In a year full of Zoom meetings, Google Hangouts, e-Learning and “virtual happy hours”, the last thing I want to do with my free time these days is stare at another screen.

Enter the book. I’m not talking about the kind you download onto your iPad or smartphone and read in the dark. No, I’m talking about the kind you hold in your hands, flip through with your fingers. The kind you can turn to when your eyes and your brain both need a break from the digital world we’re living in.

Books offer an escape, and what better gift is there than that right now? Here are some of the best gift-able titles for the 2020 holiday season.

Best Travel Book

Accidentally Wes Anderson ($35) looks, well, straight out of a Wes Anderson movie. Based on the super popular Instagram account of the same name, this quirky travel/photography book explores real-life places that have the same distinctive aesthetic as his films, and tells the stories behind them. Includes a forward written by Wes Anderson himself.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Coffee Table Book

Humans ($35) is author/photographer Brandon Stanton’s 2020 follow-up to the mega bestseller Humans of New York. In Humans, Stanton shares photographs and stories of every day people from around the world. Over 40 countries are represented in this 448 page book that the Washington Post calls, “one of the most influential art projects of the decade.”

At a time when the world seems divided as ever, this book looks like a great reminder of the shared humanity that ties us all together.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Cookbook for a Global Pandemic

Because going to watch sporting events in-person isn’t really a thing right now, Tailgreat: How to Crush It at Tailgating ($28) might seem like a weird pick. But even if you won’t be actually tailgating anytime soon, outdoor gatherings will likely be the “new normal” for awhile. Tailgreat includes 120 recipes from James Beard Award winner John Currence that will bring your socially distanced outdoor get togethers to a new level.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Kids’ Baking Cookbook

When I saw that Christina Tosi had come out with a kids’ cookbook, Milk Bar: Kids Only ($23), I immediately bought it. I’m not even a big desert person, but her Momofuku Milk Bar Corn Cookies are one of the best things I have ever eaten in my entire life. Her new cookbook is absolutely delightful, too–great writing, great pictures, super fun recipes that appeal to both kids and kids at heart. So far my family has made the Rocky Road Cereal Squares and the Dreamsicle Blondies and both were delicious!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Humor Book

God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx ($26) is the writing debut from Desus & Mero of the hilarious Bodega Boys podcast. They describe their new self-help book as “a sequel to the Bible, or maybe to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, depending on how big a nerd you are.” If that doesn’t convince you to pick this one up, I don’t know what will!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Comic Book Collection

One of these days Wonder Woman 1984 will be released (maybe?). In the meantime, Wonder Woman: The Cheetah Comic Book Collection ($20) will get you acquainted with Cheetah, the villain played by Kristen Wiig in the new movie (that will hopefully, someday, actually come out). This 2020 release includes all of Cheetah’s appearances in various DC comics from 1943 to 2016.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Pop-Up Book

Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Guide to Diagon Alley and Beyond ($75) is Matthew Reinhart’s newest pop-up book, but literally everything he’s done is awesome.  Simply calling these books seems wrong–they are true works of art! The coolest things about this new Harry Potter pop-up is that it can be opened up into a displayable 3D diorama of all the pages!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book That’s Not Really a Book

Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie Postcard Book ($25) is an incredible value. For $25 you get 100(!) panoramic postcards plus storage box that doubles as a display frame. The postcards feature really beautiful concept art by Ralph McQuarrie, the artist who worked with George Lucas to establish the saga’s visual aesthetic in pre-production.

I was given this set for my birthday last year and totally thought someone spent a lot more money on me than they really did!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book Gift Set

The Umbrella Academy Volume 1: Apocalypse Suite Deluxe Edition ($80) is a cool gift idea for fans of the popular Umbrella Academy Netflix show (just renewed for a third season yesterday!). Includes a 216-page leatherette hardcover with the entire Umbrella Academy comic series, a 50-page “sketchbook”, plus lithograph and slipcase designed by illustrator Gabriel Bà.

If you don’t need the fancy details, the Umbrella Academy Library Edition Volume 1: Apocalypse Suite (Hardcover) on its own is much cheaper ($40).

Check Price on Amazon

Best Read-Aloud Picture Book

Ironically enough, the best read-aloud book goes to No Reading Allowed: The WORST Read-Aloud Book Ever ($18). This kids’ book plays around with homophones, homonyms, and tricky punctuation, like “Man, a tea sounds great” vs “Manatee sounds great!”

Hopefully this November 2020 release will be as hilarious and awesome as its predecessor, P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever ($18). Seriously, it’s so good.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Kids’ Fiction Series

The obvious choices here would be Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog Man or Captain Underpants (all good!), but my kids and I recently discovered a hidden gem of a series: The Unicorn Rescue Society. Before you roll your eyes, they’re not really about unicorns! And they are really well written! Mostly, I’m just stoked to have found a series that both my boys (8 and 4) and girl (6) all enjoy.

The Unicorn Rescue Society Series Set ($33) includes the first four books: The Creature of the Pines, The Basque Dragon, Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot, and The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Biography

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow ($22) is not a new release (2005), but it’s seeing a surge in popularity since Hamilton the musical debuted on Disney+ this summer. It’s said that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda read Chernow’s Hamilton biography on vacation, was super inspired by the story of America’s lesser known founding father…and the rest is well, history.

Don’t let the length scare you–even at over 800 pages it’s a super fast read! Great gift for a Hamilton musical fan, or really anyone who enjoys a good story.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Cocktail Book

Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails ($25) goes beyond providing drink recipes. In this 2020 release, New York City bartender John deBary focuses more on the “science of mixology” and teaches you how to tweak any drink to your preferences and moods. Pair this with a nice shaker and you’ve got an awesome gift for just about anyone (over the age of 21 of course!).

Check Price on Amazon

Best New Anthology

The Best of Me ($30) is a collection of writer David Sedaris’s favorite stories and essays over the last 25 years. If you want to introduce someone you love to the brilliance that is David Sedaris, he’s given you a great place to start.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book for Math Nerds

Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World ($27) is described as ‘The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?”’ This 2020 bestseller includes math mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire and more.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Sports Book

Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty ($30) would have been an interesting read either way, but the fact that Kobe Bryant died this year brings a new level of fascination to this story. Written by Sports Journalist Jeff Pearlman and covers the Lakers “dynasty” from 1996 through 2004.

Check Price on Amazon

Most Highly Anticipated Memoir

The first volume of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs, A Promised Land ($45) comes out today (11/17). No matter what political side you’re on, you have to admit Obama has always had a way with words. His historic rise to become the first Black president is a story I think a lot of people are looking forward to diving into this holiday season.

Check Price on Amazon

Most Highly Anticipated Sequel

Ready Player Two: A Novel ($29) comes out on 11/24, right in time for holiday gifting. Fans of the first book, Ready Player One have been waiting for this one for nine years! Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation in 2018 only upped the level of anticipation. Let’s hope it was worth the wait!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book to Give Your Wife/Daughter/Niece

What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly ($25) is described as a “vibrant herstory-meets-self-help book”. Author Arianna Davis is getting a lot of praise for telling Frida Kahlo’s story in a fresh new way. Looks like an inspiring read for girls and women of all ages.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book for Car Lovers

A Man & His Car: Iconic Cars and Stories from the Men Who Love Them ($40) is a collection of 80 stories of men and their beloved cars. Includes Ed Burns talking about his 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, Jay Leno telling the story of his 1955 Buick Roadmaster, and Shaquille O’Neal nerding out over his love of trucks.

This is a follow up to 2017’s A Man & His Watch: Iconic Watches and Stories from the Men Who Wore Them (also a fun gift idea, especially paired with a watch!)

Check Price on Amazon

20 Giftable Books for 2020

In this digital age we live in you might be thinking, “wait, a book guide? What is this ‘book’ thing you speak of?” To remind you, a book is a collection of words, printed on this other ancient thing called paper, that you hold in your hands and read.

All joking aside, with so many eBooks and Audio books out there, gifting someone a physical book–something they can hold and flip through and display in their home–has become all the more special. Here are some of the best titles for the 2019 holiday season.

Best Massive Coffee Table Book

The NASA Archives. 60 Years in Space ($150) is huge (468 pages!) and gives a visual history of space exploration by way of 400 historic photographs and concept renderings from the last 60 years. The list price is high, but it’s already down to about $90 on Amazon.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Not So Massive Coffee Table Book

In The Beatles from A to Zed: An Alphabetical Mystery Tour ($27), record producer Peter Asher (who knew the band personally) takes you on an “alphabetical journey” through the music and lives of the best music group the world has ever known (true fact). Just came out in a couple weeks ago and is getting great reviews.

Check Price on Amazon

Best New Cookbook

Everyone likes tacos, which is why Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen ($30) is my pick for best new cookbook. In it, LA based chef and restaurant owner Josef Centeno shares over 100 regional Mexican dishes with German, Polish, and Moroccan influences. Honestly all the recipes sound good, but the Blood Orange Flan de Queso and Grandma Alice’s Chipotle Chorizo are at the top of my list to try. Oh and the Áma Margarita, of course.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Classic Cookbook

For someone who is just getting into cooking, Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques ($40) is considered by many to be the new standard for teaching general cooking skills. The late great Anthony Bourdain said of this 700+ pager, “This is the book that every aspiring cook should read before picking up a French knife. Concise, informative, indispensable.”

Check Price on Amazon

Best New Travel Book

Wanderlust: A Traveler’s Guide to the Globe ($40) is 368 pages of pure bucket list inspiration. It includes themed lists of travel ideas like “50 wonders of the world”, “where to stargaze”, and “legendary bars and cafés”, plus tons of photographs and general travel tips. A dream come true for the dreamer on your list!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book for Over-Analyzers

Am I Overthinking This?: Over-answering life’s questions in 101 charts ($15) is a gem of a book based on graphic designer Michelle Rial’s popular Instagram account. Through hilarious hand-drawn charts and diagrams, Rial answers the most burning adult questions like, “should I have more coffee?”, “how long should this dish soak?” and “do I have too many plants?” Just read the reviews–they’re so good!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Kids’ Picture Book

The irony of My Book with No Pictures ($10) landing in this spot is that it has no pictures at all! It’s a fill-in-the-blanks follow-up to BJ Novak’s super popular The Book with No Pictures (2014). I’m really excited for this one–the original was a favorite in our family! Note: release date is 11/19.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Baby Board Book Set

Everyone likes to believe their baby is the smartest baby in existence, and you can help make that slightly more true with the Baby University Physics Board Book Set ($40). This new 2019 set includes Astrophysics for Babies, Statistical Physics for Babies, Nuclear Physics for Babies and Optical Physics for Babies, but they also make tons of other titles. They’re written by an actual working physicist so you might just find yourself learning something new, too!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Pop-Up Book

Star Wars: The Ultimate Pop-Up Galaxy ($85) is Matthew Reinhart’s newest pop-up book, but literally everything he’s done is awesome.  Simply calling these books seems wrong–they are true works of art! This newest release covers all 11 Star Wars movies, including The Rise of Skywalker (out in December).

Check Price on Amazon

Best Comic Style Book

Strange Planet ($15) is another one that comes from a super popular Instagram account (by Nathan W. Pyle). The highly anticipated book goes through the life cycle of Earth’s inhabitants (from the perspective of a couple adorable aliens) and includes milestones such as The Emergence Day, Being Gains a Sibling, Being Begins a Vocation, and The Being Reflects on Life While Watching the Planet Rotate. The Insta account is amazing, so there’s little question the book is going to be amazing too. Note: release date is 11/19.

Check Price on Amazon

Best Boxed Set

The Harry Potter: The Illustrated Collection Books 1-3 Boxed Set ($120) is absolutely stunning. We have the first book from the Illustrated Collection and I was just blown away by the quality. This would make a great gift for younger kids getting into HP for the first time, as well as die-hard fans who have read the books a million times. The words haven’t changed a bit, but the reading experience feels totally new (and somehow even more magical!).

Check Price on Amazon

Best Cocktail Book

Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions ($40) goes through what the authors have determined to be the six “root” cocktails: the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip, and shows you how to use them as templates to create all the other cocktails out there (or invent new ones of your own). Universally praised with an impressive 4.7/5 average on GoodReads. Pair this with a nice shaker and you’ve got an awesome gift for just about anyone (well, anyone over the age of 21 that is!).

Check Price on Amazon

Best Kids’ Fiction

If you need a cheap gift for an elementary school aged kid, you probably won’t go wrong with Dog Man: Fetch-22 ($13). This is number eight in the graphic novel style series by the Dav Pilkey (the guy who wrote Captain Underpants) and is scheduled for release on 12/10, just in time for the holidays. Every kid I know reads and loves these books!

Check Price on Amazon

Best Book for Comic Book Nerds

Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman Deluxe Edition ($30) is over 400 pages long and features all the iconic moments in Batman comic history: from the very first Batman story, to the debuts of sidekicks like Robin and Batgirl, to the first appearances of villains like Two-Face and the Riddler. Already down to $17 on Amazon (stocking stuffer priced!).

Check Price on Amazon

Best Memoir

I’m from Minneapolis, so there’s no way Prince: The Beautiful Ones ($30) was not going to make this list. This newly released book not only includes the unfinished memoir Prince was in the middle of writing at the time of his death, but is also full of candid photos, handwritten journal entries and other personal reflections from the beloved musician. The USA Today review writes, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Prince fanatic or if your interest is simply piqued by all things music or pop culture: The book is worth picking up. The Beautiful Ones is not a read, but an experience, an immersion inside the mind of a musical genius.”

Check Price on Amazon

Holiday Gift Guide 2019: 15 Awesome Giftable Books