Wednesday, November 2, 2011

And They Are Easy to Wrap

Gift2

According to my calendar, it’s November (not quite sure how that happened, but it might have something to do with last month being October). When November arrives, it’s time to start thinking about the holidays. And when I starting thinking about the holidays, I think about cakes pies cookies brownies presents.

And when I think about presents, I think about books (among other things).

As a kid, I’d frequently get books as gifts. For my birthday, for Hanukah, for Arbor Day, even for my Bar Mitzvah (and let me tell you, no 13-year-old wants to get a copy of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Trust me.).

Most of the books were cool. I remember one great book, The Book of Answers, that had (surprise!) answers to a bunch of very perplexing questions. (I recently revisited that book and discovered that some of the answers were complete hogwash, but I guess that’s a topic for another blog). Every year I got a world almanac, and I spent hours and hours poring over all the statistics: populations of foreign countries, exchange rates of foreign currencies, GNP per capita (okay, I was a little geeky). I also got golf books, football books, baseball books, basketball books, tennis books (anyone see a pattern?), and, yes, even a few novels here and there.

I also got socks for presents, and let me tell you, books were way better.

Now that I’m an adult, I still like to give and receive books as gifts. How about you, do books make it onto your gift lists? And since we’re talking gifts, how about ereaders? Are they a must-have item this year? What say you, people?

(This entry has been “simul-posted” on InkSpot)


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2 comments:

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Oh, I loved getting books for gifts! And you made me laugh, because I HAVE a copy of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry on my book shelf. :) But it was for Modern Poetry in my junior year of college. Interesting class!

I think I'm giving lots of books as gifts this year.

Unknown said...

I remember getting a few books for Christmas as a kid...the most disappointing (at the time) was a Betty Crocker cookbook. LOL - now, I think that's one of my favorite gifts. It's been put to good use.

Books as gifts are THE BEST! :) I hand my hubby my Amazon wishlist, and off he goes.