It’s no accident that I’m the author of SPARKLE’s Book section – I love books. Booksalways feature on my list for Santa. That being said, even I have to admit that a bland oblong, covered in naff wrapping paper sitting under the tree is so very boring looking.

Why not try my ideas for adding a bit of pizzazz to book-gifts this Christmas?

I’m all for tasteful wrapping of gifts, but not at Christmas. More is more, lots of tissue paper, lashings of ribbon, really bling your gifts up. They look great under the tree and wrapping them beautifully really adds perceived value.
Lay 3 or 4 layers of tissue paper on a flat surface. Place your book in the middle then put some sweeties (like a bag of Haribo or a Terry’s Chocolate Orange is particularly effective for this).

Slowly bring each leaf of tissue paper up to the centre and tie with some ribbon near to where the gift ends, so that the tissue at the top creates a ‘kind-of’ flower. Tie around lots more ribbon and run the edge of the scissors along it to curl it more…et voila! Now that doesn’t look remotely boring

Great gift ideas for a tenner.

Peppa Pig books
I’ve yet to come across a small child who doesn’t like the oinking phenomenon that is Peppa Pig. A great idea is to buy a story book (for around £4.99), along with the little figures (around £5). This can really bring the story alive as you can act out the book playing with the figures as you read along. If you’ve got lots of time on your hands why not hide the figures somewhere in the house and leave a clue to where they’re hidden within the pages of the book – like a little treasure trail. This idea will work for lots of popular characters like Igglepiggle & Upsy Daisy from In The Night Garden, or the Piplings off Waybuloo (hmmm yes, it is all like a foreign language). If you’re after the title of ‘Cool Aunt/Uncle’ then a little playful imagination goes a long way.

Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide
This book is £5, wrap it up inventively as above with a bottle of vino – it certainly beats a bottle bag under the tree.

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

This book is an ideal gift for someone who is hoping for a better year in 2010, or looking for new direction in their life. Synopsis: “…TheSecret reveals the mystery of the hidden potential within us all. By unifying leading-edge scientific thought with ancient wisdom and spirituality, the riveting, practical knowledge will lead readers to a greater understanding of how they can be the masters of their own lives.”
Along with this book you could give an Amethyst stone, said to be the stone of transformation and inner peace. These can be picked upvery reasonably in lots of health food stores and gift shops. Or pop into Oxfam and buy a beautifully hand-made ‘Worry Doll ‘for only £1.99: “Legend has it that if you put one of these dolls beneath your pillow after telling it your worries, it will take them away whilst you are sleeping.” These are great for kids who are afraid of having nightmares too.

Guide to Beer (£3.99)
I think the title of this book is pretty self explanatory, add a bottle or two of some locally brewed beer or ale to the gift, or one of the real ale gift packs that are out there.

This idea of making a book more of a gift experience can run and run, and shows how using a little bit of imagination can make sure that you and yours have a SPARKLING Christmas. So surround yourself in tissue paper and ribbons, put on some of Mike’s fab music recommendations, pour yourself a Christmas tipple and have fun creatively wrapping your goodies.

Here are Sparkle Books’ recommendations for your nearest and dearest.

Mum, Gran, Aunt, Sister

The Brightest Star in the Sky – Marian Keyes
I love Marian Keyes and would recommend her books to everyone. A Waterstones reviewer had this to say about her “I had wrongly judged Marian Keyes as a ‘chicklit’ author – but having read a few of her books now I cannot put her in that category. Her books are not light and fluffy – each one has an element of seriousness about it that makes the story so much more powerful and unforgettable.” What isn’t mentioned here is just how hilarious a writer Marian is; she is a genius at taking an everyday event and telling it in such a way that will have you chuckling out loud. Her books really are Irish-wit at its very best.

That’s Another Story: The Autobiography – Julie Walters
Julie Walters is probably one of the nation’s best-loved actresses. The fact that this book will be funny, touching and warm goes without saying.

The Return – Victoria Hislop
This book is said to be a moving and tender “book with a heart” set in Spain during the civil war. I read Hislop’s The Island and I loved it, based on that I really hope that this novel ends up under the tree with my name on it.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson
There are rave reviews of this book right across the board, including the following:
“A cyclonic force of a story, I experienced the same happiness and feverish excitement with which I read Dumas’s Three Musketeers or the novels of Dickens… exceptional… I repeat, without any shame whatsoever: fantastic”.
“The pace rarely lets up … it’s an exhilarating read …”
“Complex, satisfying, clever, moral … a grown-up novel for grown-up readers”
I don’t know about you Sparklers, but I’m dying to read this book now.

Loose Women: Here Come the Girls
This funny book takes a comical and easy-going look at subjects such as: retox vs. detox; surviving heartbreak at Christmas; office party disasters and has lots of saucy confessions from the team.

Dad, Granddad, Uncle, Brother

Private Eye Annual 2009
This annual is full of laughs with its satirical articles on the past year’s news pieces, politics and celebrity gossip, but my favourite bits are the fabulously clever cartoons.

A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre
John Le Carre is a legendary story-teller and by all accounts this book finds him at the top of his game. Here he tackles the huge subject of The War On Terror. Waterstones says: “A Most Wanted Man is alive with humour, yet prickles with tension until the last heart-stopping page. It is also a work of deep humanity, and uncommon relevance to our times.”

The Pub Landlord Says Think Yourself British – Al Murray
I’ll leave it up to him to tell you all about his latest books. It is said to be hilarious, a winner for chaps who are already fans.

Where’s Stig?
This is where Top Gear’s mysterious figure “The Stig” finally gets his own book. Here’s Amazon’s description: “….but you’ll have to work hard to find him, as he’s been cleverly concealed in a series of brilliantly drawn scenes. You might spot him getting down with the kids at a rock festival; or overseeing his workforce in his secret underground lair. He could be one of the spectators lining the route of Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week; or soaking up the sun on the Costa del Stig. Filled with visual jokes and references to the TV series, and with extra credits for spotting his colleagues at “Top Gear” and a few other hidden gems, Where’s Stig? will give “Top Gear” fans hours of fun.”

My Sh*t Life So Far – Frankie Boyle
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t absolutely love Frankie Boyle. He’s the king of making jokes about things that are taboo and things you really shouldn’t laugh at, but do. Only buy this for your most open-minded relatives as it has been reviewed as “triumphantly, this is the most abusive, obscene, insulting memoir yet published…”

Teens

How To Date a Vampire – Sophie Collins
It’s about the Vampire at the minute for teens, so if they’ve completely exhausted everything by Stephenie Meyer this cute little magazine-style book could be just the ticket. It’s full of age-appropriate romance advice for young teens, including charts, quizzes and make-up tips.

Teenage Kicks: 101 Things to Do Before You’re 16 -Clive Gifford
Just the tonic for bored teenagers with too much time on their hands over the Christmas break…“a barmy, brilliant and hilarious odyssey of a book … the perfect companion to any bored teenager, and is just as fun, interesting and entertaining for the rest of society as well.”

The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion
This is a perfect gift to give whether your teen is experimenting with fashion to work out what their ‘look’ is, if they’re into photography or thinking that they might like to head into fashion as a career.

Up All Night: Seven Sunsets, Seven Stories – Peter Abrahams & Libba Bray
7 short-stories exploring the teen fascination about staying up all night. Including a brush with the supernatural, the need to know what’s up, the confessions of a friend and a rock concert.
Moonwalk / Thriller – Ed Roberts, a flickbook
Since the tragic death of Michael Jackson, today’s teens have embraced his music as their own. This book will provide entertainment and fun for the whole family. Here’s the synopsis: This is a flickbook of two of the most famous dances on the planet – Moonwalk and Thriller. Flick the pages to watch the late great King of Pop slide across the dance floor as he did in “Billie Jean”, then turn the book over and flick the other way to see MJ’s iconic zombie dance from “Thriller”.

Pop by next week when I will give you some great tips for inventive wrapping of gifts, brilliant book-buys for children (including how to turn a book into a childhood adventure) and how to create a wonderful gift experience when giving a book at Christmas.

I was browsing last minute deals to Berlin’s Christmas markets this year and wondering how people managed to buy anything with the luggage weight restrictions which nowadays act as therapy to my addiction.

There’s something in my brain that simply cannot transpose lovely things from their native location to the bookcase in my living room. If there was, I’d realise that the pastel, rainbow-coloured pottery of Zakynthos, the carved Buddhas of Thailand and the ebony Ganesha from Sri Lanka might just look out of place in a Victorian cottage in Stockport.
You also have to feel sorry for my friends and relations who, whenever my travels fall anywhere near Christmas, end up with batiks, painted teapots and shadow puppets in their Christmas stockings.

And it’s not just ornaments that find their way into my hand luggage or fill the suitcase to ‘HEAVY’ labelled capacity. For years I bought hooch from all over the world that was so quaffable when drunk in exotic locations under hot skies and nothing less than disgusting when re-located to the cold, hard reality of Britain. Bottles of raki from Greece (which incidentally is disgusting even when you’re in Greece), fenni from India and toddy from Sri Lanka slowly fermented to something very scary in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink until I was packing to move to Tenerife and they had to finally be disposed of. I still remember the hangover I got off the fumes just from pouring them down the sink.

But I’m certain I’m not alone in that particular addiction. Come on, admit it…how many of you have bottles of Tenerife’s honey or banana rum gathering dust in the drinks cabinet right now?

My addiction reached its peak when I spent some time in Jamaica. I don’t know if it was the warm sunshine, the cool Reggae, the Red Stripe or just the whole ‘wafted here from Paradise’ feel but I wanted to take Jamaica home with me and ended up with masses of wood carvings. Amongst them was a Rastafarian head whose dreads doubled as an ash tray, an owl with four faces (I remember being particularly impressed with that at the time) and a mask the size of a small surf board which I spent 40 minutes trying to wedge into the bottom of my suitcase.

Years of taking hours to dust the shelves, combined with Draconian luggage restrictions has finally cured me of my addiction and I even managed to resist the prospect of some rock-bottom-priced Communist art from China not long ago.
A few months after I got back I read an article which said that those pictures are now very sought after and extremely valuable…d’oh!
Jamaican mask anyone? Make a great Christmas present…going cheap.