Reading
There’s a reader out there somewhere that you know. The kind who already has more books than they have shelf space for, who reads in the bath and on the bus and in the queue at the post office, who genuinely gets angry if you try and make conversation with them during the silent bit. Shopping for them should be easy. It doesn’t always feel like it. Not because they’re fussy, but because most book buying gifts fall into two camps. Stuff so glaringly obvious it’s embarrassing to link to, and things that would make Tolkien turn in his grave. Gifts that say ‘reader’ without actually knowing what reading means to a real reader.
We’ve curated this list because we wanted more options than that. Every item here has been picked because it will make someone’s reading life better, not just more Instagrammable. We care about that distinction. A proper reading light means they can read at 2am without keeping someone else awake. A beautiful edition of their favourite book is something they’ll treasure forever. A bookmark that doubles as a stand to hold their hardback open so they can eat lunch without disrupting their place? Will never nick themselves off of but will use every day.
We’ve also stocked things for readers of all types. The people who read one book at a time, deep and slow; the ones who always have four on the go. The commuters. The bedtime readers. The people who do ninety percent of their reading cross-legged in the same chair. We don’t include something for ‘every reader’ because we think you should all just buy everything. Reading means different things to different people and chances are the best present you can buy is the one that understands how somebody likes to read - not just that they read.
There are no novelty gifts in here. Everything here is something we’d actually buy for ourselves, except for a fraction too small. That’s because we’ve scrapped the gifts that look cute in a gift guide but wouldn’t survive passing into the hands of a real reader. Aside from that, we’ve only bought stuff we’d give for someone we really cared about. You should only buy gifts for people you care about too. But then we’d expect nothing less than you’d treat your favourite reader.