The Evan's Newsletter Holiday Gift Guide
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-literary gifts
Gift giving can be pretty stressful; sometimes you get so wrapped up in finding the perfect gift that you end up selling off all your hair to buy your partner a chain for his pocketwatch, only to find out he sold his watch to buy you some combs. The agony! The ecstasy! The comic irony!
Well never fear; your trusty newsletter writer is here to help. I’ll be sharing some books that I think are good for general categories (always check with a friend / relative / partner of the recipient if you can just to doublecheck they haven’t read it already), some nonbook gifts for book lovers (so you don’t have to worry about whether they’ve read it already), and other various little things around the house I’ve either given or received and wholly recommend.
In case you don’t trust me – and why would you trust some guy who just writes about books to know anything about gift giving?? – you can take it from the fine folks over at The Strategist, who used my suggestions for their own “Best Gifts for Bookworms (That Aren’t Books)” list. Over there I suggested the HAY Matin Table Lamp (a great bedside reading lamp with an adjustable light level in case you’re reading while your partner sleeps; $245); a puzzle from Litographs (or any of the other products, as long as you can stand the design; $39 for a puzzle, prices vary for other products); the card game Stet! based on the book Dreyer’s English (good for the grammar nerds in your life, and a very nice gift from my Aunt Georgia; $20); subscriptions to the NYRB Classics Book-Club, the New Directions New Classics Book Club, and Fitzcarraldo Editions (a way to get new books for your friend all year from a publisher they like; in the case of Fitzcarraldo, oftentimes ahead of US publication; prices variable). It’s a pretty good list, so I won’t crib anything else from there - take a look at theirs if you need any more inspiration! Without any further ado, onto the gifts!
More non-books for book lovers
Various things from Book/Shop
Most book merch is unbearably corny. It’ll say something like “Read Motherf’in BOOKS!” or “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature” on it and just look awful too to boot. Thank goodness, then, for Book/Shop, a small Oakland store which focuses on smarter, less embarrassing, and more stylish stuff. One of my personal favorites, the ‘Tell Me What You’re Reading” Pin, is currently out of stock, but you could also go with the Zabar’s style Bibliophile bumper sticker ($10) as stocking stuffer, or these notepad style bookmarks ($18) for the reader in your life who’s lost their place in the five or six books they’re currently reading. For those constantly carrying a book around town, these Blanket Cloth ($75) or All Weather ($85) booksleeves will protect your precious cargo from the elements and all the other crap you have in your tote bag or purse.
On the furniture side, Book/Shop also offers a small stylish shelf ($298 - 495, depending on color and material) that is perfect for anyone running out of space on their current shelves - it would fit easily on top of an overstuffed Billy shelf1 and look good too.
Finally, their clothing options. How about one of these author’s portrait t-shirts ($65)? A Keats and Yeats (and Morrissey) long sleeve T ($45)? And if you’re Mr. Moneybags, take a peek at the stylish (and utilitarian) denim book jacket ($385)? Or if money is really really no object, wouldn’t your friend feel like the fanciest little reader in the world in these Library Slippers ($575)?2
Another good book T-shirt or two
A bookstore’s or publisher’s t-shirt is like an even dorkier concert t-shirt. (Plus, you certainly don’t need any more tote bags.) This Deep Vellum shirt ($25) has a cute design for any dog and book lover, and you get to support an awesome publisher of translated literature while you’re at it. Coffee House Press puts out a ton of great books every year, and I love their “Experimental Books about Death” shirt ($26.99) - just wish I had caught it in tie-dye. I dig this Point Reyes Books “West Marin Fog” ($20) t-shirt, though I couldn’t tell you exactly why. And I know I said nobody needs another tote but - how about this Pilsen Community Books Always Carry A Book bag ($20) for your favorite rad reading friend?
Other Subscriptions
Besides what I listed above, you can also get someone a subscription to the Graywolf Galley Club ($180/yr) to get cool Graywolf books long before they come out in stores. You could also give someone a subscription to And Other Stories press ($100/yr) - not only are they a great publisher (they put out the last two Robin McLean books!) but your recipient will also have their name printed in the very books they get from you through this subscription. Not too shabby!
If you have a friend who’s very much into tracking and cataloging their reading, but they’re still using Goodreads, you could gift them Storygraph Plus ($5/mo). Unlike Goodreads, it’s not owned by Amazon, lets you give half-stars, allows you to look at content warnings, graphs your reading habits in interesting ways, and the recommendation engine is actually good.
Speaking of subscriptions, what reader in your life wouldn’t love a subscription to a great newsletter on books? Every kid dreams of waking up to an Evan’s Newsletter yearlong subscription under their tree! You get all the pieces, personalized book recommendations, the ability to assign a piece to me, and more! ($5/mo or $50 a year - an absolute steal!)
Books for the wider world
Every new book I recommended in this Newsletter
Well, duh. They’re new and good, so less chance they’re already in someone’s library. You could get ‘em both Robin McLean books - Pity the Beast and Get ‘Em Young, Treat ‘Em Tough, Tell ‘Em Nothing ($35.90)!
Or Present Tense Machine ($25), or Saint Sebastian’s Abyss ($16.95), or Book of Goose ($28), or The Employees ($19.95), or go all out and get your friend the hardcover all-in-one set of Septology ($40). Septology takes place at Christmastime, so we can throw around some ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie’ type discourse about the book.
‘YA’ but not for dummies - Magda Szabo’s Abigail ($16.95)
I’m often asked at the store for recommendations for readers who are aging out of typical young adult fare – you know, high school drama, dystopian future murder competitions, someone with magical powers saving the world – but aren’t quite ready (or interested in) boring old person literary fiction. Madga Szabo usually writes literary fiction, but I wouldn’t usually give a book of hers to a teenager because she’s an emotional terrorist. However, Abigail, released in the US in 2020 by NYRB Classics (and translated by Len Rix), is something like Szabo with slightly duller edges, and it also deals with school-age people. The back flap of the book suggests that Abigail is a young adult classic in Szabo’s home country of Hungary, which just shows they have a much more advanced literary culture over in Europe. Anyway, the book follows a young girl, Gina, the daughter of a Hungarian genera, who is sent away to a convent school for her own protection as the Nazis move in. Gina, like most children, is unaware of the situation around her, and sees the school as more of a punishment than a safe haven, and what follows is a many-layered story; at once a classic boarding school (mis)adventure, and also about the various misinterpretations of the world and their teachers that Gina and her classmates have. It’ll break your heart, but gently (unlike, say, The Door.) Don’t be dissuaded by the marketing comparison to JK Rowling – Szabo can actually write, and she does not have brainworms. A perfect book for your cool fourteen year old cousin. If you’re a gender essentialist and think a teenage boy wouldn’t like this, well, you may be right. Maybe give A Fan’s Notes a spin if that teenage boy likes sports? Or some Kurt Vonnegut? Or! How about some Charles Portis?
Actually Funny Books - Anything by Charles Portis (~$16 each)
I’m also often asked at the store for books that are ‘light’ or ‘funny’ – a tough ask for me, since I usually like comically dark novels about the most grim shit in the world. The customer is always right, though, and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the ‘light’ and ‘funny.’ Nevermind that literary humor is one of the most subjective and hardest to generalize things in the world3 – we press on! Most people have already read (or tried to read) Catch-22 and Confederacy of Dunces, so those are off the list. My go-to picks, instead, have been the novels of Charles Portis, who, like John Williams, is a forgotten midcentury Arkansan master of the novel. True Grit is the famous one – you’ve probably seen at least one of the two movie versions of it – but the novels Norwood, Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis, and Gringos are all gems. They’re just good yarns, plain and simple, and extremely funny. I would probably start someone off with Norwood (a Southern riposte to On the Road) or Dog of the South (an Ignatius Reilly-type goes chasing after his runaway wife, all the way into Mexico), but any will do. (True Grit, again, is his most accessible.) But c’mon, don’t you want to give someone the gift of Dog of the South’s perfect first page?
Now that’s how you start a book!
If your friend is already so cultured that they’ve read all the Portis, you could also try Jaroslav Hasek’s Good Soldier Svejk ($18.99), the proto Catch-22, an all time great antiwar book and real-deal laugh out loud funny. Also receiving votes: the novels of Paul Beatty and Percival Everett.
Cookbooks!
Not something I usually cover around these parts4, and I’m not quite sure how I’d review cookbooks besides saying: the food is good! But I will shout out a couple of the cookbooks my fiancée and I have made extensive use of this year: Ali Slagle's I Dream of Dinner (So You Don't Have To) ($29.99) and Melissa Clark (the god)'s Dinner in One ($29.99). Both are packed with excellent, weeknight friendly meals, and wouldn’t be out of reach to a beginner-level home chef. I don’t really care about the central conceit of Clark’s book – that everything’s made in one vessel - but if that’s a plus for your recipient, then run, don’t walk to grab that one. Bonus pick for any grill-obsessed friends or relatives: Meathead Goldwyn’s Meathead ($35) for neophytes and experts alike, and Leela Punyaratabandhu’s Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill ($30) for anyone looking to go beyond traditional American barbecue recipes. Double bonus: Brian Hoefling’s Cocktail Seminars ($24.95) is perfect for cocktail newbies and experts alike; I’ve considerably upped my home bartending skills just by flipping through it and seeing what catches my eye.
Nice editions of books they already love or a gift card to a local bookstore ($ however generous you’re feeling)
For your friend who’s read everything – I mean everything! If you already know a book they dearly love, but have noticed that the edition they have is… less than stellar (beat up from constant attention, or the unlucky recipient of a heinous anniversary edition cover - oh god, why is it a comic strip?, or just an unfortunate cover from a bad design period) you can always go on Biblio and look for an older, cooler edition of it. For instance, my fiancée got me a sweet edition of Joy Williams' The Quick and the Dead with a beautiful Hockney on the cover; it’s one of the books I’m proudest to have in my collection. The moneybags among us can even spring for a rare first edition and enter their friend into the world of rare book collecting (musty bookcaves, commodity fetishism, insane attention to detail). Failing that, get them a gift card to their local bookstore and further enable their book buying problem. It’s better than taking a risk on something they already have or won’t like!
Stocking stuffers, knicknacks, potpourri
Hard to believe, but I do other things other than read. I got my fiancée this sparkling wine stopper ($5.95 here) and we use it often; keeps stuff bubbly for days, and works to keep regular wine fresh too! The Thermapen ($79) is a must-have for any serious chef – it gives lightning fast results so you know exactly when to pull your meat off the grill / out of the oven / off the skillet. Jambys are the comfiest house / sleep clothes I own; you don’t think you need boxers with pockets till you have ‘em ($35 for the boxers, variable for the rest of the very comfy line). Speaking of comfy clothes, Homefield Apparel makes super soft t-shirts and hoodies with cool retro collegiate logos; perfect for the college sports fan or anyone who went to one of the many schools they offer gear for. ($34 for shirts, more for hoodies.)
That’s all folks! I’ll update this list if I think of anything else, and I’m happy to give you a personalized book gift recommendation if you’re a paid subscriber - just hit the recommendations thread or send me an email. Happy hunting!
A very personal example.
If you buy those slippers you are legally obligated to become my newsletter patron so it can be my full time job. You definitely have the money!
For instance, I find Kafka and Joy Williams very funny, despite being terrifically bleak writers. Maybe because they’re bleak, too.
I leave the food writing to Anchovy Trove - subscribe today!
Shopping ... thank you! Also, “Abigail” is a wonderful recommendation for an advanced YA reader.