Best Gift Ideas for the Bookworms in Your Life

There are lots of great gift ideas for book lovers

Buying gifts for booking loving friends and family seems like it should be easy enough. Buy books. Right? Unfortunately, it might not be that easy. What book would they want to read? What books have they already read? Unless you know exactly what book they want, it may be better to stick to gifts that are not books. 

Gift Cards

I'll start with the most obvious gift idea. A gift card from any location where books are sold. Yes, gift cards aren't exactly personal gifts but you are giving the book lovers in your life the joy of picking out books they don't have to pay for. And you can make this gift more personal by making it part of a birthday, Christmas, or Hanukkah gift basket, filled with snacks, cosmetics, a coffee cup, picture frame, trinkets, etc. Don't forget about local independent bookstores when purchasing gift cards.

Set of Bookmarks 

If you like the idea of putting together a gift basket, there's a wide range of bookmark sets available that would make a great addition to it. Some of these sets have a dozen to several dozen bookmarks with different styles. So you can buy one set and gift a few of each to multiple people. If your friends and relatives love flowers, cats, dogs, space, inspirational quotes, travel, adventure, you name it, there is probably a bookmark set for it. Search for anything your friends and family are interested in to find a variety of options.  

Sticky Tabs

Many readers love to annotate their books with sticky tabs, which are another great addition to a gift basket. Daiso is a great place to shop for sticky tabs if you live near one of their stores. I have an adorable Rilakkuma sticky tab set from Daiso. Etsy is another good place to find decorative sticky tabs. Amazon sells a 1200 Sticky Index Tabs set that would be great for someone who does a lot of annotating. However, Amazon doesn't seem to have decorative or cute sets if that is something your bookworm friend or relative would prefer.

Gift Subscriptions/Memberships

A gift card for Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or independent bookstores seems like an obvious gift for a book lover. But a membership or subscription to an audiobook service is another option to consider. Services that sell gift memberships include Audible, Scribd, Audiobooks.com, and Libro.fm (which supports local booksellers). Depending on the service, they may offer 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month gift subscriptions.  These gifts either have to be emailed or you may be able to print them out. You can also buy eGift cards from online bookstores like Kobobooks and Chirp Books, although these are not memberships.

Tree Bookshelf

If you want to get something larger, the Karcog 4 tier bookshelf is an option to consider. This small tree-inspired bookshelf doesn't take up much space. However, its small size also makes it impractical for larger-sized books. But for paperback books, it is fun and cute storage. There are taller versions of these tree bookshelves, but complaints about them being unsteady are common. The bookshelf comes in parts. You may want to put it together before gifting it. 

Desktop Bookshelf

Small decorative bookshelves
make great gifts

YGYQZ Small Bookshelf for Desktop Storage comes in black or white and has a few design options. It can't hold too many books but it's designed more for looks than storage. Like with the tree bookshelf, assembly is required.

Bamboo Laptop Desk

This Bamboo Laptop Desk is an option to consider for bookworms who love to read in bed. According to the description, it is 100% bamboo. This desk has a number of uses. It can be used for breakfast in bed, working on a laptop, drawing, and reading magazines and larger-sized books.

Genius Writers (Genius Playing Cards)

Author themed cards

If you know a book lover who also loves playing card games, the Genius Writers Genius Playing Cards set may be an ideal gift. Genius Writers cards are used "in exactly the same way as regular playing cards. Each suit features a group of writers from history with numbers and court cards, including two jokers." 

This standard playing card set features pictures of literary figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Jack Kerouac, Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, and Margaret Atwood are just some of the writers pictured on the cards.

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