“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them,” said Neil Gaiman. “And it’s much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world.”
Last weekend, US President Barack Obama bought nearly two dozen books – or worlds, if you will – from Washington’s Politics and Prose bookstore. Many will be Christmas gifts, as Peter Baker of the New York Times highlighted as a caveat of the conclusions he drew from the president’s purchases: “Certainly children’s tales like Harold and the Purple Crayon offer few lessons for dealing with Tea Party congressman.” (Though, in our opinion, that could be selling Harold and the Purple Crayon short.)
Among Obama’s picks were A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra; Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland; Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic; Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild; and a couple of titles on sport, including David Epstein’s The Sports Gene, about the science of athletic performance.
Baker wrote that the selection offered a “rare window into the presidential mind”.
“A reading list offers … a peek at what a commander in chief may be thinking about beyond the prosaic and repetitive briefings that dominate his days,” he said of Obama’s picks, and those of his predecessors.
“The books on the White House night stand provide relief, escape or inspiration.”
Books being as much a matter of taste as they are, those stacked on our own bedside tables are quite telling, too.
Author Julian Barnes, who won the Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending in 2011, reflected on his life as a bibliophile in a longform piece for The Guardian.
Jim Flynn went around the world in 200 books for The Torchlight List, in which he argues that reading great literature could be better than a university education.
And if you’re stuck on what to buy for that hard-to-buy person, here’s Flavorwire’s list of the best books to gift for Christmas this year – though a trip to a well-stocked book shop is bound to spark some ideas.