Literary stocking fillers for your Secret Santa

Whether we like it or not, that time of the year is upon us again – Christmas. Many of us will be doing a secret santa with our flatmates, colleagues or group of friends. But even those of us who aren’t will no doubt be looking at what to gift our parents, siblings or cousins.

If you have someone book-obsessed in your life, then this cheap literary gift guide is for you.

Reading Light– £6.99

Our first gift choice is a reading light, which you can clip onto your book or stand on your nightstand to read in bed. When you are ready to nestle down for the night, you don’t have to climb out of the comfort of your bed to turn the light off – perfect for cold winter nights. This one in particular comes with three brightness modes, to ensure complete comfort with the desired light you need.

Personalised ‘favourite books’ typography– £7.95

This personalised typography from NotOnTheHighstreet is ideal for any book lover. It allows you to choose from 25 colours and 10 authors or books. This is perfect for a secret santa or a family member and, being under £10 for an A5 poster, is great for a student on a budget. It’s an extremely thoughtful gift, which may look like you’ve spent a lot of time and effort on it. However, with personalised gifts, make sure you leave extra time for the manufacturing and delivery, as they may take longer than other gifts.

Penguin Classics Mug– £8.99

Nothing can beat a nice mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day, especially if that hot chocolate is in a Penguins Classics mug. There are loads of different titles to choose from – from ‘Pride and Prejudice’ to ‘Jane Eyre’ to ‘On the Road’ to ‘A Room of One’s Own’. The Penguin Classics shop is inundated with perfect gifts for the literary lover. Whether it’s a notebook, a tote bag, a mug or a pencil case, or even a tea towel, you are bound to find the perfect literary gift for your secret santa here.

Reading Journal– £9.95

A reading journal is great for the booklover who would like to keep track of what they’re reading and what they think of it. This 160-page journal allows you to record and review the texts you’ve read, as well as containing reading lists based on award winners, notable books and favourites from a certain genre.

Bookshop Bookend– £9.95

There’s nothing quite as frustrating as having all your books fall over the moment you take one off the shelf to read. Having a bookend is useful for when your books just don’t quite fill a shelf to keep themselves standing. They don’t have to be like the metal ones you see in the library either, there are plenty of designs to keep this bookend interesting and fit in with the rest of the room.

It allows you to store your books in less conventional places if you have far too many to fit on your shelves. You can store them on your windowsill, with a bookend at either side, or on your nightstand – a place to keep your favourites close to you.

‘Once upon a time’ bookmark– £9.95

Do you have someone in your life who uses dog-eared pages to keep their place in a book? Does it drive you crazy? Get them a cute bookmark like this for Christmas as an attempt to keep the habit at bay.

This metal one clips to the top of the page, so you can see the words ‘Once upon a time’ in cursive font peeking over the tops of the pages. As it clips to the pages, you won’t have to worry about it falling out and losing your page, and dog ears would be no more.

Books scratch off bucket list poster– £11.76

This bucket list is brilliant for the person in your life who is always reading the next classic. Filled with contemporary and classic literature alike, it can force the recipient out of their comfort zone and to read something they might not have otherwise thought to read. Not only this, but scratching off the box at the end of a read to reveal a small picture underneath can be cathartic and fill them with a sense of achievement at the books they are making their way through.