12 VINTAGE books that make perfect last-minute gifts

A VINTAGE Christmas

A compendium of the best writing about Christmas, from its magical moments and charitable deeds to mournful reminiscences, family feuds and inequalities. Our best writers, including Charles Dickens, Louis de Bernieres, Laurie Lee, John Cheever, Anne Enright, Arthur Conan Doyle and many more, have seen it all and written it down, capturing along the way what abides that is good and true in the festive season, and what real magic can be found.

Murakami 2020 Diary

A beautifully designed week-to-view diary for 2020, featuring unique artwork inspired by Haruki Murakami's works along with quotations and significant dates. Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring his place as one of the world’s most acclaimed and well-loved writers. This diary includes visual and textual references to his works, from Wind/Pinball, A Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood to Killling Commendatore and Novelist as a Vocation.

How To Eat by Nigella Lawson

When Nigella Lawson’s first book, How to Eat, was published in 1998, two things were immediately clear: that this fresh and fiercely intelligent voice would revolutionise cookery writing, and that How to Eat was an instant classic of the genre. The pages of this versatile culinary bible contain some of the most inspiring writing about food, the world over – not to mention its Christmas recipes (those goose fat roast potatoes) that are loved up and down the country. The perfect gift for the young cook in your life who was just a tiny thing when this book first came out.

The Quick Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer

For the cook who’s pressed for time, it has to be Rukmini Iyer’s The Quick Roasting Tin. The concept is simple: fresh, easy ingredients, a few minutes prep, and let the oven do the work. Each chapter also includes a helpful infographic for how to build you own roasting tin dinner using whatever is in your fridge tonight. The original, The Roasting Tin, is also ideal andThe Green Roasting Tin is ideal for vegans, vegetarians – and veg-loving meat-eaters too.

They Don't Teach This by Eni Aluko

This is the powerful memoir from one of Britain's most inspiring women. Eni Aluko's achievements include a first class honours law degree, 102 appearances for England women's national football team, being the first female pundit on Match of the Day, a UN Women UK ambassador, and a Guardian columnist. They Don’t Teach This steps beyond the realms of memoir – it is an inspiring manifesto to change the way readers and the future generation choose to view the challenges that come in their life, applying life lessons with raw truths of Eni’s own personal experience.

Rusty Brown by Chris Ware

The long-awaited new book from the author of Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and Building Stories, this is the perfect gift for graphic novel fans! Ware tells stories of six different, eccentric people in minute detail (or as he puts it, ‘From childhood to old age, no frozen plotline is left unthawed’), producing another masterwork of the comics form that is at once achingly beautiful, heartbreakingly sad and painfully funny.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This is a stunning gift edition of prize-winning Beloved to commemorate Toni Morrison, with an introduction by Zadie Smith and featuring special archival material. Set in the mid-1800s as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Told with heart-stopping clarity, melding horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s enduring masterpiece. 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The perfect present for someone who loves getting lost in books that celebrate the beauty of storytelling – The Starless Sea is the latest work by Erin Morgenstern, author of the bestselling novel, The Night Circus. When Zachary Rawlins stumbles upon a strange book hidden in his university library that leads him on a quest unlike any other. Join Zach on the starless sea: the home of storytellers, story-lovers and those who will protect our stories at all costs. 

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Michael Morpurgo

The Little Prince has captured the hearts of readers around the world since he first appeared in 1943. Written by pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry while in America, the tale was inspired by his experiences in the French Air Force. On the surface it’s a simple story, but this little prince is as wise as they come and his messages of compassion and goodwill continue to endure. This new translation is by the bestselling author of War Horse, Michael Morpurgo, and is just the thing for story lovers young and old. 

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale about the Republic of Gilead has taken the world by storm for decades, not least thanks to the award-winning hit TV series starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred. Now, The Testaments, the Booker Prize-winning sequel to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel is here. This hardback – a feat of book cover design by Noma Bar and Suzanne Dean – is the ultimate edition of the sensationally popular The Testaments, a sequel that will become a timeless classic and will make someone’s Christmas extra special, whether they’re new to it or count it among one of their favourite books.

Surge by Jay Bernard

Winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award, T. S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best First Collection, this glowing collection of poetry is extraordinary. Jay Bernard's debut is a fearlessly original exploration of the black British experience: an enquiry into the New Cross Fire of 1981, a house fire at a birthday party in south London in which thirteen young black people were killed, dubbed the ‘New Cross Massacre’. A ground-breaking work of excavation, memory and activism, Surge shines a much-needed light on an unacknowledged chapter in British history, one that powerfully resonates in our present moment.

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

If you're looking for a book by a masterful storyteller, look no further than The Baron in the Trees. In a playful, romantic fable, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home up in the trees. He walks through paths made from the twisted branches of olive and educates himself in philosophy and mathematics from an aerial library. Suspended among the leaves, the Baron adventures with bandits and pirates, conducts a passionate love affair, and watches the Age of Enlightenment pass beneath him.