The best book I ever received (or gave) as a gift...
Our staff share the best literary gifts they’ve ever received, or given. And also the worst (see here)…
My bookish world is a total mystery to my partner, so as you can imagine he never ventures into a bookshop when it comes to choosing presents for me. This is why I was so staggered and thrilled when he gave me a memoir one year. For Better For Worse was written by a couple, using a very funny dual narrative, about the time they abandoned their harried lifestyle in London to clamber aboard an unreliable old boat with a baby and a toddler to make their way slowly through the French canals. As someone who dreams about getting away from it all, but probably can’t be bothered, this was an enjoyable vicarious experience as well as a good portrait of marriage with young kids. More than anything, I loved the gesture, from the nonbookish to the bookish.
– Emily
My grandparents could not have loved Van Diemen’s Land more if the lovely James Boyce himself had read it to them over scones! Enduringly thoughtful and engaging, I knew it was the perfect gift for my history buffs.
– Elke
When I was eleven my best friend’s mother discovered that despite being a massive book nerd, I had never read Anne of Green Gables. She was suitably horrified and later that same year, my friend gifted me a copy. Naturally, I read it immediately, along with every other book in the series, and even today, Anne is one of the fictional characters I’d most like to meet.
– Bronte
Circa 1997 I was given was a book of Xena and Gabrielle postcards that I have been mailing out to other people randomly for years.
– Marie
When I was 18 years old and knew absolutely everything there was to know about life I moved out of home. To commemorate the experience my mother brought me new towels, a saucepan, bowls and two books: The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer and The Women’s Room by Marilyn French. Much, much later on when I realised I actually knew very little about everything and was in fact a mother myself, I met Germaine Greer. I asked her to sign a copy of The Female Eunuch for my own young daughter. I still haven’t given the copy to her because Ms Greer said to give it to her the first time she calls me by my first name. My daughter is 16 now and I’m hoping I have a few years left with her under the same roof before history repeats itself.
– Chris