10. Read a book you received as a gift

[Martha]

No examples here as this could be any book you like!

Discussion prompts
- What did you / will you read for this task? What did you think of it?
- Tell us how you came to own this book? Who gave it to you? Is it special in some way?
- If you got it for generally for free (rather than specifically as a gift) - where did you get it and how can we get in on the free book action?!
- In Iceland, it is tradition to give books on Christmas Eve and to spend the night reading (my kind of tradition!). Do you ever give books as gifts? If you had to gift one book to a loved one, what would it be and why?

[Marina]

For this task I read Enduring Love. I really liked it! I wonder how come I had never read anything by Ian McEwan yet. I certainly want to read some of his other books.

This book was given to me as a gift by a fellow bookcrosser (we use to give presents to each other from time to time, as a "prize" for completing challenges or just as random acts of bookcrossing kindness!). It's not really special as I hardly know this fellow bookcrosser except for the bookcrossing forum, but it's weird because just some days before I actually received it, it was recommended to me by another friend!

Oh yes, I'd heard about that Icelandic tradition, I think it's absolutely great! I often give books as a gift, as I find they are the perfect gift. I think I can't answer to the second part of the question, though, as the gift would be customized to fit the loved one's tastes. For instance, last Christmas I gave my boyfriend an absolutely creepy (to me!) essay, with tons of photos, on the life and characteristics of European spiders - ugh, I hate spiders! But it was the perfect gift for him!

[Martha]

It is a great tradition! My mum told us about it last Christmas and I'm tempted to just give everyone books this Christmas. You're right, it is difficult to say some books make better gifting than others because you want to give one that the recipient will like. If I come across a book I think is genuinely fantastic, I do tend to try and force it most people I know! However, I think there are some books which are more or less suited to gifting - e.g. if it's a really depressing story (even if I think it's a really good one) I probably wouldn't gift it.

I actually just gave a book to my boyfriend. He loves tea, and there's a particular boutique that we buy a lot from. Their owner just wrote a book and I got an email about it so decided to get it for him. It happened to arrive on Monday when he was having a really bad day, so that was well-timed! It's actually a gorgeous hardback book about how tea is grown and brewed, and different recipes from all over the world, with gorgeous photography.

For this task I read Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. It was a gift from my godmother many years ago when I used to be a church-going Christian. It happened to work really well for another challenge and I was curious to read about how the author wanted to "repaint the Christian faith". I actually quite enjoyed reading it - I certainly didn't agree with many elements because my faith is a bit up and down these days, but I also appreciated how he recognised that the Church is often the one responsible for a lot of the negative ways in which Christianity is perceived, and as such causing people to be alienated from religion. I think it is special to me because I moved away so don't to see my Godmother very often, and I wouldn't give it away.