If you want to give books for the holidays, you might have heard that you should order them right away. Even yesterday, to be honest. If you buy the best books for gifts in 2021 early because of the supply chain, you have a good reason (AKA right now, as soon as you finish reading my list).

Books that have been big bestsellers this year are often on gift lists for people who like to read. For many people, that's a good idea. You're here to give a book to someone. A bookworm's friend knows that it's impossible to buy them something because you never know what they've read or not. There's a good chance that we've already read, or ruled out, the books that are getting a lot of attention.

In fact, I only get books as gifts if I ask for them. Many people don't want to buy me books, and they'll tell me that. But that's just not right. Your bookworm friends want to buy books from you! This is how it works: (Frankly, even if I get the same book twice, it's always special because someone picked it out for me from a shelf.) When you love books so much, people don't want to give you books as gifts because they don't want to make you feel bad.

People who like reading should get books for Christmas. These are some of the best books of the year, but they're not so well-known that your reader friend has already read them. I've put together a list of them here. Here are the best books to give as gifts this Christmas.

Books to Escape Into

How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino, Translated by Bruno Navasky

This book has been inspiring people in Japan since 1937, when it was first published. Hayao Miyazaki has said it was his favorite childhood book, and it is in the process of being his last film with Studio Ghibli. But only now are we able to read this vivid story in English. After Copper's father dies, he has a hard time dealing with the huge change. His uncle writes to him in a journal, giving him advice and life lessons that he hopes will help Copper find his place in the world. If you are a fan of Miyazaki, you will be excited to learn about one of his main influences and see a preview of his last project. Foreword: Fantasy great Neil Gaiman wrote a foreword for the book.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

This is the deal that a violin teacher made with the devil: if she can get seven other violin stars to send their souls to hell, she'll get out of hell and her music will be available again to the world. When she finds Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender girl who has been kicked out of her home, she's excited. She has an untrained talent that can't be faked. They're also trying to fix their spaceship while pretending to run a donut shop near by. This is a wild, absurd, emotional, and very gay book. The pages move quickly. YA SFF fans, people who like music, and anyone who wants to read a warm, escapist story about a queer person will love this book.

What You Can See From Here by Mariana Leky, Translated by Tess Lewis

This was one of my favorite books of the year. It was a funny story that made me laugh and then made me cry. When the book starts, Selma, Luisa's grandmother, has dreamed of an okapi. Everyone in town knows what that means: someone will die. People in the town gather superstitions, think about telling their secrets, or admitting their crushes in the swirl of events that follow. The book is about Luisa and how she grows up, but it's really about the town, the people who live there, and how they make you laugh and cry. If you want to read about life, grief, and the impossible stubbornness of love, this is the book for you. It was a best-seller in Europe before it came out in the United States this year. It will be interesting to a wide range of people.

After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang

This book is a soft fantasy about how we care for each other. It is very quiet, and it is very beautiful. Shaolong, or "burned lung," is a mysterious disease that has spread through Beijing. A jaded college student recently diagnosed with shaolong is looking for dragons that have been left behind that he can nurse back to health. In the meantime, a medical student from the US has come back to the city to mourn the death of his grandmother and help find a cure for shaolong, which is a type of tea. When the two meet, their soft romance starts to grow, and they learn more about how we should treat each other. People who like soft fantasy and books about the environment will enjoy this one. It's easy to get lost in this book.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

In China, it's 1345, and our hero, the young daughter, is given a fate of nothingness, while her brother is given a fate of greatness. Then Zhu Chongba dies in the middle of a famine and a fight. The girl is so determined to live that she takes on her brother's name and identity and joins a monastery as a novice. She wants to avoid her own fate. She doesn't want to die at first, but as war breaks out, Zhu starts to wonder if greatness could be her fate after all, even though she doesn't want to die. High fantasy and epic fantasy fans will like this book, which is a queer take on how China's Ming dynasty came to be, because it has a lot of politics, epic twists, and cleverness in it. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.

The Best of World Sci Fi: Volume 1 Edited by Lavie Tidhar

Not sure what to get the sci-fi fan who already has everything you can think of? Check out these ideas. Isn't it time for a new, amazing, huge hardback that brings together short stories from all over the world? This book has stories from 23 countries and seven languages, like Hebrew, Japanese, Spanish, Icelandic, Chinese, and more. It also has stories in seven languages. A lot of people who read science fiction don't know about global science fiction, which isn't often translated or re-published. The stories are creative, and they bring this type of science fiction to the attention of people who read science fiction every day. It includes fantasy, cyberpunk, time travel, space opera, and just about everything else in the middle of it.

 

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

When I read this steampunk-fantasy-mystery book, I had so much fun. It's set in an alternate 1912 Cairo where magical creatures are part of everyday life. This is the case that Fatma el-Shaarawi, a well-dressed, bold young woman in the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, the youngest woman in the ministry, finds herself on: Man in mask: He claims to be the man who opened up the veil between magical and real worlds years ago, and he's being blamed for the death of a secret brotherhood. Clark is one of the best fantasy authors writing today, and fans of the genre will love the rich world-building, vivid queer characters, and suspenseful mystery plot in this book. Clark is also a great teacher.

---