There are few things better in life than getting lost in a good book — as any book lover will tell you. We have a few heavy readers on staff at Engadget and we all have opinions on the gadgets and subscriptions we think make the experience of reading even better. There are gift ideas here for those who prefer e-reading, as well as for the print-faithful. We’ve also thrown in a few of our favorite recent reads, many of which are pulled from our weekend editor Cheyenne MacDonald’s “What to read this weekend" series. Here are the best gifts for book lovers in 2024.
If your giftee likes to use an ereader or tablet to consume their literature, they may appreciate Twelve South’s Hoverbar stand. We added it to our iPad accessories guide because it’s a great add-on for those slabs, but it’s just as adept at holding Kindles and Kobos. The sturdy clamp grasps devices at the right height for reading so one can attend to other things, such as enjoying a morning bowl of cereal with two free hands. It can either clamp to a tabletop edge or stand on a flat surface with the weighted base (accessories for both configurations are included). — Amy Skorheim, Reporter
Read more: The best iPad accessories
$66 at Amazon
Every modern ereader comes equipped with front lights to illuminate the page — but what if you’re buying for someone who prefers reading ink on paper? Glocusent’s clever tri-head light can either clip on to the back of a book or stand on its own. It has two lighted swing arms that cast a wide glow on both pages at once. The color temperature and brightness are adjustable and the USB-C rechargeable battery should last for up to 100 hours. — A.S.
$17 at Amazon
True, ereaders don’t need to be recharged nearly as often as other electronics, but picking up a near-dead unit when you’re ready to binge read is a bummer — and a portable battery allows one to read on the couch while recharging, without being tethered to the wall. The Anker Fusion 3-in-1 is a clever charger that made its way into our guide to the best power banks thanks to its built-in, two-prong plug and USB-C cable. It has everything it needs to refill any device sporting a USB-C port (i.e. all modern ereaders) then replenish itself afterwards without an additional cord or a wall adapter. The 10,000mAh capacity is enough to recharge an ereader fully, with oomph to spare, and the compact size slips easily into a bag. — A.S.
Read more: The best power banks
$45 at Amazon
We’ve tested a slew of headphones over the years and many of our top recommendations land in the $300 to $400 range, which might be a bit spendy for a holiday gift, especially when the headphones are primarily intended for audiobook listening. Sony’s WH-CH720N are listed at $150, but are often on sale for $130. Engadget’s Billy Steele tested them when they came out earlier this year and liked both the comfortable fit and quality sound. The active noise cancelation works well with general background sound, but isn’t the best at masking loud, nearby conversations. Still, the WH-CH720N offers good sound quality and, as Billy concluded, you'd be hard pressed to find a better option at this price. — A.S.
$150 at Amazon
Of all the models I’ve tested for our ereader guide, the Kobo Clara Color is my personal favorite. It’s compact, making it easy to hold and turn pages with one hand. Plus the new color overlay brings soft hues to the covers of books, the panels of graphic novels and any highlights you make on the page. Plus Kobo’s ebook ecosystem is a little more open than Kindle’s, letting you read just about any book in print via the onboard store, as well as from third party sellers like ebooks.com or Google Play (with just a few extra steps). The device itself is waterproof, has a warm front light and displays crisp, 300ppi black-and-white text. I also like the no-delay page turns and the fact that it wakes from sleeping nearly instantly. Plus it’s considerably cheaper than Kindle’s color option.
Of course, if you know someone who is already into Kindle books, they’ll probably want to stay within Amazon’s universe. In that case, you have a few brand-new models to choose from, including the Kindle Paperwhite and the new color model, the Kindle Colorsoft. — A.S.
Read more: The best ereaders
$150 at Amazon
I know what you’re about to say: “reMarkables aren’t e-readers!,” which I wholeheartedly agree with. They may have e-paper displays, but they’re not in any way actual e-readers, and I’m just being a big ‘ol silly goose. That said, you can actually load DRM-free ePub files onto the slate if you use the company’s homegrown transfer app.
The reMarkables all support the format, and you can even amend and highlight text on them, which will transfer to cloud-based saves. If you’re elbows-deep in a textbook and you’ve got to get some notes made quickly, it’d make plenty of sense to use one of these things. Plus, if I was on a long-haul flight, I’d opt for the extra screen real estate over my dinky Kindle some of the time.
Plus, if you’re getting it for its potential as an e-reader, you might as well then enjoy its actual purpose as a distraction-free writing slate. As I wrote in our review, the Type Folio is pretty much essential if you want to really be productive with it, but it’s worth the cost. — Daniel Cooper, Senior Reporter
Read more: The best E Ink tablets
$579 at reMarkable
A few months ago, I wrote about how writing by hand with Ratta’s Supernote Nomad has helped me rekindle my love for the craft, and I’m happy to share that my E ink tablet and I are still going strong today. It’s a product I find myself recommending often to people in my life who like writing, because using it is such an enjoyable experience. The Nomad is smaller than some of the other popular E ink tablets out there, with a 7.8 inch display, so it can come with you pretty much anywhere. The screen is covered with FeelWrite 2 Self-recovery Soft Film which really gives it a lightly textured, paper-like feeling when you’re scrawling away.
You can use the tablet for note-taking or longer writing projects, and as a planner and ereader. It syncs with various cloud providers, including Google, and has a handwriting-to-text conversion feature that can save you a lot of time later. It’s not perfect, but it manages to decipher most of my written text without issue. Some book lovers aren’t just avid readers — they want to write their own stories, too, and the Supernote Nomad is a neat little device that can really support a writer on that journey. The one downside is that you have to purchase the pen separately, as it’s not included with the tablet, but at least you have options since Ratta offers a few different pen models to choose from. And there’s no backlighting built in, which may be a dealbreaker for some. — Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor
$299 at Supernote
Sometimes I (almost) envy people who drive or take public transit a lot. Audiobooks let them do two things at once, and one of those two things is plowing through their to-read list. If you know a commuter or a frequent traveler, perhaps they’d appreciate a subscription to Amazon’s Audible service. A six-month subscription goes for $90 and comes with one premium title for each of the six months, plus access to the Plus Catalog, which lets them listen as much as they want from a smaller selection of podcasts and audiobooks. They get to keep the six premium titles, but access to the Plus content expires when the subscription does. — A.S.
$90 at Amazon
For a more socially-conscious alternative to Audible, you can go for a gift from Libro.fm. A six-credit bundle costs $90, the credits don’t expire and they can be redeemed for just about any audiobook Libro.fm offers. When you buy books from here rather than elsewhere, you get to denote your favorite local bookstore and they get a cut from the sales. The app also gives you recommendations on what to listen to next with blurbs from actual living indie booksellers — not an algorithm. — A.S.
$90 at Libro.fm
What I miss most after switching to ebooks from print is the lack of trophies. There’s no freshly slain paperback carcass to add to the bookshelf as proof of time spent. The Storygraph app helps people keep track of their accomplishments, letting them add reading dates, rating and thoughts on the book. Users can then see their stats broken down into different graphs, which, for me, provides satisfying evidence of a finished tome. The app asks a few questions about each book a reader logs, which in turn fuels a rather helpful recommendation system to find their next read. The app is free to use, but a membership adds perks like extra graphs and stats, more personalized recommendations, and a few more social elements. A year-long gift subscription goes for $50. — A.S.
$50 at Storygraph
I was impressed with every selection I received from the Book of the Month Club. Some I absolutely loved, others I liked a lot and only a few weren’t for me. That success-rate comes from giving readers a choice between five or so novels each month, curated by what you can tell are avid readers. The selections are a good mix of genres and subject matter, so there’s often something to like, but if no book appeals in a given month, skipping is easy. Gift subscriptions include three, six and twelve-month options, which run $60, $100 and $200 respectively. That works out to $16 to $20 per book, and they’re all hardcover BOTM editions. This’ll make a good gift for someone who loves fiction, but doesn’t have the time to cast about for their next read. — A.S.
$60+ at Book of the Month
People have waited years for an English-language release of Charles Burns’ Dédales. Final Cut, as the English version is called, arrived in September and follows a group of friends who, led by aspiring filmmaker Brian, set out to make a sci-fi horror movie in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Brian’s favorite movie.
But obsession takes hold of Brian in a nightmare blend of romantic longing (for the film’s star, Laurie) and artistic creativity that has gone too far — and things take a turn for the dark and disturbing. As is characteristic for Burns, Final Cut is surreal and unsettling, made all the more impactful by his crisp illustrations. In some ways it feels like a spiritual successor to Black Hole, and I expect this to be one of those works I keep coming back to.
It’ll make a great gift for fans of Burns’ Black Hole, but also for comic lovers in general who are drawn to classic sci-fi horror movies and may be artists themselves. — C.M.
$29 at Amazon
Stephen Graham Jones is something of an expert on slashers. The author has tackled the genre in a slew of his novels (most notably in the Indian Lake Trilogy, with its slasher-movie-obsessed main character) and has an ongoing column in Fangoria dedicated to its impact, so it’s not really a surprise to see he’s churned out another entry for the canon. But this time around, we’re getting a different perspective: the slasher’s point of view.
I Was a Teenage Slasher is the fictional memoir of Tolly Driver, who in 1989 reluctantly became Lamesa, Texas’ very own Michael Meyers at the age of 17 — a transformation that’s seemingly driven by powers beyond Tolly’s control. It takes the classic slasher formula and injects a whole lot of heart, perfect for the horror lover in your life — especially those who enjoy the classic slashers, from Psycho to Scream. It’s heartfelt but extreme all the same, and offers a different perspective than slasher fans are used to seeing. — C.M.
$19 at Amazon
Normally a book described as being largely about a teen love triangle wouldn’t be something I’d reach for, but I decided to give this one a go after reading many glowing reviews and found myself drawn in by Louise Erdrich’s prose right away. There is a love triangle, yes, but The Mighty Red is about much more than that. It covers a lot of ground, including the struggles of a farming community facing economic recession, land degradation and concerns about the chemicals being used to keep the land productive.
The Mighty Red follows characters Crystal and Kismet, a mother and daughter, and the people in their orbits in rural North Dakota. There is a tragedy that underlies much of the story (and a hint of the supernatural), but there’s a fair amount of humor mixed in too. The book will make a good gift for anyone who gravitates toward fiction that zooms in on the human condition, and can appreciate a bit of comedy even in the darkest of times. — C.M.
$23 at Amazon
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