Book is the New Gift

Turkeys and cornucopias are coming down, twinkly trees and fat dudes in red suits are going up, and they're piping Christmas music into every elevator in the country. This can only mean one thing, gentle readers: the holiday season is coming! And you've only got twenty-five more shopping days before Christmas. What on earth can you get your family, friends, enemies, co-workers, bookies, &c that says "hey, I didn't spend a ton of money on you, but that's okay because I clearly put a lot of thought into this gift and, check it out, I didn't make it myself"?

The answer: books!

Yes, books. It's no secret that books are great gifts: you can get a lot of hardcovers (as well as most trade paperbacks and any mass market paperback) for under $20, you can get something for pretty much everyone you know all in the same store/on the same website, and you indirectly finance the existence of great industry blogs like this one! Everyone wins. Especially you, when you see your five-year-old nephew's face light up on Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa eve upon opening a copy of Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. You can't put a price tag on moments like that.

NPR has put together a list of the best gift books of 2009, Laura over at Combreviations has posted on Penguin's list of books to give and get, and Big Brother Fearless Leader Amazon has some ideas for you as well.

So Friends, Roman (-à-clef reader)s, (No) Country (For Old) Men (fans), lend me your ears: write, write, write! And, once you're done writing, go buy some more books—your friends/family need you, your economy needs you, and dang it, I need you, too. At the end of the day, you're the ones paying my salary, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a vested interest in your continuing to buy books. That said, I'm off to my favorite independent book store—I've got a long list this year and, somehow, less time to complete it in.

Tallyho!