Literary gift ideas

[Goosefeather]

So, it's my sister's birthday coming up. She is an avid reader, shortly to begin a degree in English literature, and also an aspiring writer.

What I'm looking for as gift ideas is not so much novels themselves (she'll just have read them already), but more... meta-literature, I guess you'd call it. A good book about Dickens rather than by Dickens, if you see what I mean. Alternatively, a good guide for those who aspire to write themselves.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Edit: wasn't quite sure whether this belonged in Friendly Banter or Media, so I went for the former, feel free to correct me if that was the wrong choice though!

[Grinner]

Does she already own an e-book reader?

Edit: Here's a book idea: How NOT to Write a Novel (http://www.amazon.com/Write-Novel-Them-Misstep-Misstep/dp/0061357952)

[Aidan305]

May I recommend the Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. A rather good deconstruction of typical fantasy tropes in a highly entertaining manner.

[Kindablue]

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare is good.

[Themrys]

The "Thursday Next" Series by Jasper Fforde?
It's kind of meta-literature, but it is also literature.

In "The Eyre Affair", for example, Jane Eyre is kidnapped from her book and Thursday has to rescue her.

[Feytalist]

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.

Thoughts on the process of thought. A treatise on the self-referential aspects of intelligence. Filled with word play, recursion, meta reference philosophical dialogue, and even more word play. For anyone even remotely interested in language, it's a great read.

[H Birchgrove]

The Action Hero's Handbook: How to Catch a Great White Shark, Perform the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, Track a Fugitive, and Dozens of Other TV and Movie Skills

The Action Heroine's Handbook

[Telonius]

So, it's my sister's birthday coming up. She is an avid reader, shortly to begin a degree in English literature, and also an aspiring writer.

What I'm looking for as gift ideas is not so much novels themselves (she'll just have read them already), but more... meta-literature, I guess you'd call it. A good book about Dickens rather than by Dickens, if you see what I mean. Alternatively, a good guide for those who aspire to write themselves.


Check to see if she has both of these books:

"Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.
"On Writing" by Stephen King.

(If the English Department doesn't require her to read Elements of Style, it's committing educational malpractice, so she might already have that one).

Another nice present might be a really fancy pen. (If you have a lot of money to blow, Montblanc is really well-regarded - might want to go in with your parents on that one if you do). One of my best Christmas presents ever was a stack of Five-Star notebooks and a bunch of regular pen cartons; my wife knew I was about to write a novel.

[Weezer]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Campbell is the quintessential analysis of heroes and the hero's journy. If she doesn't have it, and is interested in anything involving heroics, it could be a good choice.

[SaintRidley]

The above are good suggestions. She'll wind up doing a few courses on critical theory, so theoretically her anthology and critical texts should be covered through school.

I'd recommend something along the lines of this (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS461US461&q=portable+image+scanner&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=11059l15735l0l16054l15l15l0l0l0l0l248l1588l 13.1.1l15l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&ix=sea&ion=1&biw=1280&bih=675&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=16574162683322204028&sa=X&ei=pVE_T4b5ONKltweXpM3DBQ&ved=0CIMBEPMCMAM). It's a handheld scanner which has obvious research applications.

[ThePhantasm]

"Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.


I strongly advise against purchasing this very misguided book on writing. Elements of Style by Strunk and White is greatly overrated and frankly not worth the read, due to the misconceptions about writing that it creates.

You can read a thorough critique here (http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497).

[GrlumpTheElder]

For a slightly more personalised present, gather up a load of her writings, go to a site like Blurb (http://www.blurb.com/create/book/pricing#pocket) and print her work in a book!

I did this with a group of short sketches that I wrote with a friend (Fifty-Eyed Fred to be specific) and gave him a copy for his birthday (sort of). It was a hit.The quality is pretty hight too.

[Goosefeather]

Has anyone read Christopher Booker's 'The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories'? Amazon keeps recommending it under 'related items'.

Appreciating all the ideas, guys! The only one I've definitely ruled out is the Thursday Next books, as I know for a fact she's already read them all - great series though! :smallsmile:

[Inglenook]

I agree with skipping Strunk & White—some of the information they give is helpful, but a lot of it is outdated and overgeneralized.

If she likes a dose of comedy with her learning, try How NOT to Write a Novel. On Writing by Stephen King is a pretty interesting how-to guide, as someone mentioned, and mixes in some autobiography as well. I think Orson Scott Card has put out a few good writing books, some focusing on sci-fi/fantasy, others general fiction.

[Stadge]

I know it is not exactly what you're looking for, but as its your sister you'll be doing the birthday thing again in the future so it could be useful then I guess... Have you thought about an engraved silver bookmark?

They're not overly expensive and I could probably dig through my emails for the name of the company that I bought my girlfriend's from if you're interested?

[Aerodynamik]

I strongly advise against purchasing this very misguided book on writing. Elements of Style by Strunk and White is greatly overrated and frankly not worth the read, due to the misconceptions about writing that it creates.

You can read a thorough critique here (http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497).

Nope.

While I have to disagree with many of the points that this article presents, there are some that I have to concede, and I think that the main difference between me and the author are that we think of the book, and also the nature of grammar, in different ways.

Throughout this article, there are complaints that the grammatical rules presented in the book are unfair, and broken by many prominent authors, thereby rendering the rules moot. After all, the reviewer reasons, if famous authors broke these rules, (even White himself), then these rules must not be the true rules of grammar at all.

But the rules presented within the Elements of Style are not the 'laws' of grammar. They're more like a set of guidelines. Moreover, they're a set of guidelines that are designed to help younger or less experienced authors learn how to better their prose – the original version of the book was written as a textbook to give to English students. They can be discarded once the author has reached a sufficient level of skill, but until then, it's useful to think of them as a set of training wheels. Once you leave them behind, as you assuredly will, you'll come to find that abiding by them for a time has strengthened your skill and made it more efficient. They are overly rigid, but they mold your writing in such a way as to strengthen it, as opposed to weaken it.

I don't know though. That's just, like, my opinion, man. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c)

[Dr.Epic]

You could just get her a gift card to somewhere like Barnes & Noble.

[Pseudonym]

You could just get her a gift card to somewhere like Barnes & Noble.

I think that would be against the point.


I recommend Shadowland (http://www.amazon.com/Shadowland-Peter-Straub/dp/0425188221), but it is quite graphic, so be wary.

[Occasional Sage]

Jasper Fford is a fun idea. Thousand Faces would probably be nigh-revelatory at her age.

Lawrence Block's writing guide is excellent, and e-vailable.

[turkishproverb]

In addition to books "about" writing and written works, you might look at finding her an autographed or 1st edition of one of her favorite authors.


Lawrence Block's writing guide is excellent, and e-vailable.

arg, the puns!

[Deth Muncher]

As a third year English major, I can tell you that the things she's going to need are a strong liver and a low caffeine tolerance, so you'd better start feeding her Red Bull and vodka now!

Oh, wait, she's probably not old enough for that to be a legitimate suggestion at this point. Well, part of it. I would say buy her a case of Spike Energy Drink from their website, at the very least - good for all-nighters writing ALL the papers.

But, real actual gifty-ideas? I'm actually a big fan of the big leather-bound tomes from Barnes and Noble, especially because I've ended up using both the Shakespeare AND Poe collections for classes this semester. And they look cool as all get-out.