Christmas Gift Guide 2025
Looking for a book this Christmas? Read our curated selection for some ideas.
Titles in our New Fiction department are displayed first, with all other departments with recommended titles listed below.
To reserve a copy of a book or to arrange collection at our bookshop, please call us on 01497 820322 between 9.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. any day of the week. Alternatively, you may email us at books@boothbooks.co.uk.
New Fiction
In Hardback
Book of Lives
Margaret Atwood
It was an unfettered and nomadic childhood, sometimes isolated but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking key moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel school year that would become Cat’s Eye to the unease of 1980s Berlin, where she began The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Long Shoe
Bob Mortimer
Bathroom salesman Matt is at a crossroads. He has lost his job, he is about to be made homeless and his girlfriend has left him. He wants his luck to change and he wants things to go back to how they were. Out of the blue he is offered a job that comes with a free luxury apartment. He hopes this might be enough to tempt her back.
The Elements
John Boyne
They sustain us, but they also challenge us. In The Elements, John Boyne has created a vivid kaleidoscope to reflect that contradiction: a quartet of intertwined narratives, each providing a different perspective on cause and effect from the points of view of the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim.
In Paperback
The Land in Winter
Andrew Miller
Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He’s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that’s already faltering.
The Christmas Tree Farm
Laurie Gilmore
Bennett Ellis is on vacation in Dream Harbor trying to take a break from both his life and his constant desire to fix things. But somehow fate finds Ben trapped by a blanket of snow at Kira’s farm, and, despite her Grinchiest first impressions, with the glow of the fairy lights twinkling in the trees, and the promise of a warming hot chocolate, maybe, just maybe, these two lost souls will have a Christmas they’ll remember forever…
The World Goes On
Laszlo Krasznahorkai
A Hungarian interpreter obsessed with waterfalls, at the edge of the abyss in his own mind, wanders the chaotic streets of Shanghai. A traveller, reeling from the sights and sounds of Varanasi, encounters a giant of a man on the banks of the Ganges ranting on the nature of a single drop of water. A child labourer in a Portuguese marble quarry wanders off from work one day into a surreal realm utterly alien from his daily toils.
All Other Genres
Select any item from the list below to see our selection of recommended titles for that genre.
The Art of Repair
Molly Martin
For Molly Martin, it all started with a pair of socks. Her favourite pair. When the heels became threadbare, her mother got out her darning mushroom and showed her how to reinforce the thinning stitches and bring them back to life.
Craftland
James Fox
The perfect seasonal gift for fans of history, heritage and the arts. Britain was once a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands shaped our identities, built our communities and defined our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that used to govern every aspect of life on these shores.
Winter Celebrations
Arounna Khounnoraj
Winter Celebrations is a celebration of the festive season through craft, featuring a beautiful collections of over 30 decorations and gifts that draw upon Arounna Khounnoraj’s natural aesthetic. From Christmas decorations, advent calendars to handmade tablescapes for family gatherings – get ready to hunker down and make yourself a handmade Christmas. In this ultimate maker’s guide to the festive season, Arounna will cover a variety of different crafts from embroidery, block printing, sewing and pottery, through the projects learn how to make your own wrapping paper, paper garlands and more.
Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie’s most famous murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover with special finishes. Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton
As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…
Marble Hall Murders
Anthony Horowitz
Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder. She’s edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pünd, and both times she’s come close to being killed. Now she’s back in England and she’s been persuaded to work on a third. The new ‘continuation’ novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children’s author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago. Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam’s killer inside his book, Susan knows she’s in trouble once again. As Susan works on Pünd’s Last Case, a story set in an exotic villa in the South of France, she uncovers more and more parallels between the past and the present, the fictional and the real world – until suddenly she finds that she has become a target herself. It seems that someone in Eliot’s family doesn’t want the book to be written. And they will do anything to prevent it.
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan (Hardback)
Molly Martin
In 1969, the luxury Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened its doors: a glistening white box, high on a hill, that reflected Afghanistan’s hopes of becoming a modern country, connected to the world. Lyse Doucet first checked into the Inter-Continental on Christmas Eve 1988. In the decades since, she has witnessed a Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, the US invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban, all from within its increasingly battered walls. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors. Now, she weaves together the experiences of the Afghans who have kept the hotel running to craft a richly immersive history of their country.
Victory ’45: The End of the War in Eight Commanders (Hardback)
James Holland & Al Murray
From the Italian Alps to northern Germany, to London, New York, Washington and Tokyo, Victory ’45 tells the story of the extraordinary summer when the greatest conflagration the world had ever known finally came to an end after eight surrenders that heralded the Allied victory. Comprised of eight chapters based around each of those surrenders and the victory celebrations which followed, it will be rich in character and human drama with revealing stories and perspectives behind the end of the war not yet told before.
The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty (Hardback)
Tracy Borman
In March 1603, Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, lies dying at Richmond Palace. The queen’s ministers cluster round her bedside, urging her to name her successor – something she has stubbornly resisted throughout her reign. Almost with her last breath she whispers that James VI of Scotland should succeed her. Or so we’ve been led to believe. But, as enthralling new research shows, this is not what happened. Elizabeth went to her grave without formally naming an heir.
Letters from Father Christmas
J. R. R. Tolkien
A new edition of Tolkien’s famous illustrated Letters from Father Christmas to his children is presented in a stunning hardback format, complete with full colour illustrations. This classic festive book of Tolkien’s amazing Father Christmas letters written to his children between the 1920s and the 1940s has been reworked into a new hardback edition to match other beloved Tolkien titles. It contains high-quality digital reproductions of his beautiful letters and pictures.
A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Dylan Thomas
A new selection of Dylan Thomas’s greatest stories taking us through the landmarks of the year, in an irresistible Little Clothbound Classics edition. For a boy growing up in an ordinary town in Wales, summer is ‘always radiant, rainless, lazily rowdy and skyblue’, and it always snows at Christmas. Weaving through the course of a year, this selection of Dylan Thomas’s most evocative and bittersweet stories depicts silent winter mornings by the sea, glorious holidays in the countryside and lovelorn nights in the pub. It ends with ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’, perhaps the most beautiful story of the festive season ever written.
Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
Jeanette Winterson
The perfect festive treat: a beautifully illustrated book of Christmas stories and recipes from the Booker prize long-listed author. Everybody loves a Christmas story. The tradition of the Twelve Days of Christmas is a tradition of celebration, sharing and giving.
The Nervous System Reset: Overcome Pain, Trauma and Stress Using Your Vagus Nerve
Jessica Maguire
Physiotherapist and neurophysiology expert, Jessica Maguire wants to help you understand the root cause of many of our health issues – our dysregulated nervous system. In The Nervous System Reset, Maguire explains why your vagus nerve is key to emotional, digestive and physical health, and how to engage it to help reset your nervous system.
Creatures of Darkness: 100 of the Planet’s Weird and Wonderful Animals That Come out at Night
Dani Robertson
Creatures of Darkness takes readers on an extraordinary global journey, revealing the hidden world of 100 nocturnal species that thrive when the lights go out. From the deepest, densest rainforests and jungles to the wide-open savannahs and deserts, and even rural countryside, this stunningly illustrated book showcases the incredible adaptability of these incredible animals. Plunge into the darkest depths of the ocean and discover how life flourishes in the very darkness humans often overlook.
An Almost Impossible Thing: The radical lives of Britain’s pioneering women gardeners
Fiona Davison
The paperback edition of the bestselling, acclaimed book. While working at the Royal Horticultural Society, Fiona Davison came across a cache of letters from a young gardener who was denied a scholarship by the RHS, on the grounds that she was female. Appalled, and intrigued to find out what became of Olive, Fiona began to research the wider story of early female professional gardeners and discovered a group of pioneers whose struggles changed forever the rights and opportunities for women gardeners.
The Light Eaters: How the New Science of Plant Intelligence Expands Our View of Life on Earth
Zoe Schlanger
Look at the green organism across the room or through the window: the potted plant, or the grass or a tree. Think how a life spent constantly growing yet rooted in a single spot comes with tremendous challenges. To meet them, plants have come up with some of the most creative methods for surviving of any living thing – us included. The Light Eaters will completely redefine how you think about plants. Packed with the most amazing stories of the life of plants it will open your eyes to the extraordinary green life forms we share the planet with.
The Hidden Seasons: A Calendar of Nature’s Clues and Signs
Tristan Gooley
When we know what to look for and what it means, seasonal moments that were once hidden shine brightly. In The Hidden Seasons, Tristan Gooley shows us how to read the clues that the sun, moon, stars, plants, fungi, animals, water and weather give us – but that we continually miss, because we don’t know how and where to look. Autumn is a time for reading leaves, deciphering scents and investigating fungi.
Bedside Companion for Gardeners: An anthology of garden writing for every night of the year
Jane McMorland Hunter
An eclectic collection of prose, poetry and practical advice for every day of the year. A mix of fact and fiction, fantasy and experience, the Bedside Companion for Gardeners is a treasure trove of green-fingered inspiration where practical advice blends seamlessly with poetry and prose from intrepid gardeners past and present. Dip in and out of this collection with an entry for every night of the year that draws on writing through the ages and from across the globe.
Winter Trees
Sylvia Plath
The poems in Winter Trees were written in the last nine months of Sylvia Plath’s life, and form part of the group from which the Ariel poems were chosen. They reveal the poet at the height of her creative powers, exhibiting the startling imagery and dramatic play for which she became known. Published posthumously in 1971, this valuable collection finds its place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent.
Sincerity
Carol Ann Duffy
Her final collection as Poet Laureate, a frank, disarming and deeply moving exploration of loss and remembrance in their many forms. Presented in a beautiful, foiled package, this will be the poetry book of the year.
Three Wise Men
Carol Ann Duffy
Seeking refuge from a snowstorm, a nameless traveller is welcomed into an ancient hall to warm their bones and fill their stomach, if they will hear the stories of three wise men and judge whom amongst them tells the truth. What follows are three tales of despair and devotion, of indigence and immortality. A lovelorn youth plies the object of his affections with golden rings, partridges and pear trees.
Your Journey, Your Way: How to Make the Mental Health System Work For You
Horatio Clare
The mental health system is in trouble. Most people who need help are receiving inadequate treatment, years behind the latest thinking. This life-changing book reveals what really works, and how it can help you.
Among the Burning Flowers
Samantha Shannon
With the awakening of fire-breathing dragons, Among the Burning Flowers sees the first sparks of danger that threaten to consume the world in The Priory of the Orange Tree. Take your first steps into the epic. Yscalin, land of sunshine and lavender, will soon be ablaze.
Wind and Truth
Brandon Sanderson
The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the Number One New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive. Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare-and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.
Alchemised
SenLinYu
Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner – of war and of her own fractured mind. The Resistance is crushed, her allies dead, her abilities suppressed. The world she knew is gone. Paladia’s corrupt guild families and their necromancer overlords, aided by vile undead creatures now rule – and hold Helena captive. Resistance records claim she was a healer of little importance. Yet, Helena’s inexplicable memory loss makes her enemies wonder: Is she truly insignificant, or do her missing memories conceal the Resistance’s final secret?To uncover the truth, Helena is delivered into the hands of the High Reeve – Paladia’s most feared and merciless necromancer.
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Priya Parker
Being deprived of social gatherings revealed just how important they are; to connect with others, collaborate, share ideas and create moving, life-affirming experiences. If there’s one thing lockdown showed us, it’s that time together is a gift we’ve too often taken for granted. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker shows us how to ensure that however we meet, it’s a truly transformative experience.
Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening
Henry Shukman
The essential meditation guide for the twenty-first century: renowned mindfulness teacher Henry Shukman replaces the concept of original sin with original love, teaching us to tap into the love that shapes our world and can transform who we are. An increasing number of people today feel disconnected, disengaged, and lonely.
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman
How can we find joy and meaning? Conquer grief? Manage anger? Measure true success? The answers to all these questions and more can be found in Stoic philosophy. Drawing on the wisdom of the Classic sages, The Daily Stoic is a page-a-day guide to help you tackle any problem, approach any goal and find the serenity, self-knowledge and resilience you need to live well. Powerful quotations, historical anecdotes and thought-provoking commentary meditating on the insights of philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus illuminate how we can do better – every day.
On Freedom
Timothy Snyder
A brilliant exploration of freedom – what it is, how it’s been misunderstood, and why it’s our only chance for survival from the acclaimed, bestselling author of On Tyranny. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: we think we’re free if we can do and say as we please. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from, as freedom to – the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together.
Remember, to check whether a book is available, reserve a copy, or to arrange collection, please contact us by phone at 01497 820322 between 9.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. any day of the week, or email us at books@boothbooks.co.uk.
This page is being regularly updated as new recommendations for other departments are added. Be sure to check again soon if the genre you’re looking for is not listed above.
“I can resist everything except temptation.”
OSCAR WILDE