With the holiday season quickly approaching, people are rushing to buy gifts for all of their friends and family. However, it can be hard to give gifts to readers. The obvious choice is books, books, and more books! But what if you don’t know what they like to read? 

Gift guides:

A great place to start is Gift Guides. Looking through the most popular books in the person’s age range or favorite genre can be a useful tool when giving a book to someone. Our very own Book Club has put together their own Literary Gift Guide for the holidays. The majority of iUPrep students think that this list is accurate and would enjoy receiving a book from the guide.

However sometimes the books people like don’t always match up with their age. Tessa says, “-I did like two of the ones for 3rd-5th grade when I was in that range. However, I think that appropriate books depend more on interest than age alone.”   Eve also brings up the point that they might have already read a book that’s listed on a guide, “However, someone may have already read the books. If you do not know exactly what is on someone’s TBR [to be read] list, lean toward other ‘accessories’ for book-themed gifts!”.

So what kind of accessories can you get a book lover?

Other ideas:

A popular trend on Booktok (the book side of tik tok) is to decorate your bookshelves with lights, themed merchandise, figurines, and more. Gifting shelf decor is a creative way to show what you know about someone and give them a useful item. Just make sure they have a bookshelf! 

Some students would be happier with book-themed merchandise! It helps to know what they like to read, but there’s plenty of in-general-book-lover stuff out there. Small shops advertised on social media, like BlissfullyBookishTees and FandomSleeves on Instagram, are great places to find book-specific items of good quality. They often create merchandise for a specific series featuring characters, quotes, and art. 

Other websites like Amazon, Etsy, and RedBubble (a site known for creating themed items) are better for a wider range of items, or lesser-known book series. They have everything like stickers, posters, t-shirts, figurines, and more!

The majority of iUPrep students say they would be happy receiving or gifting book merch to their friends and family.

According to iUPrep students, the best thing to get your book-obsessed friends and family is a book you think they’d be interested in (either from a gifting guide or their TBR), shelf decor, or any kind of merch featuring their favorite books! Gifting to book lovers can be hard but hopefully, you’ve found some new tools and ideas through this article.