The Great American Shop-Out

by

Lauren Roberts

The “biggest shopping day of the year” is only five days away. (Interestingly, it comes immediately after the biggest eating day of the year—the day Erma Bombeck once termed The Great American Pig-Out—which is something I’ve always viewed as more than a coincidence.) The day after Thanksgiving opens the “season” as retailers see it, and for many people it begins a frantic month of events, to-dos, shopping, planning and traveling.

It also seems to increase the stress levels in many people. A pity. It's unnecessary. May I make a suggestion? Do as I do and give books as gifts to everyone on  your list—even the  non-readers. Because no matter what their interests, there is a book that will please.

Let's begin by attempting to reduce the strain of holiday shopping. First re-consider the “where.” I strongly urge you to consider independent bookstores (new or used) for several reasons. First, they are never in malls; thus, you avoid parking hassles, jammed stores and the incessant “holiday-ness.” Second, you are more likely to find atypical selections (which fit in with my other suggestions) in these stores than in chain stores. Third and rather importantly, it’s quite restful to browse among books that don’t compete with coffee and snack bars, magazines, calendars, cutesy gift items and crowds.

As far as the actual shopping goes, probably the best single piece of advice I can give is this: Buy for your recipient. Sounds obvious, yes? Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s awful to be the recipient of a book that you don’t want, but that the gift giver does. This actually happened to me one year when one of my brothers bought me several western novels because he loves them and he wanted to assume I would too. This was a bad assumption because other than the classics, I almost never read fiction. I definitely don’t read westerns. But there they were. (Not for long, though. The next day I took them in to my local independent bookstore and exchanged them for something I did want.) So when I say “Buy for your recipient,” I mean buy what she or he wants or, better yet, buy what she would want if she knew about the book. It may be a bit more work, but imagine how delightful it would be to find a book you didn’t know you wanted until you got it.

So how could I, you might ask, find a book for a non-reader? Easy; you look for one that caters to the recipient’s tastes in an unusual and pleasing way. Is the person a baseball fan who prefers visual images to text? In that case, how about The New Yorker Book of Baseball Cartoons or Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of All Major League Ballparks or the coffee table book that celebrates 40 years of the game and its best players, Classic Baseball?

This is the sort of thinking you can apply to anyone’s interests. Does the person have a passion for stained glass, gardening or fashion? Don’t think of a how-to book (unless it has been specifically requested). Again, take a unique approach which could come from any direction—humor, beauty, etc. As an example, the stained glass aficionado would probably love the guaranteed drool-worthy Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist's Country Estate. (If you buy this, be prepared for a kiss.)

When you have a passionate reader, choosing a book as a gift is a different sort of problem. After all, what do you give someone who already buys books—and probably plenty of them. They probably already have what you are thinking of—unless you find, as with a non-reader, an unusual approach. Here’s an idea: If you know someone, for example, who likes discovering obscure but quality authors, and appreciates fine book design, that person is probably going to love any of the books that come from British publisher, Persephone Books. This is an unusual press; they specialize in forgotten classics by (mostly) twentieth-century women authors. Their stunning books—with custom endpapers and matching bookmark chosen especially to “match” each book—roam the literary landscape from novels to cookbooks to diaries to memoirs to short stories to essays. Another idea is translations of foreign literature. Too many American readers miss out on fine and fascinating world literature simply because it is hard to find unless you are seeking a specific title. A good independent bookstore will have a selection, but why not check out The African Review of Books or The Latin American Review of Books for ideas and gift your favorite reader with an international literary treat?

Or let’s say you have a mystery fan who has one or more series she follows religiously. Could you be the one to introduce her to some of the earliest mystery writers and their stories such as those listed on the site, A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection? Imagine a die-hard Patricia Cornwell fan finding Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq, originally published in 1868 or Anna Katherine Green’s The Circular Study (1900) under the tree. You might just ignite a passion for 19th century mysteries. And I think you will find that The Great American Shop-Out can, instead of being a frantic exercise, become one of your favorite excursions as it has mine.


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines have reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 750 bookmarks and nearly 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it