An Evan Reads Holiday Gift Guide, 2023
For every terminally well-read person in your life
Well, it’s that time of year again. You’ve got to get a gift for someone who loves books. But you can’t get them a book, they’ve already read it, or they’ll hate it, they already hate it, and now they have it, and they’ll bring it back to whatever store you got it from and get another book they don’t need. Anything but a book (unless they ask, specifically, for a certain book, in which case, go wild.) So, as we did last year, here’s a list of non-book gifts for all the book lovers in your life. Some of my go-to picks are still in New York Magazine’s “Best Gifts for Bookworms (That Aren’t Books)” and I won’t repeat anything from that well-curated list, or from last year’s, but they’re both still chock full of good ideas. But if you were smart and got all of those recommendations already last year, here are some new picks. Onwards and upwards!
Paris Review Merch ($15-$60)
The Paris Review is like the New Yorker but it has the decency not to pile up in your house, being as it only comes out four times a year. Better fiction, better poetry, fewer inscrutable cartoons, and more stylish after a recent redesign. A subscription ($60) is worth it alone for the archive of interviews online, and you could pair that with some of their excellent merch, including this Joe Brainard x Nancy crew neck sweatshirt ($60), one of their new Interview tee shirts ($40) featuring Samuel Delaney or Gary Indiana, or a good pair of Poetry/Art Socks ($15; size small may not make it in time for Christmas.) (Also available in Interviews/Prose if you’re a nonfiction devotee.) Gosh, these Marc Hundley posters ($45) are pretty nice too. Now that I’ve done all this shilling, any chance you can put out a Interview tee shirt with Joy Williams on it?
Some Good T Shirts from word west ($25)
Speaking of Joy Williams, why not grab word west’s Joy Williams ‘Joy Story’ T-shirt ($25)? Don’t like Joy Williams? Delete this email, now, and unsubscribe from the newsletter while you’re at it, or go ahead and check out their Don DeLillo ‘Dunkin Donuts’ shirt (no joke besides the initials DD, and perhaps a nod to DeLillo’s love of all things inconographic), John Steinbeck ‘Steinfeld’ shirt, or a Jon Franzen ‘Freindzen’ shirt (all also $25). There’s nothing better than giving someone the gift of two to three appreciative nods and countless confused stares because of a shirt (is that person wearing a shirt with the FRIENDS logo but it says FRANZEN on it??), and you get to support a small and cool publisher while you’re at it. We call that a ‘win-win’ in the gift-giving industry.
Minor Canon objects ($3-$27)
Minor Canon, as their website lays out, is “a fan project, not a brand or an art project… In the spirit of Marcel Broodthaers, Minor Canon aims for ‘something insincere’: we reject the artisanal fetish of hand-printing and the manufactured scarcity of hype-driven product drops.” That’s a lot of hi-falutin’ stuff for what amounts to dropshipping some pretty good shirts and hats, but hey, we can keep it simple: it’s good stuff. Outfit the Bolaño lover in your life with a ‘Visceral Realism’ Hat ($23), Bolaño shirt ($19, we move ever closer to 90s style Big Dog author t-shirts), and, for your note with the gift, a ‘Sión poem’ postcard ($3, the website has a whole item description about how inscrutable this ‘poem’ is in Savage Detectives when it’s literally all spelled out in Antwerp? Fake ‘fan’ alert, whatever, I still love this image, I once caused a minor family crisis by saying I would get it tattooed on me if I ever got a tattoo.) Don’t like Bolaño? Again, what are you doing here? Fine, have a Sebald, Hardwick, or Walser hat, or a Thomas Bernhard shirt for your friend most in need of a wellness check, or a this slick Renata Adler tote bag ($23, I didn’t love Speedboat as much as everyone else but I can’t deny that logo.) You don’t like any of those? Jesus Christ, look upon this Walter Benjamin shirt perfect for your Germanist and/or art critic friends and weep. You don’t like Wally Benz? Get out, I’m serious.
Experimental Books About Death Mug ($18.99)
Ok, enough shirts. I love shirts, but a man cannot live on shirts alone. He needs coffee, too. Who better to look to than Coffee House Press, one of the best independent publishers we have; you can thank them for publishing such luminaries as Valeria Luiselli, Ben Lerner, Mark Haber, Carmen Boullosa and Brian Evenson. Any book from them would be a worthy gift,but your well-read friend has probably covered them all already. (Check their shelves, just in case; a friend in need of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss is a friend indeed; you could also just get them a subscription for a whole set of new Coffee House titles for $124.) So how about you go with the mug instead. That’s a good mug with which to think about dying, experimentally. Things will brighten up after the first cup, I promise. For a lighter mug, try any of the New York Review’s Reader’s Catalog mugs ($27.95).
Nice things from Book/shop ($15-$560)
Back to some bedrock, gift-giving wise. Like Minor Canon, Book/shop makes bookish stuff that isn’t corny, and that’s all we ask for. In addition to what I pointed out in the last gift guide, you could give your extra-literate recipient these beguiling Fiction/Nonfiction blank notebooks ($15), or, if you have deeper pockets, this very nice desk lamp ($479) or this luxe book/weekend bag ($560). Think of how often your lucky recipient will think of you if you give them that lamp and/or bag! Think of how you could also spend some of your exorbitant wealth on a subscription to a literary newsletter that gives you the goods week after week! And if you’re already a subscriber – wow, what good taste you have – you could share that gift with a friend too!
Magnetic Dog Bookmarks ($5.99)
Magnetic bookmarks are nice for when you have a book with extensive endnotes; they also tend to slip out less than your average paper bookmark. Plus it looks like a dog is poking out of your book whenever you close the pages. Isn’t that worth 6 bucks?
Every New Book I Recommended This Year ($17ish-$40ish)
I can’t say I keep up that much with the frontlist, but these are the new books I read this year that I ended up enjoying. Your recipient, being a book-lover, has likely been too busy reading their third-favorite author’s fourth-best book from 1987 to read all of these. The Iliad doesn’t really count, being thousands of years old, but man is Emily Wilson’s translation good; it’d be an even better gift as an audiobook. (Audible exclusive, unfortunately, but that does mean you can basically give this one for free or one month’s fee using the right combo of trials and free audiobook credits.) Fine, everyone’s read The Iliad, how about People Collide or A Shining or The Future or Hangman or The Fawn or Voyager or The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu or Evil Flowers. 2023, not too shabby!`
Non literary gifts
Still a book, but Robert Simonson’s Modern Classic Cocktails ($19.99) is a worthy addition to anyone’s home bar. In it, you’ll learn how to make a perfect Gold Rush or Penicillin – two essentials in my book – as well as learning the fact that the genesis of every new cocktail was someone at the bar accidentally ordering too much of some obscure spirit and needing to get rid of it. It is a book that will inspire your recipient to buy 1-2 specialty amaros and not feel bad about it. I’ll now stand by Amaro Nonino and Cynar till the end of time; maybe get a bottle of one of those along with this book so they can sling Paper Planes or Bitter Giuseppes. Or go all out and grab them some Chartreuse so your recipient can make a Naked and Famous (equal parts lime juice, mezcal, aperol, and chartreuse - shake with ice, pour into a chilled glass, trust me on this one) … Settle any household argument with a well-timed DUN-dun-DUN with the Law & Order Mini Gavel Set ($13.95) … I’m hardly a fashonista but this rollneck sweater ($98, but J. Crew is always running a sale, so just hang tight till they’re giving it to you at 60% off) has become something like a comfort blanket to me, and it probably gets the most compliments out of anything in my wardrobe… For the consummate host in your life, how about a set of Miller High Life ‘Champagne of Beers’ Coupe Glasses ($14 each; I feel obliged to also mention Miller High Life x Planters Peanuts (!) Sweatshirt ($54), Miller High Life Can Sling (priced to go at $22.99, holds six cans), and, for any bar owner or new home owner, this elegant LED Champagne of Beers Sign (cut down to $199)) … Speaking of beer, Grimm Artisanal Beers makes good beer and very nice pint glasses ($9 each)… A hat, a t-shirt, and a mug, plus you get an excellently remastered version of The Replacements’ Tim?? You just made someone’s entire Christmas! ($149.98 for the bundle, just $89.99 for the record)…
That’s all folks! Will update if I find anything else, and I’m on call for any paid subscriber, especially if you actually do just want to get someone a book.
And a special bonus, the only Christmas playlist you’ll ever need: