Undaunted by the continued rise in sales of reading devices and ebooks, each holiday season book publishers roll out the best they can offer: books by leading authors that present content in a way that cannot be matched by an ebook. This year, as in past years, the result are large format beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated hardcover books to please enthusiasts of every major topic. For true bibliophiles, this is the only time of the year that you will encounter the rich aroma and welcoming sight of tall stacks of books (with multiple copies of each book) spread across several tables, sprinkled with copies of that annoying quasi-book “Elf on a Shelf.” It is the booksellers’ greatest holiday wish that these books will wind up under the Christmas tree and not end up as orphans on the doorstep of book liquidators several months later. To encourage sales, booksellers offer deep discounts that they don’t offer at any other time of the year. Despite what the Google Generation believes, there is still a place for books as thoughtful, enduring gifts. To that end, Bookshelf presents some of the best gift books for the 2014 holiday season, broken down by category.
Best Books for Music Lovers
The Beatles Lyrics: The Stories Behind the Music by Hunter Davies
The Lyrics: Since 1962 by Bob Dylan
The Blues: A Visual History by Mike Evans
108 Rock Star Guitars by Lisa Johnson
ABBA: 600 Rare, Classic, and Unseen Photos Telling the Complete Story by Petter Karlsson
The Haight: Love, Rock, and Revolution by Joel Selvin
U2: Revolution by Mat Snow
Streisand: In the Camera Eye by James Spada
Springstein: Album by Album by Ryan White
The Best Books for Movie Lovers
Batman: A Visual History by Matthew Manning
The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Harry Potter: The Creative Vault: The Creatures and Plants of the Harry Potter Films by Jody Revenson
DC Comics: A Visual History by Daniel Wallace
The Art of Film Magic: 20 Years of Weta
The Making of Gone With the Wind by Steve Wilson
The Best Books for Photography Buffs
Photography: The Definitive Visual History by Tom Ang
National Geographic Stunning Photographs by Annie Griffiths
National Geographic Covers: Iconic Photographs, Unforgettable Stories by Mark Jenkins
World’s Best Cities: Celebrating 220 Great Destinations
Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton
The Oldest Living Things in the World by Rachel Sussman
The Best Books for Book Lovers and Literature Lovers
The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for Joyce’s Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham
Literary Love: Great Writers on Love and Romance by Isobel Carlson
The History of the Book in 100 Books: The Complete Story From Egypt to ebook by Roderick Cave
Mark Twain’s America: A Celebration in Words and Images by Harry Katz
The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft edited by Leslie Klinger
Shakespeare’s Beehive: An Annotated Elizabethan Dictionary by George Koppelman
Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicholson
By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life edited by Pamela Paul
Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury by Paul Strohm
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience edited by Shaun Usher
The Best Books for Science Nerds
Cosmigraphics by Michael Benson
Molecules: The Elements and Architecture of Everything by Theodore Gray
Einstein: The Life of a Genius by Walter Isaacson
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission by Marc Kaufman
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
Deep Space: Beyond the Solar System to the End of the Universe and the Beginning of Time by Govert Schilling
Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program by David Scott
Infinite Worlds: The People and Places of Space Exploration by Michael Soluri
A History of Life in 100 Fossils by Paul Taylor
The Best Books for History Buffs
D-Day Illustrated Edition by Stephen Ambrose
Founding Fathers: The Fight for Freedom and the Birth of American Liberty by K.M. Kostyal and Jack Rakove
A History of War in 100 Battles by Richard Overy
Lincoln: An Intimate Portrait by LIFE editors
A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance-Portrait of an Age (Illustrated Edition) by William Manchester
The Best Books from DK Publishing
The Beer Book
Coffee Obession
Firearms: An Illustrated History
Great Maps
History of the World in 1,000 Objects
Human Anatomy Boxed Set
The Human Brain Book
James Bond Encyclopedia
Lego Architecture: The Visual Guide
Ocean: The Definitive Visual Guide
Planets: The Definitive Visual Guide to Our Solar System
The Science Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)
Train: The Definitive Visual History
World War I: The Definitive Visual History
The Best Books for Trivia Buffs
Listverse.com’s Epic Book of Mind-Boggling Lists by Jamie Frater
Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World’s Most Interesting Facts by Dan Lewis
1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop by John Lloyd
The Best Bar Trivia Book Ever by Michael O’Neill
The Top Ten of Everything 2015 by Paul Terry
The Best Books for Word Nerds
Authorisms by Paul Dickson
The Describer’s Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms and Literary Quotations by David Grambs and Ellen Levine
Language! Five Hundred Years of the Vulgar Tongue by Jonathon Green
Talking Turkey: A Food Lover’s Guide to Origin of Words by Robert Hendrickson
A Miscellany for Word Lovers by Robin Hosie
Roget’s Thesaurus of Words for Writers by David Olsen
The Best Books from the Everyman Library – Fiction
London Fields by Martin Amis
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Stories of Fatherhood by Diana Tesdell
The Arabian Nights by Wen-Chin Ouyang
The Best Books from the Everyman Library – Poetry
Poems Dead and Undead by Tony Barnstone
Poems of the American South by David Biespiel
Poems by C. P. Cavafy
Arabic Poems by Marie Hammond
Joyce: Poems and a Play by James Joyce
