Do you like to give books as gifts? How do you feel about getting books yourself? Are you picky or easy?
I love to give books as gifts—it’s my first impulse when birthdays or holidays roll around. It’s fun to match books with people; a Molly Ivins biography for my mom, Napoleonic history for my brother, feminist sci-fi for my friends. Plus, there’s the old stand-bys for people I don’t know very well, like The Hobbit. I’m lucky in that I read more than anyone else I know, so I rarely give people something they already have, but it does happen—my mother already had that Molly Ivins biography. But that’s a chance you have to take sometimes; I can’t know everyone’s libraries inside and out.
I love getting books that I want to read. I feel it’s fairly easy to parse that out, given the blog and my reading list, which even denotes which books I can only get to by buying them. A little Google-fu is your friend! But I often get a handful of books I’ve never heard of, unless I specifically ask for a book. I am picky in that I have specific books I want, but… there’s rather a lot of them, which broadens the field somewhat. At the end of the day, a bookstore gift card is much appreciated.
On rare occasions, I get books as gifts. When that happens, I usually get good stuff.
Since I work for a bookstore and get a good discount, I buy books as gifts more often than not. This Christmas, my sister was hoping I’d get her the new Jim Butcher book, just as a friend was hoping I’d buy him some “militant sci-fi.” I didn’t disappoint on either front.
Good on you, Len.
I also love receiving bookstore gift cards! And that’s what I like to give too, because even if I know a person wants a certain book, I usually don’t know if that person gave in (as I might have!) and bought it already!
You just never know the contents of someone’s library, even if you live with them.
I enjoy getting and giving books, but I’ve gotten to the point that I’ll do gift cards and I love it when someone gives me a gift card so I can go through my wish list and choose.
2 Kids and Tired Books BTT
Thanks for stopping by, Holly!