Looking for a shopping guide to help you find the perfect book for the book lovers on your Christmas list? Santa’s elves (aka “librarians”) are ready to help.
Call us biased, but we here at the library think books make the perfect Christmas gifts. They are beautiful, reusable (we think rereading favorite books is one of the marks of an intelligent person!), and very easy to wrap.
But sometimes it’s difficult to pick out the perfect book, especially for bibliophiles. What if they already own the latest and hottest romantacy or most popular tearjerker? What if they have a deep, abiding dislike for an author whose new release is getting all the buzz? Or their tastes have changed since you last had a good, long bookish conversation?
You could start your search at Orem Public Library’s book sale. It’s stocked with used books in great condition, covering all sorts of different genres, writing styles, topics, and forms.
If that’s unsuccessful and you need to go to a bookstore or online bookseller, try considering the recipient’s personality, hobbies and interests, stage of life, and unique quirks, and then find a book that connects in some way.
For example, if you’re shopping for someone who…
loves baking:
Kneaders Bakery and Cafe: A Celebration of our Recipes and Memories
By Colleen Worthington
Adult Nonfiction
Oremites love Kneaders Cafe—it originated right here! This cookbook includes dozens of Kneaders-inspired recipes, some still served there, as well as stories about the cafe and its employees.
always knows some interesting, random facts:
What It’s Like To Be A Bird
By David Sibley
Adult Nonfiction
Turkey vultures roost with their wings spread. Female wood ducks choose their mate based entirely on his appearance. Quail are close genetic cousins to chickens. Many more bird-themed random facts can be found in this book, which has illustrations as delightful as the colors of a painted bunting. But be warned: it might be a gateway to birding for the reader!
is an artistic feminist at heart:
The Story of Art Without Men
By Katy Hessel
Adult Nonfiction
This New York Times bestseller and winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award does exactly what the title states: skips over all the familiar stories of men in art to tell art history with the art women have made.
pays attention to cultural impacts:
Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television
By Thea Glassman
Adult Nonfiction
Some TV shows are just TV shows—and others change the world. This book looks at the impact of seven television shows, written for teenage audiences, on American culture at large.
always wants to play a board game:
Around the World in Eighty Games
By Marcus Du Sautoy
Adult Nonfiction
Games might seem to be just something we do to have fun, but as Marcus Du Sautoy illustrates in this book, they are also deeply cultural reflections and an opportunity to play with math.
recently became a parent and doesn’t take themselves too seriously:
Raising Baby by The Stars: A New Parent’s Guide to Astrology
By Maressa Brown
Adult Nonfiction
This nontraditional approach to raising a baby is great fun. It might not be scientifically proven, but it gives new parents some lighthearted but also helpful ways to understand their baby.
knows all about politics and current events:
Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia
By Nora Krug
Adult Nonfiction
During the first few days of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Nora Krug began interviewing the anonymous K, a Ukrainian journalist and D, a Russian artist. Their stories, interpreted in her striking drawings, illustrate the devastating impact of war on everyone involved.
is a creative, thoughtful friend:
Tanya
By Brenda Shaughnessy
Adult Nonfiction
Tanya is a collection of poems that describes, examines, praises, questions, and blesses the poet’s personal and public “influencers,” women who encouraged her to write. The poems invite us to question our own life-changing relationships, both the impact they had on our lives and the way our own choices influenced them.
loves to scrapbook (or used to!)
Make Your Memory : The Modern Crafters Guide To Beautiful Scrapbook Layouts, Cards, And Mini Albums
By Paige Evans
Adult Nonfiction
No matter if your giftee tried scrapbooking 15 years ago or finished her most current layout yesterday, Page Evans’s detailed pages, clever use of color and pattern, and unusual techniques will spark an entire sticker-sneeze of crafty happiness.
has a habit of redecorating their house:
Sacred Spaces: An Interior Design Book
By Carley Summers
Adult Nonfiction
Rather than exploring the latest trends of redecorating, this book shows how individuals have created homes that are sacred spaces, despite the struggles, losses, and changes in their lives. The photographs here are especially beautiful.
recently went through a difficult experience:
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
By Maggie Smith
Adult Nonfiction
In this beautiful memoir, the award-winning poet writes in short vignettes—referencing song lyrics, emails from friends, essays, fiction, and poetry (hers and many others’)—about how she processed the end of her marriage.
drags you to rock shops whenever you visit Moab:
Lapidarium : The Secret Lives Of Stones
By Hettie Judah
Adult Nonfiction
Organized around themes like “stones and stories” and “sacred stones,” this book looks not just at the geology that forms different stones but at the way they impact culture. And the cover is gorgeous!
loves the ocean:
The Underworld : Journeys To The Depths Of The Ocean
By Susan Casey
Adult Nonfiction
Only recently, using submersibles and other technology, have humans been able to begin exploring the deepest parts of the ocean. Exploring oceanography with a literary tone, Casey’s book takes readers right into the depths of the sea.
is obsessed with animals:
Beastly : The 40,000-Year Story Of Animals And Us
By Keggie Carew
Adult Nonfiction
“This touchpaper between humans and other animals has been lighting up, and indeed chronicled, for more than 40,000 years,” Carew writes at the beginning of this book that examines the memorable moments when humans and the other animals interact.
always wanted to write a book:
Out Of Silence, Sound. Out Of Nothing, Something : A Writer’s Guide
By Susan Griffin
Adult Nonfiction
The author of the book Woman and Nature (among many others), Susan Griffin helps aspiring writers find a process and rhythm that works for their own needs and quirks, in short, accessible chapters.
is a history buff:
Femina : A New History Of The Middle Ages, Through The Women Written Out Of It
By Janina Ramirez
Adult Nonfiction
Joan of Arc. Eleanor of Acquitaine. And…are there any other historical women from the Middle Ages whose stories we know? Using the artifacts, writings, and possessions they left behind, Femina tells the forgotten stories of the women who, despite cultural and religious inequality, shaped their societies.
is drawn to the unusual or unknown parts of life:
Ephemera : A Memoir
By Briana Loewinsohn
Adult Nonfiction
In dreamy, mysterious, earth-toned pictures, set in places where green things grow, this graphic memoir explores Briana Loewinsohn’s relationship with her mother, who suffered with mental health issues.
has always loved turtles:
Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell
By Sy Montgomery
Adult Nonfiction
The incomparable Sy Montgomery here tells the tale of the Turtle Rescue League and how by trying to save turtles we might just save the world.
Written by Amy S. (Outreach)
