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christmas 2023

Best books to gift (and gift again) at Christmas: The Independent newsroom make their picks

When you give someone a book as a gift, what you’re really giving them is a few hours of pleasure. Indy staff share their trusted literary gifts this Christmas

Friday 12 January 2024 17:35 GMT
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The Independent writers pick the literature they can’t stop sharing
The Independent writers pick the literature they can’t stop sharing ( )

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Forget socks. Leave the Next voucher. Put the Terry’s Chocolate Orange down. If chosen wisely, a book is the very best present you can give to someone you love. As the festive season arrives, Indy writers share the literary gifts they like to place under the tree.

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Perhaps annoyingly for them, I’m always trying to curate my friends’ bookshelves; if I find myself reading a good book, my brain starts to fill with the names of people I’d like to give it to. Of course, I’m aware that giving someone a book as a gift runs the risk of feeling like you’re actually giving them homework, so it’s important you get it right. What you want to give, really, are a few hours of unalloyed pleasure – anything more (“this book changed my life!” sort of experiences) would be a magical bonus.

Maybe because of my job, maybe because I once Christmas temped at Waterstones, I love choosing different books for different people each year. Short story collections are good, because you can dip in and out of them – I’ve given Katherine Heiny’s mordantly funny Single, Carefree, Mellow to friends I knew would get a kick out of it. Also, it’s hard to beat a really, really good novel – Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is my current tip for a read no one I know could put down. Sometimes when you think you’ve absolutely nailed it, you will get it wrong: I bought my Newcastle-supporting partner a copy of Paul Ferris’s very well-reviewed memoir The Boy on the Shed, about his journey from St James’ Park midfielder to barrister, and it sits unread five years later (I guess Alan Shearer’s recommendation meant nothing).

My pro tip for a Christmassy reading gift, though, would be Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Cazalet Chronicles – this five-volume family saga, in which children are naughty and their parents are naughtier, is the epitome of comfort reading. Obviously, giving someone a set of five massive books is ludicrous, intimidating and presumptuous – so, here’s what you do: give them the first instalment, The Light Years. You know they’ll love it, and when they do, you buy them the set, and they get to give the first book away to someone else they know who will love it. The cycle happily continues. Jessie Thompson, arts editor

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The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy

The book I’ve given away most, to so many of my beloved female friends, is Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living. It’s the second in a memoir trilogy by the novelist, poet and playwright – and I would argue it’s not just a joy to read, it is absolutely vital. If you’ve ever woken in the dead of night and wondered about womanhood, about your place in the world – about domestic harmony and disharmony, divorce or what it means to be “mother” – then it’s essential reading. The first time I opened it, I ended up staying on the Circle line on the Tube the whole way round, to finish it. I have read it and re-read it, cried and nodded, underlined passages and read them out loud. It is pleasure and it is grief, all at once. But mostly, it is about living. Every woman should read it, so I give it to the women I love. Victoria Richards, Voices editor

Deborah Levy and her book, ‘The Cost of Living'
Deborah Levy and her book, ‘The Cost of Living' (Getty/Hamish Hamilton)

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Reunion by Fred Uhlman

This is a very slim book with a slow-burning fuse that explodes with pathos and surprise. Reunion by Fred Uhlman was written in 1960 in a tiny edition and is really a novella, but now a Penguin classic. It packs a punch to make it unforgettable, a compelling narrative of historical significance. Do not read the foreword or try to guess or find out the ending. It is set in 1938 in Germany when a 16-year-old Jewish schoolboy befriends another boy. It is gentle and shocking and very short: the perfect stocking filler. Geordie Greig, editor-in-chief

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Heartburn by Nora Ephron

This book taught me about love, loss and writing. It’s a timeless classic based on Ephron’s disastrous divorce from her second husband, Carl Bernstein, who famously had an affair with Margaret Jay, the daughter of former British prime minister James Callaghan. With thinly disguised portraits of her ex-husband and his Other Woman, Heartburn is a hilarious, vivid take on womanhood, relationships, and food (the protagonist, Rachel Samstat, is a food writer). I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a laugh and a literary upgrade to Love Actually this Christmas. Olivia Petter, features writer

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(Virago/Getty)

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

I have gifted this novel to countless friends, colleagues and once, I gave a copy to someone I truly disliked in the hope it would improve him. In A Question of Upbringing, which is the first volume in Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time series, you are launched into an interwar world of Carl Jung-obsessed generals, communist Oxford dons, dodgy speculator uncles and cryptofascists. Your guide is a privileged young man called Nicholas Jenkins who is desperate for a bohemian life and to meet girls.

While there are profound moments through this and later volumes, this is a truly funny book. If you like Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, this is a perfect gift. If you haven’t read the writers above, this is just a bloody great book. Finally, this book introduces you to Kenneth Widmerpool. Once you meet him, he is a character you will then see again and again in people you meet. Matt Payton, head of audience (editorial)

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Educated by Tara Westover

I’m just going to get one important thing out of the way first – this book is not very Christmassy. But it’s a great gift. Westover’s memoir Educated, which spans from her father’s scrapyard in Idaho to the halls of Cambridge’s Trinity College, is beautiful, heart-wrenching, horrifying at times, and inspiring. It reads like a novel – in large part because you can’t believe some of the things Westover went through – and recounts her efforts to break out from the constraints of her survivalist Mormon family in order to, well, get an education. A truly astonishing work of writing that will have you gasping, and feeling a bit braver with every page. Ellie Harrison, TV editor

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Tara Westover, author of ‘Educated'
Tara Westover, author of ‘Educated' (Windmill/Getty)

Lint by Steve Aylett

I’m a naturally anxious person, and one particularly recurring fear is giving someone a gift that they already own. That’s one reason I’ve found myself doling out copies of Steve Aylett’s Lint on several occasions – it’s a fairly safe bet your friend or loved one has never heard of it. But a second, and much better, reason, is that this book’s a blast. Aylett is one of the UK’s most imaginative literary mavericks, and Lint, a wholly fictionalised biography of science fiction writer Jeff Lint, is hilarious, absurd and relentless in its comic momentum. Louis Chilton, culture writer

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

I love a long novel, but pressing a doorstop of a tome into someone’s hands and saying “Oh, you simply must read this one!” really does feel a bit like setting homework for your friends. Not so with Claire Keegan’s novellas, which tend to clock in at around 100 pages yet punch well above their weight. Small Things Like These takes place in the run-up to Christmas, as a coal merchant faces up to the complicity and silent self-interest of his small town. Every single one of her sentences sings. Katie Rosseinsky, senior culture and lifestyle writer

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Everything in Moderation by Daniel Finkelstein

The last book I bought to give as a gift was Everything in Moderation by Daniel Finkelstein (2020, William Collins). It’s a collection of the best of his Times columns over the years, and a solid, worthy read for anyone who appreciates brilliant intellectual commentary combined with extraordinary insight and terrific humour. He is also a very honest writer, which may be what I like best about it. I should declare an interest as he is also a good friend of mine, but I’d have bought it anyway. The one I bought before that was VS Pritchett’s At Home and Abroad (1989, North Point Press), an anthology of travel essays by a writer whose anecdotes make you feel as though you are there. It’s a beautiful book and one you can really get lost in.

For children, I’d recommend any of the Polly and the Wolf series by Catherine Storr, a wonderful author whose books I loved as a child, though I didn’t know if my sons would enjoy them as they were written in the 1950s. I needn’t have worried: these stories have my 10-year-old in absolute fits. Susanna Richards, senior sub-editor

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Daniel Finkelstein, author of ‘Everything in Moderation'
Daniel Finkelstein, author of ‘Everything in Moderation' (William Collins/Getty)

Weird Medieval Guys by Olivia M Swarthout

I have pondered meaningful poetry, those that challenge and change our view of the world. I have considered great design and art books, which offer a view of a better world. History that shows how this world came to be or fiction that conjures new ones. But I have settled on the best gift book there is: a collection of curious, stupid and perplexing little drawings from medieval manuscripts, accurately and straightforwardly titled Weird Medieval Guys. This is the rare book you can judge from its cover, and it’s exactly what it suggests. I genuinely struggle to think of a person who might not love it.

If you want to see whether your colleague, friend or loved one might be receptive to this gift then you could always send them one of the many highlights from Weird Medieval Guys’ social feeds, and see if they enjoy it. If they enjoy one picture of an army of knights attacking a giant snail then they’ll enjoy the rest of the book; if they don’t, then you should stop being their friend and you’ve solved the problem of buying them a gift either way. Andrew Griffin, technology editor

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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

The book I’d give as a gift this Christmas is Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason. The sharp and acerbic narrator, Martha, teaches us about her dark struggles with an unnamed mental illness (referred to as “– –”) in an honest and surprisingly funny way. The light handling of the heavy subject matter makes for an all-round devastating yet uplifting read. Sorrow and Bliss certainly does what it says on the tin and had me sobbing and chuckling in equal measure. Meg Mason captures London and Englishness so well that I was astounded to find out that she’s from New Zealand. Lilly Subbotin, sub-editor

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Meg Mason, author of ‘Sorrow and Bliss'
Meg Mason, author of ‘Sorrow and Bliss' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Getty)

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

Nothing is more Christmassy than snow, and the introduction of a majestic leopard is a welcome surprise. Unfortunately, American naturalist Peter Matthiessen never actually encountered the solitary creature on his 1973 journey to the Tibetan Plateau: “Have you seen the Snow Leopard? / No! Isn’t that wonderful.” This absence of the leopard is actually what makes the book such a beautiful read, and brings to mind the appreciation of nature that William Wordsworth has instilled in many readers over hundreds of years. While describing the breathtaking mountains, Matthiessen contemplates grief, love, meditation, and healing the soul. I learned plenty about myself when reading this book, when trying to adopt the outlooks and practices that Matthiessen preaches as I travelled alone in America. And I will always give it to anyone preparing to go on a trip away. The Snow Leopard reminds us “how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day”, and therefore to be thankful for what you presently feel and experience. And if that’s not a good Christmas motto, I don’t know what is. Finn Cliff Hodges, reporter

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Peter Mattiessen, author of ‘The Snow Leopard'
Peter Mattiessen, author of ‘The Snow Leopard' (Vintage/Getty)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Through an ingenious series of flashbacks, A Gentleman in Moscow tells the story of a fictional Russian aristocrat who is imprisoned in a luxurious hotel during the Bolshevik Revolution. Aside from being a riveting tale with a gorgeously detailed, immersive setting, Towles creates the blueprint for the perfect gentleman in his protagonist, Count Rostov, who is caring, honourable to a fault, and has an impish penchant for the finer things in life. I have given this book to so many of my male friends for this reason. As Rostov tells the Hotel Metropol’s manager in one scene: “It is the business of the times to change, Mr Halecki. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them.” Tom Murray, US culture news editor

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