Jen Adams collected nearly two hundred of the most provocative stories submitted to the tumblr blog TheBooksTheyGaveMe.com to capture the many ways books can change our lives and loves, revealing volumes about the relationships that inspired the gifts of books.
These stories are, by turns, romantic, cynical, funny, dark, and hopeful. There’s the poorly thought out gift of Lolita from a thirty-year-old man to a teenage girl. There’s the couple who tried to read Ulysses together over the course of their long-distance relationship and never finished it. There’s the girl whose school library wouldn’t allow her to check out Fahrenheit 451, but who received it at Christmas with the note, “Little Sister: Read everything you can. Subvert Authority! Love always, your big brother.” These are stories of people falling in love, regretting mistakes, and finding hope. Together they constitute a love letter to the book as physical object and inspiration.
Do you give books as gifts? Have you received books as gifts? How many of these gift books do you recognize? GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- INTRODUCTION — xv
- Burroughs, Dry — 1
- Pernice, Meat Is Murder — 2
- Yeats, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats — 3
- Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept — 4
- Mulford, Love Poems by Women — 5
- Rombauer, The Joy of Cooking — 6
- Nobody. — 7
- Beatty & Dixon & Lopez & Martin. Batgirl: Year One — 8
- Harvey. The Chicago Way — 9
- Anonymous. — 10
- Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable — 11
- Burroughs. Possible Side Effects — 12
- The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa — 14
- de Saint-Exupery, Le Petit Prince — 16
- Gregory. Unpossible and Other Stories — 20
- Percy, The Moviegoer. 21
- Milton. Complete Poetry and Essential Prose — 22
- Wright. Tony and Susan — 24
- Winterson. Art and Lies and Art Objects — 25
- Wallace. Infinite Jest — 26
- Tayli. 60 Indian Poets –27
- Vonnegut. Cat’s Cradle — 28
- Various. A Treasury of the World’s Best Loved Poems — 30
- Tolstoy. Anna Karenina — 31
- Lamont. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life — 32
- Waters. The Night Watch –34
- Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being — 35
- Styron. Sophie’s Choice — 36
- Gibran. The Prophet — 36
- Stoddard. The High House — 37
- Poe. The Poe Reader — 38
- Baum. The Oz Books — 38
- Bradford. Red Sky at Morning: A Novel — 39
- Gorey. Amphigorey — 40
- Tolkien. The Children of Hurin — 42
- Martin. The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice — 43
- Smith, Zadie. On Beauty — 44
- Smith, Lane. It’s a Book — 45
- Slang — 46
- Salinger. Franny and Zooey — 47
- Shakespeare. Henry V — 48
- Spoto. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock — 50
- Schlink. The Reader — 52
- Welch. Trainspotting — 53
- Russell. The Sparrow and Children of God — 54
- Walters. Clean Food; Loux. The Balance Plate — 56
- Reclam Verlag. Various — 57
- Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone — 58
- The World Book Encyclopedia — 60
- Wyndham. The Day of the Triffids — 62
- Nabokov. Lolita — 63
- Dylan & Rogers. Forever Young — 64
- Hemon. The Lazarus Project — 66
- Moore. Absolute Watchmen — 68
- Plath. The Collected Poems — 69
- Gaiman. The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones — 70
- Waller. The Bridges of Madison County — 71
- Rilke. The Book of Images — 72
- Smith. Just Kids — 74
- Kipfer. 14,000 Things to be Happy About — 75
- Romeo & Romeo. 11, 002 Things to be Miserable About — 76
- Robbins. Jitterbug Perfume — 77
- Bukowski. Ham on Rye — 78
- Rimbaud. Rimbaud Complete — 80
- Lawrence & Lee. Inherit the Wind — 81
- Disney. Beauty and the Beast — 82
- Seuss. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! — 84
- Brown. The Runaway Rabbit — 85
- Bronte. Withering Heights — 86
- Seth. A Suitable Boy — 88
- Mayhew. The Soup Bible — 90
- Suskind. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer — 91
- Ghosh. The Calcutta Chromosome — 92
- Plascencia. The People of Paper — 93
- Nabokov. The Original of Laura — 94
- Creeley. For Love: Poems 1950-1960 — 95
- Levithan. The Lover’s Dictionary — 96
- Cervantes. Don Quixote — 97
- The Oxford English Dictionary — 97
- Mrozek. The Elephant — 98
- Kenyon. The Writer’s Digest Character Naming Sourcebook — 100
- Redacted. — 101
- Rand. Atlas Shrugged — 102
- Pynchon. Gravity’s Rainbow — 103
- Pullman. His Dark Materials — 104
- Eugenides. Middlesex — 106
- Pausch & Zaslow. The Last Lecture — 107
- Pancake. The Stories of Breece D;J Pancake — 110
- Ochsner. People I Wanted To Be: Stories — 110
- Neruda. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair — 112
- McCourt. Angela’s Ashes — 113
- Arthur. The Autumn People — 114
- Klosterman. Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story — 115
- Kerouac. The Subterraneans — 116
- Joyce. Ulysses — 116
- Krakauer. Into the Wild — 117
- Quinn. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit — 118
- Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 — 120
- McKillip. Riddle-Master — 121
- Bryson. The Mother Tongue–English and How It Got That Way — 122
- Dickens. Great Expectations — 123
- Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois: A Reader — 124
- Martel. Life of Pi — 125
- Cohen. Leonard Cohen — 126
- Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go — 127
- Maugham. Of Human Bondage — 128
- Lightman. Einstein’s Dreams — 129
- Krauss. The Physics of Star Trek — 130
- Fadiman. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader — 131
- Hofstadter. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid — 132
- Hesse. SIDDHARTHA — 134
- Hesse. Siddhartha — 136
- Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises — 137
- Fitzgerald. Tender Is the Night — 138
- Gaarder. Sophie’s World — 139
- The Book of Mormon — 140
- Warren. PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God — 142
- Tengbom. I Wish I Felt Good All the Time — 143
- Rilke. Letters to a Young Poet — 144
- Krakauer. Under the Banner of Heaven — 146
- Anthony. The Source of Magic — 147
- Brooks. The Zombie Survival Guide — 148
- Austen & Grahame-Smith. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — 148
- Antunes. Knowledge of Hell — 149
- Burroughs. Magical Thinking — 150
- Blake. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake — 152
- Allen & Greenough. Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar — 153
- Erdrich. Love Medicine — 154
- Goodkind. Wizard’s First Rule — 156
- Eggers. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius — 157
- Faulkner. Light in August — 158
- Bittman. How to Cook Everything: The Basics — 159
- Bishop. The Complete Poems 1927-1979 — 160
- Milne. Winnie-the-Pooh — 161
- Murkoff & Mazel. What to Expect When You’re Expecting — 162
- Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises — 163
- Heller. Catch-22 — 164
- Heller. Something Happened — 164
- Flynn. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City — 165
- Hay. A Student of Weather — 166
- Gelardi. Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria — 167
- King. The Dark Tower — 168
- Hass. Sun Under Wood — 170
- Khayyam. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam — 171
- Tolkien. The Hobbit — 172
- Rawicz. The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom — 174
- Spillane. The Long Wait — 175
- Evanovich. One for the Money — 176
- Albom. Tuesdays with Morrie — 177
- Jones. Light Boxes — 178
- Saterstrom. The Pink Institution — 180
- Robertson. Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker — 181
- Langenscheidt. Taschenworterbuch: Englisch-Deutsche, Deutsch-Englisch — 182
- Ferris. The We Came to the End — 183
- Child, Bertholle, Beck. Mastering the Art of French Cooking — 184
- Hodges. Harbrace College Handbook — 185
- Byatt. Possession — 186
- Gershwin. Ira Gershwin: Selected Lyrics — 186
- Fisher. The Art of Eating — 187
- Doyle. The Collected Sherlock Holmes — 188
- Murakami. Norwegian Wood — 189
- Kafka. Die Verwandlung — 189
- Yellow Pages — 190
- Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — 191
- Dreiser. Sister Carrie — 192
- Brooks. Selected Poems — 193
- Card. Ender’s Game — 194
- Danielewski. House of Leaves — 195
- Crowley. Little, Big — 196
- Cohen. Let Us Compare Mythologies — 198
- Chesterton. The Bull and the Cross — 200
- Fischer. Saint Ben — 201
- Brashares. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants — 201
- Duras. The Lover — 202
- Sedaris. Holidays on Ice — 203
- Fleming. News from Tartary — 204
- Russell. Moon Rabbitt — 206
- Bukowski. O Capital Saiu para o Almoço e os Marinheiros Tomaram Conta do Navio — 210
- de Saint-Exupery. Le Petit Prince — 212
- Brainard. Joe Brained: I Remember — 214
- Faulks. Birdsong — 215
- Derrida. Limited Inc — 216
- Grimwood. Replay — 217
- Hall. The Hidden Dimension — 218
- Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita — 221
- Zusak. The Book Thief — 225
- Eliot. Middlemarch — 225
- Tolkien. The Silmarillion — 226
- de Saint-Exupery. Le Petit Prince — 227
- Young. Rough Trade — 228
- Strunge. Samlede Strunge — 230
- Prose. My New American Life — 230
- You — 231
- Acknowledgements — 233
I know quite a few of these books and have read a number of them (MIDDLEMARCH is probably my favorite of the books here). I’ve given and received books as gifts—in fact, I’ve received some very nice ones from you, George! I grew up in a working-class family, but reading, books, and learning were highly valued. My mum taught me to read when I was very young, and I still recall how excited I was to get a library card and check out my first library book (THE CAT IN THE HAT). No restrictions were placed on what I read—so I read voraciously, and probably a lot of what I read went over my head, but I kept going. I still have many a battered old book from my childhood—many of them 60 years old and more.
Deb, when I was 8 years old, I was pretty much a non-reader. I was totally bored by the DICK AND JANE books the teachers used in school to teach us how to read. But, my worried mother who feared I might be held back in Third Grade because I wasn’t reading, had “Santa” bring me TOM SWIFT AND THE CAVES OF NUCLEAR FIRE. I read it on Christmas Day and talked my mother into taking me to a bookstore the next day to buy more books in the TOM SWIFT series. The rest, as they say, is history: I too became a voracious reader…and book collector. The gift of a book changed my Life.
I was definitely lucky my parents taught me to read long before I saw the inside of a school…and that they had time, energy and desire to do so…
Todd, I had parents who promoted reading and education. My brother and sisters all have college degrees and Graduate School degrees. And, I have more degrees than a thermometer: three graduate degrees and a PhD. All that learning would not have happened without TOM SWIFT AND THE CAVES OF NUCLEAR FIRE.
I do give books as gifts to people I think will read them. Megan gets so many free that it makes no sense to give them to her, but my son and daughter-in-law appreciate them. And I like getting them as gifts. My parents only gave me a few because the library was three blocks away and they thought that was the way to read books.
Patti, same here. I love to give books to people I think will enjoy them. Fortunately, Diane, Patrick, and Katie are all book lovers and appreciate the gift of books.
Wow, what a wide variety of book. Have to confess that there are many, many on that list that I’ve not heard of, and many that I have but have not read. Reading the list reminded me of recently reading 84 Charing Cross Road. Loved that book so much, despite the fact that our reading tastes are so very different. This is a book I would be curious to read.
I have a few people I gift books to. My wife is a voracious reader and is easy to buy for. I usually discover things that she ends up really enjoying. I also have a really close friend who has similar reading tastes to mine and so he ends up being fairly easy to shop for. I’m harder to shop for and love receiving books as gifts, so I always keep a big list of books on my Amazon wish list to guide others’ gift giving if they want to get books for me.
Carl, my wife is a voracious reader, too. And on November 29, she’ll be getting an early Christmas present from “Santa” in the form of the new Louise Penny mystery! Ho, ho, ho!
I’m three behind in that series, I believe. Good stuff.
Carl, Diane and I met Louise Penny at the BOUCHERCON in Toronto. She’s a very personable writer…and can be very funny!
How many do I recognize or how many have I read? Will check. Do I give books as gifts? Absolutely. We’ve always given gifts of books to our nieces and nephews. Of course, some were bigger readers than others.
The FAHRENHEIT 451 story reminded me of when my sisters were young and my (then stoned-out) brother gave my younger sister a copy of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT… for her EIGHTH birthday!
OK, I’ve read some, certainly –
The Moviegoer
Cat’ Cradle
The Poe Reader
The Oz Books ( may have mentioned this before: when we moved to Brooklyn – I was 9 – my landlady’s daughter had the complete set of Oz books in hardback stored in the basement, so I borrowed them and reader them one after the other)
Red Sky at Morning (I was a big fan of the movie and read the book years later, and I was surprised at how close it was the the movie version)
FRanny and Zooey
Henry V (read it when we saw Alan Howard do it in Central Park and again on Broadway)
all the Harry Potter books
The Day of the Triffids
Bridges of Madison County (I’m embarrassed to admit)
Just Kids
Inherit the Wind
Wuthering Heights (twice)
The Stories of Breece Pancake (just finished it yesterday!)
Angela’s Ashes
Into the Wild
Fahrenheit 451
Great Expectations
Ex Libris
Siddhartha
The Sun Also Rises
Light in August
The Hobbit
One for the Money
The Collected Sherlock Holmes
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Holidays on Ice
Replay
The Book Thief
I must admit I am embarrassed that I have never gotten through MIDDLEMARCH.
Jeff, excellent list! I found I was unfamiliar with many of the books listed in THE BOOKS THEY GAVE ME. Some people have some strange tastes in books!
I suppose that if anyone would make the Heights Wither, it would be Heathcliff.
Jeff, I suspect Kate Bush would agree with you!
I usually give books, just because I love them and often fondly remember where many of my own books came from. Both of my parents were teachers and both sets of grandparents read to us. Although I have a library degree, I’m much better suited to a bookstore and I’ve worked part-time at Books & Company in Oconomowoc, WI since 1988.
I love having people tell me it was perfect/they now have a new author/they passed it on to someone else who’d also appreciate it.
If it wasn’t for books and dogs, I wouldn’t have any friends.
Beth, I’ve been on the receiving end of some of your book gift-giving…and love your choices! I find books can bring people together. And, weird as this might sound, I consider my books my friends.
Most books I read as a teenager/ young man were library books or books that a friend lent me – from his father’s exclusive collection and even as a student I didn’t have enough money but the library of our German American Institute also had a large library.
And I’m also not the type to give maybe unwanted presents.
That list contains quite a few books which I bought later – including Gödel, Escher, Bach
Giving books as presents is dangerous imho too.
PS:
While at high school (Gymnasium in German) I usually got one big fat book at the end of a school year as a “prize for being best in class” but often these books were just put away, not really interesting …
Wolf, getting GODEL, ESCHER, BACH as a gift would be impressive!
I’ve read 9 from that list. I’m not counting the encyclopedias and OED but have browsed them both. I’ve given and gotten books over the years, andf thank you for your donations. I wish I could read them faster and remember them better.
Bob, I wish I could read faster and remember better, too!
I gift books to my niece who has always been a reader and to a high school friend in Florida when I visit there. Books that I have read and liked, but don’t want to keep in my collection often go to friends who are readers. Louise Penny, who was mentioned in the comments, hosted a CBC radio show in Winnipeg before she went east and started writing mysteries. I liked her very much on the radio so tried three or four of her books for that reason. However, I didn’t enjoy them and probaby won’t try another.
Kent, I’m slowly reducing the size of my collection. Like you, I gift books to friends who are readers. Louise Penny is on the cover of this month’s MYSTERY SCENE magazine and the interview with Penny in this issue covers her new mystery and portions of her Life.
Mixed success in giving books. Usually happy in receiving! Actual books on the list are all familiar at least by rep!
Todd, you many be getting some books from me in 2023!