FD and Mr. FD always include at least a few books in our gift-giving. But we don’t buy things that are designated as “holiday” reading. No copies of A Christmas Carol — or any of its descendants! No books, even for the youngest readers, about snowmen or santa, and none of the “coffee table” books that are specially designed for the shopper without any actual ideas.
This year, we’ve bought some books of poetry (despite Chad Harbach’s recent comment in n+1, as quoted in Slate, that “it has become almost inconceivable that anyone outside a university library will read them”) and some books about art, and Mr. FD’s present to himself was a copy of Antonio Damasio’s new book about consciousness. And it is still early; we’ll probably be back in the bookstore before the end of the gift-giving season.