Book Ends

Now, this sounds kind of silly, but let me explain. There are book ends out there that are nice simple metal ones, those are cheap. Anything fancier, not nearly as cheap. Someone might not splurge on something like that for themselves, but it is a great idea to gift for someone. There are a lot of different options you could go with. I’ve gotten ones that you put together, just a CNC cut thing where it’s two flat pieces of wood that slot together to make the L shape for holding up books, plus then a cut of the Fellowship of the Ring as the brace. So you can find a number of things like that which are great because you can tailor it to the type of book that someone likes. We also have some heavier ones, one with cats reaching up onto books and another the top of a castle with a dragon sitting on it. So you have a ton of options and it’s a luxury item, which makes it something that a book lover would love to get, but might not for themselves.

Book Darts

Another one of those accessory items, and this could be book marks as well, but book darts are just cooler. These are little metal clips that slide onto a page of a book. You can use them as a book mark and just mark at the top of the page where you stopped, or you can use the pointier side of the book dart and slide it along the side of the page to mark what paragraph and what side of the page you stopped on. This is something that’d be a great stocking stuffer for a book lover.

A Series Set

This could be given in a few different ways. There are some book series that come on a box set, so you could do that, or there are others that you can just get the person all matching books. I know, for example, my Dresden Files and Harry Potter are not all the same, some are short paperbacks, some are tall paperbacks and some are hard cover. If you know what a person has, you can help them get a more consistent collection just be giving a book that’ll match what they have the most of or what they like the best. This one won’t be for everyone, but swapping books in and out like that will please some people as everything will look more aesthetically pleasing. And if you can find an older boxed or matching set of some of the books, that’s a bonus too.

Special Edition/Early Edition

For someone who loves books, there are versions of books out there that they might be interested in, but just won’t be something they buy, because either they cost more or since they already have the book they don’t feel like they should get it again. Find those special editions, and by that I don’t mean the movie tie-in covers. But I’m talking about the hard cover with the embossed, the one with special art pieces in the book, if it’s an older book, look for an older printing of it. Things like that again are those luxury items that someone might not buy for themselves but that they’ll probably be drooling over and wishing that they could get. Now, be aware, first editions, or some of the fancy editions of books can get to be quite spendy, but even just something that is nicely bound and has a good spine edge on it, that’ll work if it’ll standout and highlight a book on the shelf.

Book Bag

Now, when I say this, it can be two things, it can be a bag for carrying your books, but they also do book printed bags that you could certainly carry books in, but you could also use for shopping, for a day trip, going to be beach, whatever. But they have nerdy or book things on them. My wife has a bag that she has used for crafting that has an image on it made from the words of the a book. So like a scene from Pride and Prejudice that is all just words laid out in order, from Pride and Prejudice to make that shape. Or you can find some with artwork from the book on them. Or maybe a pithy quote or just a quote in general from their favorite book on it. I’d stay away from the more generic ones just because fairly often those are just too cutesy or could miss the mark for the person than something that is directly tied to a book.

There are way more options you could look at as well for someone who loves books. I will say, books themselves, like a new book for a person, are tricky unless you really know the person. I’m a big fan of literature, but there are some things that I just don’t want or care about in terms of books and I know that I’ll be apt to just read them and then sell them used, or if it doesn’t come off the shelf for a long time, just sell. So know your audience, and I like the idea of helping make someone’s books more unique, uniform, whatever by giving them something that they might not get for themselves, like an early edition or a special printing of a book.

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1 The Dresden Files
I don’t think that this will be a surprise for anyone, but I really love this series. Jim Butcher does a really good job creating an interesting urban fantasy world that has some of that classic pulp feel to it while having very interesting villains and characters. The series starts a little slow, but as there is more focus to it, Harry Dresden’s world really takes off.

2 IT
I really like Stephen King and by far his standout work for me is It. I think that I’ve probably read the book a handful of times or more now. The story is just compelling and the interweaving of the past with the present to fill in the readers knowledge of what is going on works very well. I also like the fact that this book doesn’t fall flat at the end like some of his other books can do. The horror aspect is strong with this book, and Pennywise is a great villain and a valid reason for people to hate clowns.

3 The Reckoners
A series that I’ve talked about some and a game that I’m really excited to play, the Reckoners is a nice different twist on those with super powers. The Epics as the super powered are known in this series are all evil. And the Reckoners are a group of normal people who are trying to to bring some normalcy back to the world and take down the Epics who rule it. It’s a YA series and there’s a bit of it that’s not amazing at a few points in time, but overall, the series is really well done, and it’s just a good super power twist series by Brandon Sanderson.

4 Harry Potter
I’m done with JK Rowling in a lot of ways, she just needs to take her hands off  the stranglehold she has on this world, but I really like the series still. There’s something nostalgic about them for me, though I am older than the average who has those feelings about them, seeing as I read them in college. There is just something so magical about the world that allows you to overlook some pretty obvious flaws with it. The story just stands up well, and while the movies might not, the first movie is rough, I will always enjoy going back to the books.

5 Stormlight Archive
More Brandon Sanderson for the list. This series is epic fantasy at it’s best. The leader who didn’t want to be the leader now has to save the people. The slave rising up to save the day, and so many more classic tropes put together, but it feels new and unique and so huge. I mean, the books literally are massive, and the audio books are great because they are 45+ hours long, so you have a good amount of listening time to them. This is the epic fantasy that I’m always hoping to find.

Of course, I’m going to do some honorable mentions as well. My goal will be to the finish off a top 10 with them, like I did with the board games. In no particular order, my honorable mentions:

Lord of the Rings
The Hunger Games
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Good Omens
Swallows and Amazons

What are your favorite book series?

I’m starting off with my Top 5 Books.

Now, I’m going to add a disclaimer — when I say books, I mean top 5 books or book series. Some series are just too good to split up into single books, and I expect that more often than not you’re going to see series on my list.

Let me say that creating this list was harder than I thought; getting criteria in my head as to what should make my list was tricky, and there’s always something nagging in the background like, “but there’s probably a book you’ve forgotten.” Hopefully I didn’t make a glaring miss on my list. When choosing, I thought about the number of times I’ve read the book, if I’d want to read it again, and how much I’ve enjoyed the book, and I think I’ve come up with a pretty solid list.

Some books that were close but didn’t quite make it are Inkheart by Caroline Funke, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

But what other books do you think I would enjoy? What are your five favorite books?

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