Gift Giving for Book Lovers

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Here’s a gift idea for those readers on your list.  If you know your beloved’s favorite author, and know that your beloved has read all the books by that author, don’t throw your hands up in despair.  Give your beloved bibliophile a favorite book of said bibliophile’s favorite author.  If you adore someone’s writing, surely you are curious about who/what shaped his views or molded her style.

My sister Margaret did this very thing a few months ago and I was delighted.  She gave me

and explained that she heard my favorite speaker, George Grant, say that this was his favorite book.  

This might take some research, but isn’t that what we have Google for?  Type in: literary influences “[author’s name]” and see what comes up.  You might get a young C.S. Lewis fan some George MacDonald books.


Or a Tolkien fan Seamus Heaney’s gorgeous translation of Beowulf.

Let’s take an example: Elisabeth Elliot. Your gift recipient loves EE and has all 26 of her books (!).  In the back of this book,

 

an obvious source to research Elisabeth Elliot, one finds a personal reading survey given to Christian leaders. When asked five books which were most influential in her life, her favorite novel, and her favorite biography, Elisabeth Elliot’s answers were:

Note: EE specified Evelyn Underhill’s The Mystery of Charity, which I couldn’t find.  So the image above is representative of Evelyn Underhill.  Also in EE’s list was Janet Erskine Stuart’s Life and Letters.

Is anyone out there salivating?  Welcome to the wonderful world of books, authors, and ideas.  It’s a beautiful life.

5 thoughts on “Gift Giving for Book Lovers”

  1. I know this may be an impossible request, but I’d really like to see a list of your top 15-20 books.  Books you absolutely love, would take on a deserted island with you kind of list!  Just a thought :)!

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  2. This is what is great about Library Thing You can look to see what books people have, maybe what other people with similar libraries have and buy appropriately. Of course gotta get all the books in just to make sure you aren’t buying something the person already has.

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  3. Patti, I am a Library Thing fan. It’s sort of addictive. I haven’t taken time to get many books in, but it’s the kind of thing I could take a day doing and count it a very happy day. Did you sign up for the lifetime bit? I’m thinking that 200 books isn’t really very many…

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  5. Dana, I’ll work on a top 15-20 list. It’s the kind of thing that is a joy to do really. It’s also a list that changes as time goes by. I know my list 20 years ago would be different. Thanks for asking!Carol

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