It's time for the 2012 gift guides, where I go catalog and online shopping for gift ideas that would work for all the avid readers you know. I have a lot of fun building the gift guides, especially when I find something like the Lowood Lacrosse tshirt and so many people go, 'HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS MUST BUY CLICK CLICK.' It's a relief I'm not alone in these things.
I've got a file of a few ideas already, but I wanted to put out a call for submissions. If you have a gift that works wonderfully for romance reading book loving folks in your life, I would LOVE to hear about it. Please email me at SarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTTYcom with “Gift Guide” in the subject line, and tell me about it!
You are welcome to tell me about your Etsy store, your line of handmade fountain pen inks, your knitted slipper business, or your friend's boutique. But please make sure that there is a reason what you're sending to me would work as a gift for a book loving person, and that I can link to examples online.
I may not use every submission, but I will do my best to include your gift suggestions in this year's gift guides.
Let's get started – and keep reading because there's a giveaway at the end!
Classic Literature Board Books
Speaking of Jane Eyre, Carrie S sent me an email with a link which said, “How is it possible that I don't have this???” I replied, “OH MY GOD THERE ARE MORE OF THEM WANTWANTWANT.” What were we talkign about?
Classic literature board books.
Awwww, yeah. If there are new babies and little kids in your world, you can get counting primers based on Jane Eyre or Romeo and Juliet, or Pride & Prejudice. There are color primers based on Alice in Wonderland, too. These are counting and colors books, so it's not as if they're toddler-retellings of the books themselves, but if you're friends with readerly parents, these might be a very appreciated gift.
Sidenote: while we're talking board books, there is a Pantone™ Colors boardbook, too.
And I totally want a set for myself, even though my kids are no longer toddlers.
Leather Ereader Covers and Pewter Jewelry from Oberon Designs
Moving on: I've talked about my love of Oberon leather covers for ebook readers (and am sad my Oberon cover doesn't fit my new Kindle, so I've started saving up to buy a new one). This year, Oberon is trying to get more of my money, as they have leather cuff bracelets and pewter cuffs as well – in addition to the really beautiful tooled leather ereader and iPad covers.
They also have jewelry like scent amulets, necklaces of pewter charms on leather cord, and earrings. And hairclips, too.
Yeah. I'm sorry.
Multicolored Set of Disposable Fountain Pens
If you like pens, or know someone who does, here's a very simple gift that's great for a coworker or stocking stuffer or one of those nights of Hanukkah where you're not sure what to get someone because you've got 7 gifts and you just need one more – not that this has happened to me (Every Year) (ahem): the Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen set.
It's $15-$20, and features fountain pens in red, blue, balck, green, purple and pink. I have two Pilot Varsity pens on my desk (I have a little thing for fountain pens) and I love mine. It's lightweight and doesn't make my hand tired (I have one fountain pen that I bought on clearance that I could use to build my biceps, it weighs so much. Probably why it was on clearance) and it doesn't dry out easily, either. And they last a long-ass time.
So if you know any Pen People, or People Who Obsessively Buy Blank Notebooks, this might be a fun gift for them.
BookBoxes!
And here's your chance to get a gift early! I'm not usually the type to get excited about tchotskes, but I like hiding stuff (especially from myself, like when I put something in a special place so I won't forget, and then promptly forget) and I love hiding stuff in plain sight.
Misiu from BookBoxShop contacted me awhile back about doing a giveaway, and I wanted to save the idea for the holiday season. I think these would make a spiffy gift, especially if filled with candy, lip balm and tissues, or book gift cards. (Question: is a stack of bookstore gift cards the equivalent to a stack of books? I get the same rushed-heartbeat thrill at both, honestly. So much possibility).
The boxes have different themes, such as music or religious imagery, and some are really breathtaking.
Misiu has offered a box to give away, winner's choice, so if you're interested, now's your chance! I'm adding a $25 gift card to the bookstore of the winner's choice, so you get books in a book! Want to win? Leave a comment and tell us what you'd put in the box (aside from your junk, obviously) and you're entered to win.
Open to international residents. Must be 18 or over and near a bookshelf to win. Void where prohibited. Do not cut a hole in the box, no matter what Justin Timberlake tells you.
I'll be picking the winner at random on Friday, 23 November. Good luck! And happy Thanksgiving to all of you consuming turkey this week.
I need something at work to keep my secret key to the filing cabinet with the safe in and this would be perfect – no-one here would even suspect that it wasn’t a book!!
It would look heaps better than the little plastic sets of drawers I have been contemplating for want of anything better to choose from!!
Love the book boxes (and also bookmarked some of the other sites for shopping later). I would move the poems people have written me (one of them starts “listening to this lecture on the physiology/ of sexual arousal”) and some sentimental souvenirs into the book box and ditch the decades old shoe box.
I would put my receipts in the book box, I’m always losing them.
I would put my little note pads and cute post-it pads in there. I love note pads and sticky note pads and have a lot—-but somehow, I can never seem to find one when I need it!!
I like the idea of putting in chocolate!
I enjoy getting gift cards possibly more than getting books as presents. With a book, you’re locked in, relatively speaking. With a gift card, there’s a whole world of literary possibilities at your fingertips!
could be a good place to hide that candy so it’s there when I really want it & not already eaten 😉
God, this is going to make me sound like a philistine. I’d keep my seemingly infinite supply of cables in it. Cables for my camera, iPod, Kindles, headphones, and all the other gadgets that I used to survive without but now find indispensable.
I would probably use it for jewelry.
What a pretty box and what a great giveaway! I would use it to hold my bottles of fragrance oil in it, assuming the dimensions are right. Thanks for the great contest!
Cute! I’ve got a collection of RTCs looking for a home…
The dried roses from my wedding bouquet with the preserved knot of holly from over the chapel door, the handkerchief my grandmother made me for luck, and the tiny fabric roses I wore braided into my hair. (Right now, all of the detritus I kept from my wedding day is stuffed into a children’s Clark’s shoebox – they actually crossed the Atlantic with me that way. It’s not a very glamorous locale.)
I’ll definitely put my jewelery in it…I have about 3 different small jewellery boxes with my gold & silver jewellery in 3 different places so its kinda hard to keep track of what is where & to pick something fast to wear when i’m on the run…which is most of the time. This would definitely help 🙂
I would use it to store my jewelry!
Well, this sounds terribly twee, but when hapaxdaughter was a wee totlet, she asked Santa Claus for “a rainbow in a box.”
And coinkidinkly, I just found this: http://www.amazon.com/Kikkerla…, so…
What have you done? I love the ebook covers and the book boxes, but the only person I know who would appreciate them is me. I can’t keep doing “a gift for my list, a gift for me,” can I?
I would put my bookmark collection in a book box – it might be too on the nose, but it would make me happy.
First of all: I’m pregnant, and so am using that as an excuse to buy those board books. That way I can sneak more books past the husband…they’re NOT for me!! *side eye*
Second, if I had a book box, I’d like to say I’d put something really glamorous in it, but I’m a mom. I think it would be perfect to store the reward and chore chart stickers for my girls. I think putting them in a beautiful box that resembles my favorite thing, books, would lend the whole system some extra gravitas.
So cool. I would use for pens, stamps, post-its, stationery, etc. I wonder if it would work as a stash for secret things—keys, papers?
Well thanks to you I have my wishlist—those boxes are incredible. And I’ve never written with a fountain pen but those you linked make me want to run out & buy them.
Choosing a box would be torture. I would keep my favorite writing pens (hidden & guarded jealously) and my silk bound story starter notebook, along with a few treasured mementos, and my journal.
My flash drives of eBooks backed up. Would love to have them close by, but away from my mouse and cables.
In a thrift store once I saw an album of civil war photos, and in a hidden space in the middle the smallest, cutest pistol in the world. I still regret being too poor to buy it. So probably a gun. It’s that or the whiskey, but it seems like an inconvenient spot for something I use frequently.
If I had one of these boxes, I’d hide either money or condoms. Both are extremely private and in need of an obvious and hidden (yet accessible) place to put them. Does this make sense? 😉
I’d use it in my purse to keep whatever book I was reading safe (flat, dry, etc.) it would fit well as my purse is huge and it’d be interesting, and cute and I’d love it forever. Thanks.
All my broaches, hijab pins and jeweled hair accessories, currently overflowing on my dresser, would go into this. It’s the perfect size for it.
“People Who Obsessively Buy Blank Notebooks” <—this is me. ^_^
I’d keep our extra set of car keys inside the box. And maybe important documents like bank and insurance papers.
I love reading gift guides! I discover so many cool things! ^_^
Well, now I want a set of disposable fountain pens in a variety of colors. Do you suppose a bookbox would be big enough to keep them in?
Postcards would be a good start. My pile of postcrossing cards is growing.
I’d keep my favourite photos of my babies (currently all over the place) and those lovely poems my husband wrote for me at the beginning of our marriage.
Ooh, those boxes are gorgeous! If I got one, I’d fill it with notes and ideas for my next novel, along with some inspiring photos.
I would hide chocolate in it. I live in Switzerland and I often wonder how the Swiss don’t gain 900lbs a year living in the country of cheese and chocolate. I would hide chocolate from myself (in case of nuclear winter and stoppage in chocolate exports).
I’d put the latest book I am reading inside the box, so my husband can’t spill Betadine all over it and turn it yellow.
I’d put my sister’s Xbox control in it and wait to see how long it takes for her to notice it’s missing.
After that (or if it didn’t fit) maybe those random story ideas that always happen when you’re in the middle of something else so you have to write it on a scrap of paper in tiny print then transfer to the computer but always seem to get lost the moment you set them down.
Just so you know, plenty of (probably most of) American Jews don’t give gifts every night of Hanukkah. My mother used to hold back the gifts our relatives sent us and give those out night by night to stretch the gifts so more nights were covered and I did the same with my son when he was younger. Now that he’s at college, he acts like Hanukkah doesn’t even exist, unless he happens to be home to light the menorah. THEN he expects a gift! :>)
Business cards and the plastic affinity cards that you get from stores so you can get special discounts, etc.
Oh wow, those are gorgeous – and I know just what I’d keep in mine: my father passed away this summer, and I need a good place to store some of the things from that time, like his obituary or the rose I took from his grave. He loved books, he’d appreciate this!
I don’t know i love the look of it. I think i might use it to put my tax receipts for my body painting business. I really need to file them but they end up in the a manila envelope so at least they would look pretty even if i am still a pile-er.
Those are pretty. I’d use them for gift wrapping supplies or treasured items.
I’d use the book box to hold smaller books!
I’d probably put some paper, pens, and the book(s) I’m currently reading in it for easy access. 🙂 Possibly some kitty toys too, they tend to take over everything!
I would keep all the letters my partner and I exchanged during the two years we did long distance in the book box.
Honestly, it’d probably wind up being used as a catch-all for the little things that now get lost in the top drawer of my nightstand. However, since that category includes my reading light, it wouldn’t be totally inappropriate.