Book Recommendations for Christmas! UPDATED

Book Recommendations for Christmas! UPDATED December 1, 2011

Last week when I ranted about Black Friday and the absurd over-commercialization of Christmas, I wrote:

“The littlest kids are getting gifts (small ones; hello chess sets!) — and everyone else is getting homemade cookies or Monastic soaps, cremes and candies — high-quality “things” that are quickly used and gone, and whose purchase helps sustain houses of prayer — or books that can actually change people’s lives by helping them to find a measure of true comfort and joy, those two genuine gifts of Christmas.”

I’m making good on that, today, and as George Weigel has put forward a really excellent list of great gift titles (including this one, which I’d not seen and of course desperately want) I thought I’d add a few titles. Unsurprisingly, Weigel is as hot for giving people copies of Catholicism as I am, and I’ve already told you why this book is also a great gift, but here are a few more:

for a busy mom!

for a Catholic who needs to vent!

for a Yout

for someone who still thinks it’s a “symbol”

for a guy who is a guy and needs a guy’s way of being faithful

for someone who misses fiction about nuns (come on, we all do!)

for someone who needs a hero

for a woman you love

for the best friend

for a deep-water diving companion

for someone who would like a gentle encounter with Truth, everyday

for a kid who likes comic books

for someone with great intentions and a short attention span

for exhausted girl who needs brain candy at night

And in DVD:
Pope John Paul II; the Man, the Pope and his Message

Okay, I’m exhausted — how about ya’ll pitch in? What books, DVD’s and kids things are you buying?

UPDATE: I just realized, I didn’t actually include a Christmas title in any of this. Here are two: the first is a Kindle single, Dakota Christmas by Joseph Bottum.

“Her hair was the same thin shade of gray as the weather-beaten pickets of the fence around her frozen garden. She had a way with horses, and she was alone on Christmas Eve. There is little in my life I regret as much as that I would not stay for just one cookie, just one cup of tea.”

And two more:

This because this is gloriously beautiful

And this — because the book is even better than the film!

UPDATE II: Webster Bull has A list of his favorite books


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