November: don’t worry, your Christmas shopping is going to be sorted!
I do like to give (and receive!) books for presents, but it’s not always easy to know what to buy for someone, and unless you’re a child, I think a book token is a bit of a cop out. (But if you’re buying for kids then, yes! Get them book tokens. They’ll love you for it). Anyway, I thought maybe biographies or autobiographies are good presents for that person who is so difficult to find things for, so this month’s blog is all about my top ten biographies. But then I thought, why stop there? Over the last few years I’ve written top ten blogs about all sorts of genres, so I thought I’d remind you of some of them, in case you have a friend, relative etc, who would suit.
Here we go!
If you think biographies are difficult, then here are the top ten non-fiction books – I guarantee there will be something there for Grandad.
For the writer in your life, here are the five best “how to write” books
Top ten funny books
Top ten supernatural books
Top ten books about time travel
Top ten YA books of the decade
Top ten post apocalyptic novels
Top ten dystopian/utopian novels
Top ten Stephen King Novels
Top ten enormous books that are worth the effort (and which should certainly keep Uncle Jim quiet right through to the New Year)
And if you’re still stuck, here were the best books of the last decade.
And finally.. last Christmas’s blog -the top ten Christmas books.
Make sure you order them all from your local indie bookshop. You can do that online as well, you know.
How to write
Continuing on the theme of presents, this month’s recommended how to write book would make a lovely present for any teachers in your life. Written by the former Poet Laureate and all round fantastic poet, Ted Hughes, it’s an accessible, thoughtful guide to teaching and writing poetry. It focuses on observation and description rather than any formal aspect of poetry, so it’s also great for the fiction writer who wants to go a bit deeper. He describes the book as being for an audience aged ten to fourteen, but I think it is much wider than that.
