The Dos and Don’ts of Books As Gifts

Books are excellent gifts. Nice but… The Dos and Don’ts of Books As Gifts

Books are excellent gifts. Nice but not expensive, thoughtful but not weirdly personal, a good book is a gift that someone can appreciate without feeling guilty that you went to too much trouble.

If you give someone the book that becomes her favorite, you will have her gratitude forever — Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” was one of the best birthday gifts I ever received.

But giving someone a book is not a risk-free proposition — generally, the safest gifts are not usually the best or most memorable gifts. Without further ado, here are the Dos and Don’ts of doing your holiday shopping at the bookstore this season.

DO give a book you read and liked: This should go without saying, but don’t give someone a book you haven’t read, no matter how highly recommended or critically acclaimed it was. Yes, giving a book you’re not familiar with gives you some deniability if the recipient doesn’t enjoy it, but honestly, it’s better to own your tastes.

For me, one of the nicest things about getting a book from someone is the prospect of being able to discuss it with them after I’ve finished reading it. When someone I respect says, “I loved this book, I think you’ll really enjoy it,” I feel flattered, as if I’ve been deemed “good enough” for a book that means a lot to him or her.

DON’T give someone your favorite book in the world: On the flip side of this, not every book is for every person, and not every book that changed your life is a book that everyone positively must read, to have afulfilled life.

Overwhelming love for a book or author can blind you to otherwise obvious differences between your tastes in literature and your friends’, which leads to ill-advised gifting choices. As in most things, you won’t make good decisions if you’re too emotionally invested.

Put yourself to this test: if you would think less of someone for telling you he didn’t like “East of Eden,” do not, under any circumstances, give him “East of Eden” for Christmas.

DON’T give a book that’s commonly read in high school: Unless you know of a not completely obvious way to find out for sure that somebody hasn’t read the book you plan on buying for them, there’s always the risk that they will already have read it.

Buying a book that’s assigned in the majority of high school English classes is a very good way to needlessly increase that risk. Obviously, curriculum varies widely across high schools, but use your judgment. I read “All The King’s Men” in high school English, but I can still gift it with some confidence that the recipient probably hasn’t read it. “The Great Gatsby” is another matter.

DO give a stand-alone book: When you buy someone a book, you are asking them to make the commitment of time and energy necessary to read it. That’s why books are tricky gifts and lots of people don’t recommend them. A book is only a good gift if the experience of reading it was worth the time it took to read.

Buying someone the first book in a series is implicitly asking them to read the rest of the series, and frankly, that just isn’t fair. People have busy lives. Many people have long reading lists already, and though they will gladly bump the book you gave them to the top of the list because they love you, they might be less willing to prioritize the whole “Sandman” series, no matter how awesome it is.

On a related note, if you’re buying a book for someone who’s incredibly busy, think short. Even better — think a book of poems or short stories. These are digestible and low pressure. Your loved one can read a couple of poems a day or one short story every night before bed, and there’s no race to finish the book.

DON’T give a book with controversial content: If you look at the list of books most commonly banned from public school libraries, it becomes apparent that very few books worth reading are rated PG. I’m not telling you to eliminate every book on that list from your gift-giving repertoire, I’m just telling you to use your head. Most people over the age of 16 are cool with profanity and sexual content within reason.

It is not, however, safe to assume that everyone will appreciate Junot Díaz’s colloquial use of the N-word in “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” or find Chuck Palahniuk’s shock-rocking interesting and clever. It’s hard to avoid drawing conclusions about someone based on the books they cherish, and if you gift “Lolita” to somebody who doesn’t know you — or Vladimir Nabokov — very well, the conclusion might be less “Teddy enjoys beautiful prose and morally challenging subject matter,” and more “Teddy enjoys child porn.”

DO use what you know: Thanks to Facebook, it’s incredibly easy to find out what kinds of books somebody likes and use that as a jumping-off point.

Did your friend love “The Catcher in the Rye”? Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar,” written around the same time, is another great coming-of-age story set in the 1950s. Also, J.D. Salinger’s lesser-known novella “Franny and Zooey” is thought by many — myself included — to be better than “Catcher” by far.

Know someone who’s a Virginia Woolf fan? They’ll love “The Hours,” Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel weaving allusions to “Mrs. Dalloway” with speculation about Woolf’s life.

If someone you’re shopping for is wild about “Hamlet,” try giving her “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Tom Stoppard’s tragic but hilarious absurdist play that follows these two minor characters in Shakespeare’s masterpiece.