The tree looks magnificent.

Your kids did a great job decorating the parts you assigned to them; you took pictures this year, because they really outdid themselves. So you’re ready – almost – for the holidays, except for those few tricky gifts that you just can’t seem to figure out.

How about books? Easy to wrap, happy to get, why not look for these great books…

FICTION

Lovers of fantasy stories will love unwrapping “Illuminations” by Alan Moore, a collection of short-stories with an underlying theme of comics and the industry. Perfect for the young gamer or comix reader.

For the giftee who likes novels with a twist, wrap up “The Storyteller’s Death” by Ann Davila Cardinal. It’s the tale of a girl who learns, at age 18, that she’s a “storyteller,” which is something that’s passed down through the women of her family. But this blessing turns out to be a curse when she “sees” a murder that happened long ago. Pair it up with “The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern” by Rita Zoey Chin, also a story of a young “fortune teller” and a vision she may or may not have wanted.

The person on your list who loves to people-watch and connect with, well, everybody will want “Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting” by Clare Pooley. It’s the story of an advice columnist who amuses herself during her commute by watching the other people on the train – until the day something happens and commuters suddenly become something more. Pair it with “Has Anyone Seen My Toes?” by Christopher Buckley, a hilarious novel about life during the pandemic when one’s health is the least of one’s worries.

If you’ve got a historical fiction lover on your gift list this year, then wrap up “A Woman of Endurance” by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa. It’s the tale of an African woman who’s captured and sent to a plantation in Puerto Rico for the sole purpose of having babies that are always taken from her immediately after they’re born. How she survives and heals is part of this book’s appeal.

The reader on your list who loves to laugh will thoroughly enjoy “Random” by Penn Jillette. It’s the story of an almost-twenty-one-year-old who inherits a pile of debt from his horrible father, and it’s due to the (even more horrible) loan shark when the guy turns 21. Will a roll of the dice eliminate all his problems? Lucky is the person who gets this book, to find out.

And if you’ve got a father-son duo on your gift list, see if you can get them to share “The Ski Jumpers” by Peter Geye. It’s the tale of a son who can never forgive his father, and a father who has a past the son is just now learning, and a brother who’s caught in the middle.

MYSTERY

The person on your list who is Of a Certain Age will absolutely love getting “Killers of a Certain Age” by Deanna Raybourn. It’s a thriller-mystery about four women who’ve worked as assassins for decades but suddenly, everyone thinks their methods are outdated. They’re sent “on vacation” but it’s really no vacation. How do they get out alive?

Lovers of short mysteries will love to find “Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories” by Peter Lovesey. This book, in celebration of Lovesey’s more-than-fifty years of mystery-writing, is full of mayhem, murder, and you know your giftee will want it.

Keep an eye out for more suggestions in the coming weeks! Season’s Readings!