Holiday Gift Ideas: Ten Terrific Books to Give this Season

Jhumpa Lahiri once wrote, “That's the thing about books: they let you travel without moving your feet.”

This holiday season, give your loved ones, your writer friends, and even yourself the gift of experience—the feeling of unwrapping a present only to find it contains your imagination.

 Here’s a list of books we recommend for this holiday season:

1. Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
Because a little experiment keeps the mind on its toes.

2. Carried Away: A Selection of Stories by Alice Munro
Because we always need to be reminded that the small things are the big things.

3. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Because there’s more to Afghanistan than war.

4. Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (trans. Dick Davis)
Because a little poetry keeps the blood flowing.

5. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Because we are all searching, and one day it will lead us somewhere.

6. The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
Because we all need consoling since Harry Potter grew up.

7. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Because learning how to be a better person never goes out of style.

8. Love Is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski
Because there's no lesson quite like one of unrequited love.

9. My Heart Is Broken by Mavis Gallant
Because we are all outsiders in our own way.

10. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Because how to live life wasn't taught to us in school.

Around the Word

Stranger than #Fiction. Twitter's has become a serious tool for building author platforms and marketing books, but lately it's taking on new roles in the writing and publishing processes. A company called Chirpify is developing a Twitter-based program to sell books directly. And we've been seeing the rise of Twitter fiction, with several ventures, like Twitter Novel Project, attempting to write a full-length book tweet by tweet, as well as entire narratives built on 140 characters, à la this fun experiment from The Guardian. Montreal writer Arjun Basu has had his Twitter short stories (which he calls "Twisters") optioned for film, and he just landed a traditional book deal. An even stronger sign of Twit-fic legitimacy came in October, when Twitter announced that it would be holding the first official Twitter Fiction Festival. Want to start your own Twitter-based masterpiece? Get some tips here.

'Tis the Season. All the critics are making their lists of the year's best and worst books, and checking them twice. BookRiot, Goodreads, and Publisher's Weekly have all decided the best books of 2012. Amazon, of course, has your bestsellers (bet you can't guess who won! Hint: it starts with an "F" and ends with "-ifty Shades of Grey"). About.com rounded up their "most disappointing" books of the year, and GalleyCat has made a "mix-tape tribute" to the most underrated. And because we're always thinking of the children, NYPL has a list of 100 must-read children's books published this year.

Give the Gift of Lit. Speaking of lists, here are some handy gift guides for book lovers of all sorts.

• HuffPo rounds up some "quirky" and "stylish" accessories
• If you feel like getting crafty, Martha Stewart has some DIY suggestions
• LA Times has ideas for sci-fi fans, history buffs, and audio book lovers
• Gawker.com knows what to get for the millenial in your life
• And some ideas from Book Riot for the indy Hobbit-obsessed

 What's on your list?