The Perfect Book for...
Based on the philosophy that there's a book for everyone on your shopping list
In my reading these past few weeks, I keep finding myself pausing, as I reach for a cup of coffee or a mince pie, to think of a very particular friend I’d want to give this particular book to, and for a very particular reason.
I guess it’s that time of year.
Yet it is true that my musician brother-in-law Jonathan Edwards must read Welsh folksinger Georgia Ruth’s novel, Tell Me Who I Am — because of the music trivia its characters bandy about, because of the scene of the book’s musician recording in a studio. And I’ve already pressed Claire Keegan’s Foster on my partner, Paul. Was I correct in thinking he’d love its exploration of parenthood and childhood? Yes I was.
So I decided to put together a Recommended Books list for the upcoming holidays, with this twist — books are tagged under unusually specific “Recommended For” categories.
A dozen authors and booksellers have taken part — a quick thank you to authors Tracy Chevalier, Tope Folarin, Claire Fuller, Xiaolu Guo, Judith Heneghan, Aiysha Jahan, Toby Litt, Özgür Uyanik, Mary Kay Zuravleff, and Carole Burns (that’s me); and booksellers Lily Baron owner of Book Space Cardiff, and Kath Giblin, owner of Bardic Books in Llantwit Major, Wales.
Bios and links to their books, below.
So, here we go. I’ve asked for fiction, but we’ve snuck in a few non-fiction books, too.
Happy giving! Happy reading.
Books for People Who Love Youth
Change by Edouard Louis, 2024 (Autofiction by the French novelist, recommended by Xiaolu Guo)
Books That Are Surprisingly Sexy Given the Subject Matter
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, 2024 (Tracy Chevalier says: “Dutch house in 1961 with a past”)
Books For People Who Want to Get Lost in Someone Else's Crazy Life
MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar, 2024 (Özgür Uyanik says: “Debut novel by Iranian-American poet with heavy themes shot through with the funny—my favourite combo”; and Aiysha Jahan says: “a book about a troubled Iranian-American poet who earns money role-playing terminally ill patients and dreams up conversations between his dead mother and Lisa Simpson!”)
Mammoth by Eva Baltasar, 2024 (Lily Baron says: “A book that packs a punch, I devoured it!”)
Books That Make You Literally Look at the World Differently
Orbital by Samantha Harvey, 2023 (Tracy Chevalier says: “Slim, gorgeous, plotless, perfect”)
Brief Beauties
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies, 2014 (Judith Heneghan says: “Her second collection of short stories, each one an exquisite surprise”)
The Party by Tessa Hadley, 2024 (Carole Burns says: “Classic Hadley, in the new Claire Keegan vein of brief, exquisite novels)
The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone by Alex McCarthy, 2023 (Kath Giblin says: “A pared back narrative which expertly navigates the path between darkness and light.” You can also see my Instagram reel about McCarthy’s novel.)
Foster and Small Things Like These and So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan (Carole Burns says: “This category wouldn’t be complete without Keegan”)
See also The House of Paper by Carlos María Domínguez, translated by Nick Caistor under Books for People who Love the Sea, and for Those who Don't
Around the World in One Book
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud, 2024 (Mary Kay Zuravleff says: “Messud’s storytelling prowess delves into the hearts and secrets of three generations of a family whose roots are in French Algeria”)
Books for People Who Love Places (Real or Unreal)
Atlas of Forgotten Places: Journeys to Abandoned and Deserted Destinations Around the Globe by Travis Elborough, 2024 (A curious atlas of strange, overlooked and disappearing worlds, recommended by Xiaolu Guo)
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan, 2024 ( Aiysha Jahan says: A novel that weaves together a historical love story with a coming-of-age story in contemporary South Africa”)
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer, 2015 (Özgür Uyanik says: “From the Venice Biennale to the shores of the Ganges, it's quite the ride!”)
Books That Tackle the Real World
Absolution by Alice McDermott, 2023 (Judith Heneghan says: “The Vietnam War through the eyes of American wives — its power creeps up on you”)
The Resisters by Gish Jen, 2020 (Carole Burns says: “A most optimistic dystopian novel, and a guide, maybe, to how to persist through fraught times”)
Brotherless Nights by V.V. Ganeshananthan, 2023 (Aiysha Jahan says: “Follows the life of Sashi, a young Tamil woman living through Sri Lanka's civil war”)
See also James by Pervival Everett under For People Who Love Books (and Their Retellings)
Books that Grapple with Faith
Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga, 2024 (Tope Folarin says: “More than a critique of religious institutions: It is a call to redefine faith”)
Books For People Who Love Books (and Their Retellings)
James by Percival Everett, 2024 (Mary Kay Zuravleff says: “When Everett flips the script on Huckleberry Finn, he not only sees Twain – he also raises the ante”
Orphia And Eurydicius by Elyse John, 2024 (Lily Baron says: “A Greek retelling that flips a classic and keeps all the love”
Books For People Who Love Books
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, 2018 (Tope Folarin says: “I love how ambitious it is, and what it says about the art of writing - and reading! - fiction”)
Books for People who Love Music
Tell Me Who I Am by Georgia Ruth, 2024 (Carole Burns says: “By the Welsh singer-songwriter, with lots of music trivia, and a vivid evocation of music making)
Sound Within Sound: Essays by Kate Molleson, 2022 (Toby Litt says: “One of my favourite broadcasters, Molleson is able to bring her broad enthusiasm about lesser known twentieth century composers into precise focus”)
Unusual Love Stories
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, 2024 (Xiaolu Guo says: “S great book for people who love the near future romance”)
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, 2023 (Lily Baron says: “Sn unusual love story that goes to unexpected places”)
See also Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain, 2023, under Books by a Living Legend
Christmas Crackers
North Woods by Daniel Mason, 2023 (Judith Heneghan says: “Lives connected by a place through time. Deliciously polyphonic”)
(See also Tessa Hadley’s The Party in Brief Beauties)
Books by a Living Legend
Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain, 2023 (Mary Kay Zuravleff says: “A wry account from an underestimated narrator obsessed with her first love, including a wonderfully jaded view of 60s London’s funky fashion and free love”
Books For People Who Enjoy Visiting Bygone Eras in Small Bites
The Complete Short Stories by Saki (Özgür Uyanik says: “Pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, an Edwardian satirist and master of the form”)
Books for People who Love the Sea, and for Those who Don't
Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Love, Shipwreck and Survival by Sophie Elmhirst, 2024 (Claire Fuller says: “This non-fiction account of how the Baileys survived for 118 days in a raft on the Pacific, and how when they are finally rescued they are given celebrity status, will be in my top ten reads of the year”
The Innocents by Michael Crummey, 2019. (Claire Fuller says: “Young siblings Ada and Evered are left to fend for themselves on a cold and inhospitable New Foundland shore. A brilliant, visceral, evocative coming of age novel”
The House of Paper by Carlos María Domínguez, translated by Nick Caistor, 2005 (Claire Fuller says: “Only 103 pages long, this tiny book has so much in it: a love of books, a mystery, a passion / obsession with collecting, and a surreal house on a desolate beach in Uruguay. It's wonderful.)
Books That Books for Understanding Animals Better
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, 2024 (Tracy Chevalier says: “Exquisitely observed relationship between woman and hare”)
Books For People Who Love Science—or Would, if They Read This
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, 2017 (Mary Kay Zuravleff says: “What do we have in common with soil, a seed, a tree? The simple truths of this botanist’s memoir are the stuff of poetry”)
Books that Play With Form
What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons, 2017 (Tope Folarin says: “It is deeply intimate, also quite ambitious, and offers a vantage point we rarely see in literature”)
Books for Academics
The University of Bliss by Julian Stannard, 2024 (Carole Burns says: “A poet writes a ribald satire about British universities so biting only a U.S. press would publish it”)
Books That Make the Past Seem Present
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott, 1929, reissued 2024 (Tracy Chevalier says: “Divorce 1920s-style that feels 21st century-style”)
Just Great Books
My Family and Other Rock Stars by Tiffany Murray, 2024 (recommended by Kath Giblin)
Crow Face, Doll Face by Carly Holmes, 2023 (recommended by Kath Giblin)
Every book on this list!
Thank you to our authors and booksellers for their recommendations! Now, links to their books and bookshops.
Lily Baron, owner of the independent bookstore Book Space Cardiff
Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and, most recently, The Glassmaker
Tope Folarin, critic and author of A Particular Kind of Black Man
Claire Fuller, author of five novels, including her latest, The Memory of Animals
Kath Giblin, owner of Bardic Books in Llantwit Major, Wales.
Xiaolu Guo, the author My Battle of Hastings and Radical
Judith Heneghan, author of Birdeye and Snegurochka
Aiysha Jahan, mostly recently been published in Ploughshares, co-editor of Bridges not Borders: An Anthology of South Asian Writing
Toby Litt, author most recently of A Writer’s Diary, based on his still-daily Substack
Özgür Uyanik, filmmaker and author mostly recently of Men Alone: Stories
Mary Kay Zuravleff, whose latest novel is the Oprah Daily pick, American Ending
Carole Burns, journalist and author most recently of The Same Country
