Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? I usually start early, and I thoroughly enjoy choosing gifts for all the people on my list. I try to make the gifts unique and personal, something that will be treasured. Many of those who receive a gift from me at Christmas are bibliophiles, like me, and it’s such fun browsing presents for them.
Here are some of my favourite picks for book lovers. I once read that the best presents are those you’d rather like to have for yourself, and that’s certainly the case with these literary gifts!
Bookshelves Scarf
This 100% silk chiffon scarf features book cover art from 19th- and 20th-century books in the Bodleian Libraries’ collection.
Available from: The Bodleian Libraries Shop
Classic Paperbacks Memory Game
A wonderful game for all the family from Princeton Architectural Press, with art by Richard Baker. The vintage paperback books are captured in wonderful ‘well-loved’ detail.
Available from: The British Library Shop
Shakespeare’s Sonnet Bracelet
A lovely gift for a wife or girlfriend, this sterling silver bangle is a Möbius Strip, the symbol for infinity, and is inscribed with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Available from: The British Museum Shop
Queen of Hearts Tea-for-One Set
From Whittard’s Alice in Wonderland range, this bone china teapot and cup are beautifully illustrated with the Queen of Hearts.
Available from: Whittard of Chelsea
Literati & Light Candle Collection
Three hand-poured soy and beeswax candles themed on fictional worlds. Wonderland is scented with rose absolute, black tea, strawberry and vanilla; Rivendell with mixed woods, moss, cade and night flowers; and Narnia with Turkish delight, apple and pine.
Available from: The British Library Shop
Literary London Cushion
The illustration on this faux-suede cushion was commissioned by the British Library to celebrate the influential Bloomsbury Set, who wrote in the area around the library.
Available from: The Literary Gift Company
221b Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes’ Master Detective Game
Visit Victorian London and test your deductive reasoning with this game inspired by Conan Doyle’s enduring detective stories. With 75 cases to solve, the game is afoot!
Available from: Waterstones
Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails With a Literary Twist
From Gin Eyre to A Rum of One’s Own, Infinite Zest to Crime and Punish-mint, there’s a cocktail to suit every (literary) taste here.
Available from: Amazon