It is that time of year again when you sit and make your Christ­mas list. As an avid read­er, my go-to gifts are gen­er­al­ly books. You might think this would make my life eas­i­er - it doesn’t! I have to fig­ure out which book to get for each per­son that they will ab­solute­ly en­joy and love. I con­sid­er it a per­son­al af­front if I give you a book as a gift and you don’t read it, or you read it but didn’t en­joy it. It is be­cause of this per­son­al pres­sure, that putting to­geth­er a Christ­mas list gives me all types of anx­i­ety. I con­sid­er books the best kind of gift to give, out­side of mon­ey (which I will use to buy books) and plane tick­ets. If you are still putting to­geth­er your Christ­mas list, here are some amaz­ing books and the sug­gest­ed per­son in your life to get it for:

The Dutch House by Ann Patch­ett

This book is for the read­er in the fam­i­ly who loves a great fam­i­ly dra­ma. In The Dutch House, Ann Patch­ett writes of a fam­i­ly who came in­to great wealth. Through this new­found wealth, the fa­ther, Cyril, was able to pur­chase The Dutch House which was pre­vi­ous­ly owned by a Dutch fam­i­ly who came to ru­in. Cyril pur­chased this sprawl­ing man­sion in the coun­try­side of Philadel­phia as a sur­prise for his wife - thus be­gin­ning the down­fall of the Con­roy fam­i­ly. The book is told from the per­spec­tive of Cyril’s youngest son, Dan­ny.

Dan­ny gives us an in-depth look in­to his re­la­tion­ship with his old­er sis­ter Maeve and what be­comes of The Dutch House and those who lived and worked in it. This five-decade long nar­ra­tion will keep you ut­ter­ly en­thralled the en­tire way.

Get this for: Your favourite sib­ling or Aunt

Olive, Again by Eliz­a­beth Strout

We met Olive Kit­teridge 11 years ago when Eliz­a­beth Strout in­tro­duced her to the world and won a Pulitzer Prize for the cre­ation of an un­for­get­table char­ac­ter. In Olive, Again, we get a sec­ond dose of Olive and all the char­ac­ters who re­side in Cros­by, Maine.

What I loved most about this book is how hu­man all the char­ac­ters are - you feel for them in a gen­uine way, and I think that is linked to how great a writer Strout is. I loved that Strout ex­plored the theme of age­ing and ageism and how old­er per­sons some­times feel over­looked. This theme spoke to me on such a deep lev­el be­cause of how raw the char­ac­ters were about their fears of dy­ing, how lone­ly be­ing old is, all their re­grets, how they are treat­ed by so­ci­ety and their chil­dren. I can­not re­mem­ber read­ing a book that ex­plores the theme of age­ing as beau­ti­ful­ly as this one.

Get this for: your grand­par­ents, grand aunt or favourite old­er rel­a­tive.

Mod­ern Love, Re­vised and Up­dat­ed: True Sto­ries of Love, Loss, and Re­demp­tion by Daniel Jones

The book Mod­ern Love: True Sto­ries of Love, Loss and Re­demp­tion is a col­lec­tion of some of the best es­says that ap­peared in the New York Times col­umn over the last 10 years. This is an in­sane­ly co­he­sive col­lec­tion of es­says that ex­plores mod­ern love in the most hi­lar­i­ous, deeply per­son­al, mov­ing, vul­ner­a­ble, and heart­felt way. I could not get enough of this col­lec­tion - I found my­self cry­ing at the end of some of these es­says and it was beau­ti­ful.

Mod­ern Love... what does that even mean? Well, in this col­lec­tion we are privy to all the var­i­ous types of love. We see love ex­plored in all its var­i­ous forms, from young love, parental love, sib­ling love, re­demp­tive love et cetera. These es­says are pro­found and deeply mov­ing.

Get this for: Your sin­gle cousin or sib­ling or re­cent­ly en­gaged or di­vorced fam­i­ly mem­ber.

Fin­ish: Give Your­self the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff

“Ac­cord­ing to stud­ies, 92% of New Year’s res­o­lu­tions fail. But though 100 per­cent start, on­ly 8% fin­ish. Sta­tis­ti­cal­ly you’ve got the same shot at get­ting in­to Juil­liard to be­come a bal­le­ri­na as you do at fin­ish­ing your goals. Their ac­cep­tance rate is about 8 per­cent…”

In FIN­ISH Jon Acuff gets to the heart of WHY we don’t fin­ish what we start. Why we don’t fin­ish can be summed up in one-word - Per­fec­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Jon Acuff de­vel­op­ing tol­er­ance for im­per­fec­tion is the key fac­tor in turn­ing chron­ic starters in­to con­sis­tent fin­ish­ers.

Get this for: The Per­fec­tion­ist in your fam­i­ly and the fam­i­ly mem­ber who can­not seem to fin­ish any­thing they start.

There you have it, four books to sat­is­fy the read­ers on your Christ­mas list. I do hope you give the gift of read­ing and knowl­edge this Christ­mas. Have a hap­py and safe Christ­mas and all the best for the New Year!

Cindy All­man is a Caribbean Girl Read­ing the World and Book­sta­gram­mer. A Ja­maican liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, she is a top Goodreads re­view­er and hopes to in­spire you with her pas­sion for books. Fol­low her at www.bookofcinz.com or @bookofcinz on Twit­ter and In­sta­gram.