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Bookshop.org picks that support indie bookstores
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items Buy books online without feeding Amazon. Every order through Bookshop.org sends money to local indie bookstores. Crowd-pleasers across thrillers, sci-fi, horror, memoir, history, and cookbooks, plus a gift card for the reader who has everything.
For the reader you can never shop for. They pick the book, and the money still goes to indie bookstores instead of a billionaire's rocket fund.
Bookshop.org Gift Card
A science teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory and the fate of Earth on his shoulders. Funny, nerdy, and genuinely moving. The easiest sci-fi recommendation for people who think they don't like sci-fi.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The first Jack Reacher book. Drifter ex-MP walks into a small Georgia town and gets arrested for murder. Lean, mean, and hard to put down, and there are a couple dozen more once you're hooked.
Killing Floor by Lee Child
A woman with a past takes a live-in job with a rich family, and nothing in that house is what it seems. Pure page-turner thriller with twists that actually land. Binge it in a weekend.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Dragon riders, a brutal war college, and a heroine who's not supposed to survive it. The romantasy book that took over every bookstore display. Great gift for the fantasy reader in your life.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
The granddaddy of epic sci-fi. Desert planet, giant sandworms, politics, religion, and a kid in way over his head. If you liked the movies, the book goes a whole lot deeper.
Dune by Frank Herbert
Perfect for Halloween season. A struggling writer takes his family to watch an empty mountain hotel for the winter, and it goes about as well as you'd think. Scarier and sadder than the movie.
The Shining by Stephen King
A glamorous 1950s socialite heads to a crumbling mansion in the Mexican countryside to check on her cousin and finds something rotten in the walls. Creepy, atmospheric, and properly weird horror.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The self-improvement book for people who hate self-improvement books. Practical, no fluff, all about small changes that stack up. Good one to hand somebody right before New Year's.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
True story of an 18th-century British warship that wrecks off Patagonia, followed by starvation, mutiny, and a court-martial. History that reads like a damn thriller.
The Wager by David Grann
Less a recipe book, more a how-to-actually-cook book. Learn the four basics and you stop needing recipes for everything. Great gift for anybody trying to level up in the kitchen.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
Two retired Texas Rangers drive a cattle herd from the Rio Grande to Montana. Big, funny, heartbreaking, and the best Western ever written as far as a whole lot of readers are concerned. Clear a few weekends.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Olympic runner turned WWII bombardier crashes in the Pacific, drifts for weeks on a raft, then survives Japanese POW camps. A gut-punch of a true story and a great pick for the vet or history buff in the family.
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
A father and son walk south through a burned-out, post-apocalyptic America. Bleak as hell, short, and beautiful. You'll hug your kids a little harder after.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A memoir about growing up off the grid in Idaho with survivalist parents, no school until she was 17, and somehow ending up with a PhD from Cambridge. Wild, harrowing, and hard to put down.
Educated by Tara Westover