Christmas stockings should be full of books (although normal stockings should be similarly so). Here are some suggestions:

For the Thrill Seeker

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin)

… And eager consumer of short stories (this blog’s recurring motif continues to resound like a flourishing siren!). Fantastic.

For the Modernist Maverick / Maestro

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (Vintage Classics)

If we were to draw the structure of the story as lines on a page then we would probably get something resembling spirograph art. So moving and poignant. And I can’t write.

For the ‘Current Fiction’ Reader

The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester (Viking)

Complex characters fill this very thoughtfully written novel. House and home, family and relationships, past and present are all called into question in this gripping book.

For the Fashionista

The Fashion Book (Phaidon Press)

An A-Z encyclopedia of the major players in fashion over the past 200 years: designers, photographers, icons. (Pictured is my old, well-sullied edition, but there is a shiny new one published last year).

For the Adolescent

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage)

I think I read this when it was first published in 2003 and it remains one of my favourite books. Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy who is on the Autism spectrum, finds a murdered dog and starts to investigate. It’s an enchanting story and an important read for teens. (It is coloured with the odd expletive so exercise caution if you intend to gift it to a young child). Incidentally, the title of the book is a quote from a Sherlock Holmes story… who said blog post intertextuality was passé?