Literary Quote of the Month

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Sunday, December 13, 2015

'Twas Twelve Days Before Christmas… Gifts for the Readers on Your List!

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! And welcome to winter! Although "technically" winter doesn't start until December 22nd, in Connecticut we are usually dealing with piles of snow, snow shovels, spinning tires and scraping windshields by now. But what has been going on is unseasonably warm weather, with 57 degrees weather just yesterday. I'm not complaining, but it just doesn't feel quite like Christmas to me without just a little snow. But Christmas is almost here and are you ready?! Doing any last minute reader gift shopping?  As a book blogger and avid reader, people always think I am very hard to buy a "reader" type gift for. It's true I do have a lot of books, but books aren't the only things us readers like! Here are some great gifts any reader (including myself) would love…

Bookends! If your reader has books, what a great gift bookends would be! I like these Hand bookends from Tech Tools ($18.50), but there are plenty of other types of bookends. Do a google search under "bookends" and plenty of images and links will pop up. You can also google search "bookends" and whatever type of bookend you are looking for, such as ""bookends alligator" if you want alligator bookends.

What about a Coffee Mug! I have this Banned Book Mug by The Unemployed Philosophers Guild ($14.95) and love it! It's a nice 12 oz fill and well made. The outside has titles from banned books, and the title "Banned Books" is in relief on the outside. Of course if your reader is a tea drinker there are beautiful tea mugs to be had as well.

Maybe a nice Book Light! Here's something I saw that I thought was really cool... a Book Rest Lamp by Suck UK($78.50)!  It's a reading light and/or nightlight and a book rest at the same time. It's shaped like a house without a roof, and your book laid down over it looks like the roof. It's a frosted illumination at 11 watts, so it's pretty safe to lay your book on it. And I think it's a great idea. Maybe a little pricey, but very cool. I looked around and this was pretty much sold out everywhere but Amazon. (the link to amazon is above).


A Book Rest! How about something to hold your book up for you? Book pillows and book stands always make a nice gift. I found this new one called The Book Seat by The Book Seat ($29.95) that looks pretty nice. It is filled with polystyrene beads to kind of mold itself where you put it. If this isn't to your liking, you can always google "Book rest" or "Book Pillow" to find all sorts of different choices.

Coloring Book for Adults! I haven't
gotten in on "the craze" yet, but I may have to get this COLORING Book! Yes, adult coloring books are all the rage now and why not?! It's suppose to be a stress reducer, but heck, I'm sure it's just plain fun too! Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book by Johanna Basford (under $10), seemed to have started the craze in 2013, and has so far sold over a million copies. There are objects to find and beautiful intricate pages to color in. In quite a few reviews I read, people were using colored pencils because they found the sharpie type pens to bleed through the pages, so why not treat your reader to a coloring book and a box of colored pencils too! (I use to like the Prismacolor pencils when I was using them for Art School).

Still thinking about gifts? There are always nice bookmarks, gift cards to a favorite bookstore, or maybe a magazine subscription to a nice literary magazine or paper. Hope these suggestions were helpful! Let me know what ideas you have for great reader gifts! We can all use more suggestions!

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Next Sunday Salon starts the end of the year Best Book lists! Is your favorite book on any of these lists? Come find out next Sunday! And next week, I'll see about getting up some of those reviews I've been meaning to write! I recently read a GREAT graphic novel about Pablo Picasso (Pablo by Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie) , that is his biography as told by his lover Fernande Olivier, whom he shared the beginning of his life with. Hmmm, have an art lover on your list? This would make a great gift!


Enjoy your week and see you next Sunday…. Suzanne

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was thinking the book rest would be a good gift and then realised every time i wanted to turn the page I'd have to lift it out of the rest??

Suzanne Yester said...

Actually, that little plastic piece on The Book Seat folds down so that you can easily turn the pages. You just push it down with one finger on one hand and then turn your page with the other hand. Here's the link to the actual site…

http://thebookseat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=276

It's a nice little feature.

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