Because of what I do, I generally don’t buy books as holiday gifts.  Frankly, I find it too difficult—there are so many to choose from.  This year, though, I thought I would try to select some that family and friends would enjoy.

But what should I be considering?  Their interests? Their reading taste?  Perhaps I should pick books that I would want to read.  In the end, I chose the latter, simply because that is always the way I buy gifts—I buy others what I would want for myself.  I so enjoy doing that.

So, here is a list of ten books—all published in 2015—that I think might make great gifts.  My one disclaimer is that I haven’t chosen books that I represent for the obvious reason: I think they are all pretty fantastic, and I couldn’t possibly single out ten.  So, here goes:

FICTION:

City of Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg (Knopf)

God Help the Child  by Toni Morrison (Knopf)

Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon (Atria)

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin (Farrar, Strauss)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (Riverhead)

NON-FICTION:

Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back by Janice P. Nimura (Norton)

Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedo Ould Slahi (Little Brown)

Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte de Croes (Oxford University Press)

Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron (Pantheon)

The 613 by Archie Rand (Blue Ridge Press)

All of these are books I would love to read (in fact I have only read one). How do you choose the books you will give as holiday gifts and what are you planning to give?