My favorite book gifts
’Tis the season for searching for that just-right gift. (An aside: Has anyone cracked the code on gifts for dads/fathers-in-law? They always say they don’t need anything! Like, what am I supposed to do with that?!)
Instead of another gift list (I’m such a sucker for those), here is a list of books I have been received as gifts that came at just the right time.
So take a look my list, then tell me:
What is the best book you’ve ever received as a gift, and why?
Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
This is my OG book gift. My uncle gave it to me one Christmas when I was 10 or 11, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I had never read any book quite like it, and if I remember correctly it took me several months to finally give it a try (Nancy Drew and I had a very good thing going at the time, so it was a little outside my comfort zone).
It’s clever, imaginative, adventurous, and stretched my taste as a reader—something that the very best book gifts do so well. It remains one of my favorite books, and I look forward to lending my boys my own well-worn copy when they’re older.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
I read this while I was confined to the 3rd floor of the St. Francis Medical Center for three weeks waiting for Henry to be born, so I felt a certain kinship with the protagonist who is under house arrest in a fancy hotel. Though, I think his food selection was a little better than mine—even in communist Russia.
The story had characters that you couldn’t help but love, and just the right mix of humor and gravity to lift my spirits during the monotonies of living in a hospital room. I think it’d do the trick for anyone experiencing the monotonies of quarantine life.
Unseen by Sara Hagerty
This was another book I read during my hospital stay, given to me by my friends Ken and Sallie. In the inscription inside the front cover, Sallie said that she had read it twice in the last year, and that the author “just gets it.” Let me tell you—when Sallie tells you that she read a book twice, you had better drop what you’re doing and read that book. And since I was under doctor’s orders to do nothing at all, that wasn’t really that hard.
At a time when I was very literally “unseen” by the world, the timing could not have been better for a book about God’s loving invitation in seasons of hiddenness, and how his gaze in moments when no one else is watching transforms us. Yet another book that feels particularly appropriate for 2020.
Joy: 100 Poems by Christian Wiman
This is technically a gift that my parents gave to Matt, but I’m counting it since all the markings, underlines, and book darts wedged in the pages were placed there by yours truly. And I suppose it’s more of a collection of poems and essays than a book, but—again—I’m counting it.
I have loved this quirky little poetry collection. As you probably assume from the title, the poems are offered as reflections on the nature of joy, though you’d be wrong to think that every poem is about happy moments and warm fuzzies. Quite the opposite actually.
The book starts with the author’s discussion of the many facets and nuances and complexities of joy as we experience it, and I think that section alone makes this a great book to give as a gift. I read it through during the 50-day Easter season of the liturgical year, in which I grieved our March miscarriage, found out I was pregnant with our little one due 8 weeks from this writing, and contemplated and celebrated the resurrection of Jesus. And somehow, these poems were able to encompass all the emotions and wonderings of that time. I know this is one I’ll return to over and over again through the years.
Long Days of Small Things by Catherine McNiel
The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris
I feel like every parent has an opinion on which family growth transition was hardest, but for me it was undoubtedly going from one child to two. And with our fourth child coming in a few weeks, let’s hope that remains that case…
I was beyond spent caring for a newborn and an 18-month old. All my usual ways of relating with God that had worked for me for years—early mornings, quiet house, hot coffee, long lengths of time for prayer and reading—were out the window, and several months into mothering two I still couldn’t find my footing.
Within weeks of each other, my friend Caroline recommended Long Days of Small Things, and my friend Heather loaned me her copy of The Quotidian Mysteries. I listened to one on audiobook during middle-of-the-night feedings, and read the other one while bouncing around the house to keep baby happy.
Long Days of Small Things considers Richard Foster’s spiritual disciplines through the lens of the opportunities and limitations of the season of mothering littles. Kathleen Norris’s book isn’t motherhood-specific, but looks at the many ways we can practice the presence of God in the “tasks that must be daily done.” Together, these books saved my sanity and brought me to a much fuller, more soulful understanding of God and how he is present in the small, repetitive, mundane, or unseen.