There is a particular bookshelf that lives on Pinterest. Floor to ceiling, warmly lit, a ladder propped at a rakish angle, every spine somehow the colour of weak tea. Then there is the shelf most of us actually own, which holds four cookbooks, a stack of cracked paperbacks and a candle that has never been lit.

Somewhere in the last few years, reading quietly became cool again. Actual, physical, dog-eared-paperback reading, not just the Kindle-in-secret kind. Bookshops that were meant to be dying out are opening in record numbers, teenagers are picking Colleen Hoover over their phones (well, sometimes both at once), and “what are you reading” has become a genuine icebreaker rather than something only your English teacher asked.

You know the feeling. Endless fluorescent-lit corridors. Carpet that smells faintly of damp. A room that should have an exit but somehow doesn’t.

After doomscrolling for hours and finally jolting awake in the middle of the night, I get this sudden urge to scrap my entire identity and become a new flower. A better me. Someone who's heaps more disciplined than the lazy, procrastinating, mildly gluttonous person currently lying in bed at 2 a.m. scrolling TikTok.

In light of the holiday season, here below I have curated a list of books that would be perfect gifts for the person described. I personally love gifting books so I hope this list can aid you in your search for a book for your loved one. A book for the poet/poetry lover (that isn't a poetry collection) For this category of person I would recommend "The book of tea" by Kazuko Okakura. Written in 1906, it is an exploration of the Japanese tea ceremony and the art of simplicity