The best gifts for readers

Non-fiction
Fiction
Poems and more
All light up
For readers who consider books as life, literary paraphernalia is a boon.
Books: Courtesy of publishers. Paper Dolls: Courtesy of Cecilia Lanahan Ross. All else: Courtesy of brands.
GOOD LETTER
Sent as a gift of excellently curated books, along with a love of books, thanks to Boxwalla’s collaboration with author Alexander Chee; This round’s picks include Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, by Jean Chen Ho Fiona and Jane, and a deck of tarot cards. “Escoffery and Ho’s books both utilize a masterfully interconnected collection of short stories to explore the lives of friends (Ho) and family (Escoffery) in a way that a more linear novel would. can’t do it,” said Chee. VF. The story anthology, he said, is a form of “increasingly inspiring a new generation of American writers who see in it the opportunity to reflect more deeply on a topic or a community, to Freed from the idea of subduing everything inside a book to a single climax. story. I thought about how a lifelong friendship might not have a plot to tell its story, but a network of interludes could describe it. Or the life of a family, with many stories, cannot be described by just one story.” The addition of the Star Spinner Tarot should come as no surprise to readers of Chee, who Written about the nuance and appeal of the cards. He specifically chose this deck, he said, “because the artist, Trung Le Nguyen, is a favorite, and his deck has an interesting mix of references to me. , are from Sailor Moon to Victorian fairy tales to erotic comics, and with the impact of these references is a strange imitation of something I’ve never seen before and something I know. That, to me, is like a tarot reading. If you’re using cards to learn archetypes, and you can, what archetypes are you learning from? I love the way he spins it around. American novel series from Boxwalla, curated by Alexander Chee, $39.95/bimonthly. (theboxwalla.com)
FROM HEAD TO TOES
Made-to-order sandals, cut from velvet and leather, for stacking. Bookshop x Stubbs & Wootton Library Slippers, $575. (shopbookshop.com)
MUSE LIKE A CREATOR
Zelda Fitzgerald’s watercolor characters are whimsical: a lovable F. Scott willing to wear a winged pink button-down next to fairy-tale heroines and a topless Louis XIV. Paper dolls by Zelda Fitzgerald by Eleanor Lanahan, $26. (simonandschuster.com)
GOOD WRITE
Jot down to-do lists, novel notes, movie reviews, hopes and dreams every day. Aspinal 2023 Slim Pocket Leather Diary, $65. (aspinaloflondon.com)
ART
How better to decorate the walls of a literature-loving house than with framed caricatures of a favorite author (appropriately oversized head, the better to indicate a brain huge)? Since 1963, David Levine has illustrated more than 3,500 portraits for magazine articles The New York Magazine of Booksincluding Salman Rushdie, Herman Melville, Joan Didion, WEB Du Bois, Vladimir Nabokov (the latter three pictured here), etc. New York Magazine of Books Caricature, $195. (shop.nybooks.com)