionship and kindness.

Cover image for Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

Bill Hayes

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