By The Angry Noodle
With the holidays just around the corner, you might be racking your brain trying to decide on the perfect gift for your book-obsessed friends and loved ones. As a bookworm who also happens to be a chronic spender, I got you covered, with my very first bookish gift guide! Here are 10 bookish gift ideas for the book lovers in your life.
Let’s begin.
Please note: I am not sponsored by any of the below creators and/or products. I just like ’em.
1. Bookish Earrings
If you know me at all, you know that I love silly earrings. Seriously. I love them. I have a huge collection that’s getting too big for all my display shelves, and I’m supposed to build more but I’m procrastinating and awkwardly dumping new earrings onto my growing pile of earrings.
I. Love. Silly earrings.
One of my favorite types of silly earrings is the book earring. Specifically, the custom book earring. When you love books, there are fewer things better than ordering custom products for the books that mean the most to you.
I highly recommend this gift for authors and folks in publishing. There’s truly something special about wearing earrings that look exactly like the cover of the book you yourself wrote or helped work on.
Custom Book Earrings
2. Cute and Quirky Bookmarks
If you’ve ever seen my posts featuring Stanley the fox, you might be wondering where to get an adorable animal bookmark like a fox sitting on a book while holding a book (!!!). Look no further, friends!
CozyMilArt makes adorable animal bookmarks, a perfect bookish gift for the reader who obsessively decorates their bookcase, the reader who lives for all things cozy (including cute bookmarks they can name), and the reader who likes to read in style.
CozyMilArt Animal Bookmarks
If you’re more of a fan of bookmarks with tassels, my biggest obsession is metal bookmarks with print designs. My favorite shop on Etsy by far is GraphicDesignbyPam, who not only creates gorgeous, high quality metal bookmarks, but is also super nice and creates TikToks where she packs orders and gives the buyer a shoutout. She recently started her own shop with additional bookmark options. If you’re in the market for some bookmarks, give her a look, and tell her I said hi!
Library Card Metal Bookmarks
3. Book/Bedside Lamps
I did not realize how much I would value having a bedside lamp until I got one. How much more productive and comfortable I was once I could lie in bed with a light on within reach that I could turn off and just flop over when it was time to go to bed.
If you’re looking for a gift for the book nerds you love, check if they have a bedside lamp or a book light. If they don’t, hook them up. They haven’t asked for it yet because they don’t understand. They can’t understand. Not yet. Not until you show them.
I got a regular ol’ lamp because I didn’t think to get creative when I finally decided to buy one. But hey, if your giftee is the type who likes cozy decorations like I do, consider a book lamp that takes “book lamp” very literally. Because it’s shaped like a book.
Steampunk Book Lamp
4. Magic Potions
I do bookstagram, and while I’m not at all consistent or experienced at it, I love buying props for photos.
…Okay, I just love buying cool fantasy-themed stuff to decorate my bookshelves with.
One of the very first decorations I started buying and collecting was magic potions off of Etsy. The first seller I got them from was Grim Sweetness, who makes super high quality, beautifully designed potions with gorgeously detailed labels and stoppers. Some of the potions even have color changing or sparkly effects when you shake them. So. Flippin’. Cool.
Look, I know it sounds silly to go on a tangent about this, but seriously; Potions make great bookshelf decorations and are therefore the perfect bookish gift. I will die on this hill.
Grim Sweetness’ potions got so popular on Etsy that they’ve started their own website, where they restock their potions the 15th of every month. Potions sell out fast, so be on the look out and make sure to snag the ones you want when you get the chance!
Magic Potions
5. Book Nook
Speaking of bookshelf decorations, did you know that there are little DIY kits you can buy to turn sections of your bookshelf into a miniature world? Taverns, alleys, bookstores, libraries, classrooms, faerie homes, all kinds of possible settings can be built and installed into your bookcase.
I don’t have a book nook yet, mainly because I’m clumsy and don’t trust that I won’t mess something up, but if you or your bookish friend/loved one is into DIY projects or decorating their bookshelf, a book nook might be just the bookish gift you’re looking for.
Eternal Bookstore Book Nook Kit
6. Bookish Scarves
I rarely wear scarves. However, I will gladly wear them in the blistering heat if it means I can wear the ones with text from books on them. Or with print designed like a vintage library card. Or a collection of famous book quotes. Or print from the dictionary.
Look up “book scarf” and you’re bound to find tons of scarves with text from classics and neat bookish designs.
Due Date Brown Library Scarf
7. Subscription to a Loot or Book Box
On one of my ill-advised shopping sprees, I bought a bunch of loot boxes. Mostly book boxes and some snack boxes. The one box I ordered that I was most impressed with was from Tailored Book Recommendations. Every loot box is rolling the dice, but TBR is as close as you can get to having something random come to your door every once in a while that you can be confident will be something you’ll actually like.
If you use this, I just recommend keeping your Goodreads profile as up to date as possible if you have one. The website lets you upload your profile so that their designated “bibliographers” can make sure they aren’t sending you a book you already have. I screwed up and forgot to update my profile when I started, so my first book box did contain one duplicate. Fair warning (one that applies to anyone considering any book box). Barring the dreaded duplicate, though, TBR is probably my favorite of the boxes I’ve tried.
You have an option of opting to receive only their recommendations every three months, or receive the recommended books as well. The box for the books is pricey at $80 every three months, or $325 annually, but I quite like the service and consider it a worthy bookish gift. The website even has a gift option so you can send a single set of three books or an annual subscription via email.
Hey, if you’re looking for gifts for a bookworm, send ’em some books! It’s foolproof.
Tailored Book Box
8. Cute Hats
I found this on Twitter. Now, here’s something you need to understand, dear reader: I am not a hat person.
But the moment I saw these cute hats and headbands in the shape of felt foods, I became one.
I know this one’s a stretch. Just because someone likes books doesn’t mean they’ll like silly hats, right? Those are very different things to be into.
But—stick with me, now—they might. They just might.
Do not underestimate book people. They’re fun, and they’re silly, and they just might like hats.
Get them a silly hat.
Cute Felt Food Hats
9. Book-Themed Furniture/Decor
If you don’t get a bookworm a book, you’re guaranteed to hit the mark with literally any book-themed object. Book lovers love to let you know they love books. I know this because I love books, and I love to let people know that. It’s one of the best parts of being a book lover.
Bookish decor lets the world know, “Hey world, I love books!” without you having to explicitly say so. And a lot of us book lovers are introverts, so a conversation starter that doesn’t require us to start the conversation is simply magnificent.
Library Card Pillows
10. Bookish Phone Case
Do I need exactly eleven phone cases? No. Do I love getting phone cases that make my phone look like a dictionary, or a pocket spell book, or a library card? Yes.
Like most things, I’ve gotten my favorite phone cases from Etsy. And chances are, if your giftee is super into books, they’ll be super into a bookish phone case. It’s the kind of gift that won’t go to waste even if the person has a case already, since they can just switch out the cases if they’re ever feeling like they need a change. The only way this gift completely goes to waste is if your giftee happens to get a new phone the moment you get them a case sized for their previous phone. That would suuuuuck.
Leather Book Phone Case
Bonus
Quirky Earrings (That Are Not Books)
I couldn’t not include some of my favorite indie sellers of cute earrings. I bulk buy from SpinkleCake whenever I get the chance. SpinkleCake sells the cutest polymer clay food earrings that are some of the highest quality I’ve ever purchased. I’m very picky about my silly earrings, readers, so trust me when I say that the earring sellers I recommend are the ones I’ve bought from repeatedly because they’re just that good.
From bottles of wine, to whole turkeys, to bags of Ruffles chips, if you’ve got a food in mind, this Etsy shop probably has it. And if she doesn’t, she accepts custom orders, and while I’ve never personality ordered anything custom from her yet, SprinkleCake is a total sweetheart and probably fantastic to work with.
Food earrings aren’t technically a bookish gift, but they’re fun, and you can probably find earrings that have to do with whatever genre your giftee prefers (for example, dragon earrings for fantasy, lightsaber earrings for sci-fi, etc, etc).
Polymer Clay Food Earrings
Notebooks/Journals
I don’t have stats, but I am positive that pretty much everyone who’s obsessed with books also writes to some extent, or at the very least has a journal of some kind. And if they don’t, they probably still collect notebooks just to have them. I don’t make the rules, I just believe in them.
Personally, I love sturdy notebooks that have thick pages so the ink never bleeds through. I rarely ever write in any of my notebooks, but I still like to collect them so I can admire them and pretend that eventually I’ll think of something worthy of being written in them.
Leather Journals
Tonya R. Moore 