14 Brilliant Gifts for Book Lovers

Ellen Ullman's first book, Close to the Machine, described what it was like to be one of few female software engineers in 1997. Now, 20 years later, Ullman follows up with Life in Code, a collection of essays exploring what’s changed—and what hasn’t. The book pieces together personal, and at some times philosophical, observations about technology as an industry and as a cultural force.

Did you feel rocked by 2017’s endless barrage of stories about sexual harassment? Did you read ex-Googler James Damore’s anti-gender diversity memo, or spend a lot of time talking about gender diversity in the workplace? Do you know someone who works in tech who might benefit from reading about women? If so, this compendium is a good place to start. Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday’s beautifully designed coffee table book offers 200 portraits and profiles of women around the world—including Margaret Atwood, Alicia Garza, and Jane Goodall. Give it to a special woman in your life, or the person who could stand to learn a little more about women’s accomplishments.

Know someone who loves dystopias, post-apocalyptic stories, and other surrealist fiction? This is the book to buy them. Anna Kavan’s surreal story of the end of the world—one where everything is encased in ice—warns against both climate change and totalitarianism, with prose that’s both poetic and haunting. This year marks the novel's 50th anniversary, so you can choose either the old-school cover or the newly-minted Penguin Classics version.

Got a little one on your gift list who’s too young to read? This Book Is a Planetarium: And Other Extraordinary Pop-Up Contraptions splits the difference between book and interactive plaything. Each page unfolds as a beautiful pop-up, rendering magical experiences: a planetarium, a musical instrument, a message decoder, and more. There’s even space on some pages to slot in a cell phone (like in the pop-up planetarium, where your phone's flashlight can project constellations onto the ceiling). As exciting as it is educational.

Those who enjoyed Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy (and, OK, those who just liked the design of the cover) won’t be disappointed with Borne. It’s a story about biotechnology, about the apocalypse, about what it means to be a parent. Get it for the science fiction freak in your life, the person who just had a kid, or the graphic design nerd who will love the arresting cover image.

This is so much more than a bookmark. It’s a system for marking the exact word where you left off. The stretchy band fits around the book and the pointy finger adjusts to part of the page you want to pick back up on. Buy a bundle for the friend who’s always reading multiple books at the same time.

If you know someone who loved Rolling Stone in its heyday (or someone who just loves hot gossip) get them this book. Joe Hagan’s portrait of Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's founder, editor, and publisher, packs over 500 pages with juicy detail about the sex, drugs, rock n' roll—and, you know, journalism—that defined the magazine in its formative years. It’s part biography, part cultural history, part scandal-charged page-turner.

Don’t let the title scare you off: Robert Wright’s defense of buddhism isn’t at all dogmatic. Instead, in _ Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment_, Wright carefully dissects the philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific arguments to be made about practices like meditation, mindfulness, and the pursuit of nirvana. It makes for a compelling read for intellectual types, or the person you know who’s always on a trip to Thailand to “find themselves.”

In 2017, reading a book doesn’t require old-fashioned paper and print. A subscription to Audible unlocks access to over 100,000 audiobooks—listen in the car, on the train, on a run, while cleaning the house, wherever. Give them a whole year for $150, or three months for $45.

2018 will mark 50 years since NASA’s Apollo program landed a man on the moon. Jeffrey Kluger tells the story of that mission in Apollo 8, spinning together scientific and technological details with personal and historical ones. This thrilling tale is perfect for space geeks, history nerds, and people who just like a really good story.

In his first book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari asked the question: How did we get here? Now, in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Harari turns his focus to where humanity is headed—a future shaped by new technologies, new types of medicine, new ways of challenging death with artificial life. Buy it for your friend who hates cocktail party chatter but loves deep conversations about the fate of humanity.

Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West is a story about refugees, but not in the way you’re used to. The novel follows two young people living in a war-torn city—which is at first tolerable, and then suddenly is not—looking for a way out. Think of this as a story of migration plus magical realism, love plus survival, in a world that’s at once totally familiar and totally surreal. The book was shortlisted for half a dozen literary prizes this year; give it to your book clubby friend who will appreciate your good taste.