Books are one of my favorite gifts. Besides being plentiful, easy to purchase, and very easy to wrap, you can make the gift of books as thoughtful and creative as you like. I like to pick out a few different books that are all loosely related; my mom's birthday gift last year was Julia Child's memoir My Year in France along with a copy of her classic cookbook and a new non-fiction book, Provence, 1970 -- the theme was French cuisine but each of the books was distinct and would entertain differently.

I've put together a few different bookish gift guides, which I'll be posting over the next few weeks. Today's list is the books I am desperate to get my hands on. I've read a lot this year, obviously, but these are the ones I missed and hope to unwrap on Christmas morning (friends and family take note) :

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel -- A short story collection from someone better-known for her historical fiction. I'm deeply embedded in Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, so much so that I rush home from work to settle in with the novel and cup of tea, but I have mounting anxiety about finishing it and then becoming depressed, so I need more Mantel in my life.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel -- Another one from my personal short list, this National Book Award finalist follows a theater troupe in a post-Apocalyptic future as they travel through a now largely-empty Great Lakes region. It sounds like everything I've ever wanted in a novel.

The Fever by Megan Abbot -- Teenage girls, vaccination anxiety, and a dark, twisting thriller. I haven't read Megan Abbott yet, but she's always on my list of authors to check out, and everything about this sounds intense and amazing.

Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique -- A family epic spanning generations in the Virgin Islands, which has rings of A High Wind in Jamaica, one of my all-time favorites

How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman -- An immersive course in Victorian daily life. I enjoy reading history, and I especially appreciate any historian who finds a really unique structure or frame for their research and who is a truly great writer.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters -- I keep hearing amazing things about Waters, and I keep reading recommendations of her books by other authors and critics whom I really adore and admire, so I know I'm going to fall hard for her novels. Luckily there are many, with this being the latest. It is something of a historical romance in Britain between the wars, so also a good read as I binge on Downton Abbey, in preparation for the next season in January.

I have already advocated for Hilary Mantel's most popular and very critically acclaimed novel Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies. And as if you needed another reason to check them out, the BBC is adapting them with Damian Lewis as Henry VIII, and there is a stage adaptation on Broadway, so you need to read them before they reach total pop culture saturation. Plus volume three in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy is expected to be published in 2015.

When you've completed that task, dive into the rest of the Hilary Mantel oeuvre, which includes her incredible collection of short stories The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, published earlier this year. She has plenty of other novels and short story collections to check out, as well as a one-volume memoir, but of greatest interest to me is her historical fiction account of the Reign of Terror, A Place of Greater Safety. Everything I've read of heard about it makes it sound like something I would love, and if Wolf Hall is any indication, Mantel has a pretty firm grasp on historical fiction.