Real ones know the greatest gift of all is the gift of a good book. We’ve compiled 50 beautiful gift books that came out in 2022 here, and they run the gamut! If your loved ones are musically inclined or movie buffs, if they regularly consult tarot or are super into their cats—have no fear! There’s a book for that. From Bob Dylan stans to Bong Joon Ho completists, from Dungeons & Dragons connoisseurs to Joan Didion obsessives—there’s a little something for everyone. Plus, books are pretty easy to wrap.
(For the foodies and board-game lovers in your life, check out our gift guides to cookbooks and literary games!)
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Joan Didion, eds. Hilton Als and Connie Butler, What She Means
(DelMonico Books/Hammer Museum)
Jane Austen, Persuasion: The Complete Novel, Featuring the Characters’ Letters and Papers
(Chronicle Books)
Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak
(DelMonico Books/The Columbus Museum of Art)
Ken Burns, Our America
(Knopf)
Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song
(Simon & Schuster)
Renato Miracco, Oscar Wilde’s Italian Dream: 1875–1900
(Damiani Ltd.)
Agnes Martin, Agnes Martin: Independence of the Mind
(Radius Books)
Ella Berthoud, Fiction Prescriptions
(Laurence King)
Bob Willoughby, Bob Willoughby: A Cinematic Life
(Chronicle Books)
Leonora Carrington, The Tarot of Leonora Carrington
(RM)
Nicole Tersigni, Friends to Keep in Art and Life
(Chronicle Books)
Hillary Mantel, ill. by Igor & Marina, Wolf Hall
(Folio Society)
Ann Shen, Revolutionary Women
(Chronicle Books)
The Gourmand, The Gourmand’s Egg: A Collection of Stories & Recipes
(Taschen)
Ali Solomon, I Love(ish) NYC
(Chronicle Books)
Tom Gauld, Revenge of the Librarians
(Drawn & Quarterly)
The Academy of American Poets, 100 Poems That Matter
(Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Leo Tolstoy, Alexandr Poltorak, ill. Dmitry Chukhrai, War and Peace
(Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Kristin Marguerite Doidge, Nora Ephron: A Biography
(Chicago Review Press)
Nature Study Guild, How to Read the Wilderness
(Chronicle Books)
Claire Goodchild, The Book of Séances
(Voracious)
Evan Robertson (ill.), On Nature
(Obvious State)
David Milch, Life’s Work
(Random House)
Alex Johnson, ill. James Oses, Rooms of Their Own
(Frances Lincoln)
Osei Bonsu, African Art Now
(Chronicle Books)
Bob Eckstein, The Complete Book of Cat Names
(Countryman Press)
Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
(ABRAMS)
Scott Meslow, From Hollywood with Love
(Dey Street Books)
Bryan Mason and Jeanine Hays, Aphrochic
(Clarkson Potter Publishers)
Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
(Harper Design)
**Donate to the Harper Collins Union**
Brian Barrett, LEGO: The Art of the Minifigure
(Chronicle)
Joyce Chopra, Lady Director
(City Lights Books)
Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man
(Knopf)
Alison Elizabeth Taylor: The Sum of It
(DelMonico Books/Addison Gallery)
Patti Smith, A Book of Days
(Random House)
Alexandra Horowitz, The Year of the Puppy
(Viking)
Natasha Marin, Black Powerful
(McSweeney’s)
Annette Dauphin Simon, Spine Poems
(Harper Design)
**Donate to the Harper Collins Union**
Graham Johnson and Rob Hibbert, Rejected Books: The Most Unpublishable Books of All Time
(Clarkson Potter Publishers)
James Bird and Eleanor Watson (eds.), Football: Designing the Beautiful Game
(Design Museum)
Kenneth C. Davis, Great Short Books
(Scribner)
Ben Riggs, Slaying the Dragon
(St. Martin’s Press)
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Facsimile & Transcript
(Liveright)
Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger and Stella Maris Box Set
(Knopf)
Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang, Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now
(Harper)
**Donate to the Harper Collins Union**
Hannah Strong, Sofia Coppola: Forever Young
(ABRAMS)
Kate Gavino, A Career in Books
(Plume Books)
Karen Han, Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema
(ABRAMS)
David L. Crane, Making the Movement
(Princeton Architectural Press)
Natasha Lance Rogoff, Muppets in Moscow
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
