A Shoppin’ We Will Go
December 6, 2009

As promised this week and for the two following weeks I will offer a list of possible holiday ideas and links for shopping for those recipients who are book lovers and readers. The list is extensive but not comprehensive, and it does cover all price ranges, including free. There will be publishers’ links with some suggested books, personal items, home items, book-related items and so on. This will be shopping that you can do from home so kick back, relax, and  . . . go!

Are you thinking clothing? How about this book tee shirt? Take Me To Your Reader is a wonderful play on both the power of the book and the silliness of the UFO mania. You should also check out the famous Edward Gorey shirt “Books. Cats. Life is Sweet.” shirt, which every book lover and cat aficionado should own. And if anyone tells you that you own too many books, put this shirt on. It’s the ultimate answer.

Who would take old books and turn them into purses that match any reading interest? This site, which regardless of the type of genre you favor, has a purse to match. Shakespeare? No problem. How about Jane Eyre? Or The Black Stallion Mystery? Did Mother Goose have a big impact on you? Maybe you prefer cookbooks or poetry? Science is here too as is a thesaurus and even an encyclopedia. 

Tote bags are always a popular alternative to purses. And for Edward Gorey fans, this one is sure to be a hit. If your recipient is a fan of Gorey, head over to the EdwardGoreyStore and look around. It’s not all cats and books, though there are a lot of those, but you’ll find a wonderful assortment of accessories, books, calendars, clothing, jewelry, notecards, postcards, and posters with literary themes.

Considering jewelry? There are a number of book-themed pieces including these handcrafted book-shaped pins and necklaces that come with a single original story. The two dozen designs are stunning, and the short stories wonderful (Zero: It all started with zero. Zero was the most beautiful number that never was. And the most powerful. There was no other number that could go up against zero and win. Especially in a multiplication contest.)

Simpler, but no less attractive, are these book earrings and pins that open up to actual blank pages made of handmade paper. They also carry hair sticks and hat pins, and each item can be ordered in red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, purple, black, or dayglow; you can also specify whether the color should be light or dark, or subtle or brilliant. You can also find book earrings here as well as this pretty silver book pin, and any purchase from here goes to support literacy. (Unlike the other one, these book earrings do not open.)

An exquisite item is this Banned Books bracelet, which also comes as a necklace . For those who love newspapers, you can also buy pins made of real newspaper front pages that detail historic events.

Journals are popular and inexpensive items, and they come in a huge array of colors, textures, materials, sizes, and prices. For leather journals, this site has beautiful handcrafted designs with handmade paper. Not into leather? How about journals made with recycled book covers? They have blank journals, journals made from Little Golden Books, large format ones, cookbooks, Dr. Suess, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, and smaller, specialized journals including (tasteful) nudie items. To satisfy the artist in all of us, these lovely handcrafted journals should fill the bill. From Bangladesh comes this handmade journal with a charm bookmark and marbleized paper made of cotton, hemp, wheat straw, and pineapple leaves. And from Asia, some truly beautiful leaf journals including this fuchsia one and a dark green leaf pattern one.

Given the use of e-mail, does anyone write letters any more? I hope so, and from the number of stationery gifts I think so. This particularly lovely floral set of stationery and envelopes is made of Thai mulberry paper, each one possessing a single bougainvillea flower.

Stocking stuffers, anyone? How about some lip balm? It comes in handy at this time of year. But why let your giftee buy the plain old stuff when you can put a tube or two of Lippy Lady Lip Balm in her stocking? For the cook, you can stuff her stocking with some letterpress recipe cards that will beautify her handwritten notes on her favorite recipes.

If you’ve been reading BiblioBuffet for any period of time you know I love and collect bookmarks. These are wonderful gifts for readers who don’t favor dogearing their books (so I shan’t be getting Nicki any). But otherwise . . . look here. First, this lovely silver-toned bookmark, a lowercase “desire” with a burgundy ribbon would be great for a young woman. Or how about a bookmark that incorporates a magnifying glass? For someone who can’t keep a pen around, this combination bookmark and pen holder might be useful. And having the two attached might make it easier to misplace.

You don’t have to be reading a *hot* book to enjoy this bookmark of fire. In fact, it might even become your giftee’s favorite one, and it’s fun to imagine it sticking out of the shelf upon which a copy of Fahrenheit 451 rests. More bookmarks from the Literacy Shop include the Cat Aluminum Fold-Over bookmark, the Kool Cats and Hot Dogs bookmarks, and the Worry No More bookmark. Looking for hip bookmarks with someone who is interested in high tech? No problem. These should do very nicely. For those who enjoy caricature, these bookmarks will be fun. And for the ultimate bookworm who always has an opinion, these bookworm bookmarks will clearly let everyone know what she thinks of the book her nose is currently buried in.  

Would you like to make your child a set of bookplates of her or his own? Go here to see a nice selection that are free for you to print out and use for non-commercial use. It would be a great stocking stuffer for any young reader.

Cooks who have everything probably don’t have some of these—a gingerbread mold in the shape of a hornbook. (Hornbooks were how children were taught to read. They were handheld quarter-inch thick wooden paddles over which a translucent sheet of cow horn was held in place by tacks.) This food-grade mold, which could also be used for cookies, chocolate or butter, allows the cook to reproduce the hornbook for the table.

Though temporarily out, the British Museum has this lovely tea towel for Virginia Woolf and Penguin fans. Amusingly, they have chosen A Room of One’s Own as the theme. (Hopefully, it will be in stock prior to Christmas.)

Fortunate will be anyone who receives one of these exquisite handmade lamps from this Dutch design studio. If you click on the Order link the e-mail address comes up. Since it will have to come from overseas, be sure to order early. If that’s a bit much, how about a lamp inside a book? It’s not a lot of light, but it is exquisite.

If you are running out of space for your books and even for bookshelves, what about this? It may be skinny but it’s mighty as can be seen from Cynthia’s post on her To Be Read pile. I actually e-mailed her because I could not believe that pile had not fallen over, and that’s when I learned about this bookshelf. 

Of course you need to wrap these gifts up so how about some bookshelves wrapping paper? Could there be anything more likely to warm a book lover’s heart than the sight of bookshelves on his gifts?

And if you are feeling particularly generous it might be worth taking a note from a recent birthday celebration that took place at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California. As they related it:

A woman named Diana Phillips gave her partner, Diane Allevato, 63 minutes of shopping here for books for her 63rd birthday. Diane came in with lists (she prepared for weeks), her partner used a timer and off she went. I was given notice and did some decorating beforehand and had signs made welcoming her.

I was allowed to help her by pulling titles and suggesting others I thought she'd like, and Elaine Petrocelli pushed the cart and also helped find some titles already selected. They also brought two friends, and after it was over we treated them to candlelight dinner in our cafe with several courses and fine wine, white tablecloth, etc. Diane ended up with 73 books, which is pretty amazing as she tried to spend a few minutes with any book she wasn't sure of to consider its appeal. She is known to us as a terrific reader, but still was thrilled when her partner came up with this idea for her birthday.

We all had great fun with this; the gifter and giftee have thanked us several times for how Book Passage fussed over them and even decorated, and of course we were thrilled that someone would think up this idea. We hope this is a trend that will continue!