Books Worth Giving
The first Christmas I shared with my then girlfriend in the mid-2000s, we gave each other gifts a few days before the holidays as she had planned to spend time with her family in Maine. She gave me three books: The DaVinci Code, a special edition of The Lord of the Flies, and a collection of poetry, Good Poems, by Garrison Keillor.
It was the best gift I ever got. I read The DaVinci Code that next day — it was the first book I had read and finished since college. The Lord of the Flies edition still sits on my bookshelf, as does Good Poems, which is by far my favorite curated collection of poetry. The gifts were a clear indication that this woman not only understood who I was at that moment in life but also who I aspired to be.
We've been married for twenty years.
Gifting a man a book can be a bit tricky. Choose the wrong one results in a spot in a pile of unread books behind a door somewhere. But choose the right one, and it gets dog-eared, passed along, referenced in conversations years later.
The books below aren't ranked — they're organized by the type of reading man you're buying for. Because the best gift isn't the most critically acclaimed book. It's the one that lands at the right moment for the right person.
These are the books we return to at The Wild Gentleman, the ones that come up in conversation at our monthly book club, the ones worth putting in someone's hands.
For the Man Seeking Wisdom, Searching for Something Bigger
The guy overwhelmed at midlife, in the midst of a career shift, or holding onto a quiet sense that something important is missing. These books don't offer answers — they offer better questions.
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl
One of the first books we read for The Wild Gentleman Book Club, this book recounts how Viktor Frankl, survived the Holocaust by finding purpose under unimaginable conditions. Frankl's insights — form a deeper philosophy that can be helpful at anytime in life. Short, dense, and permanently shelf-worthy.
Man's Search for Meaning on Bookshop.org
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
This is a book that many people recommend as a great gift book because it is filled with kernals of wisdom. This Roman emperor's writings serve as a reminder on how to lead, how to grieve, and how to stay honest under pressure.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders
Another The Wild Gentleman Book Club favorite. Saunders takes us through his graduate fiction course built around seven Russian short stories — from Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol. Although the outright focus in on the stories, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is really about is how to pay attention: to a character, to another person, to the thing a story is quietly insisting you feel. Not a book for every man on your list — a book for the one who loves to read and think deeply about the big questions of life.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain on Bookshop.org
For the Father
Men who are raising sons and daughters, trying to figure out what to pass down, and quietly trying to figure out if they're doing it right.
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walking south through a world utterly destroyed, yet still eerily recognizable. The story is simple, yet leaves a lasting memory. In the hands of the great Cormac McCarthy, The Road explores what a man will do to protect his child. The most devastating novel about fatherhood written in the last fifty years.
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson
A dying father writing a letter to his young son who will read it after he's gone. Quiet and devastating in the best way. About family, forgiveness, and what we want our children to remember about us. One of the best American novels of the last thirty years.
The Odyssey
Homer
The sea journey, the mythical challenges, the will of a great leader. All these make The Odyssey a classic piece of world literature. But it is the tale of a son learning what it means to be like his father and of the father's unbridled trust in his son that make this story one for the ages.
"A man who has a why can bear almost any how."— Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
For the Man Who Built Something
Founders, operators, and anyone who's ever bet on themselves. These books are for people who understand that the work is the point.
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
This is a book that I have given as a gift more than any other. Every man who has ever started something and then stopped knows "Resistance," the malevolent force acting against creativity. Pressfield names it, describes it, and then explains why it shows up most intensely when things matter most. The kicker: This is about more than creativity, it's about an approach to life. This is a book you read in a day and will go back to forever.
The War of Art on Bookshop.org
Let My People Go Surfing
Yvon Chouinard
Chouinard built Patagonia through necessity. He was a climber who needed better gear and couldn't find it, so he and his friends made it themselves. This book is part memoir, part business philosophy, and all about how Chouinard lived how he worked, and never let the living part take a secondary importance to the work. His legacy? He actually built a company with a conscience — and, even though that made everything harder, he'd argue, it was all for the better.
Let My People Go Surfing on Bookshop.org
Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen
A rock-star with a deep sense of morality and awareness — this is one of the most honest accounts of what it costs to make something with your life. Springsteen writes about depression, family, creative failure, and the strange loneliness of massive success. A man who's actually reckoned with himself.
For the Man Who Loves a Good Story
Not everything has to be deep. Sometimes the best gift is a book you disappear into. These are novels to read over a long weekend.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
As we discovered with the book club this year, a second read as an adult makes this a completely different book. About ambition, friendship, and the particular American delusion that we can invent our identities. Hits different at 45 than at 17.
The Great Gatsby on Bookshop.org
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
The great American Western. Two retired Texas Rangers driving a cattle herd from Texas to Montana. McMurtry builds characters that you don't want to leave — and some of them do. A long read but one you don't want to end.
Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver retells David Copperfield in the midst of the Appalachian opioid crisis and the football fields and swimming holes of the mystic south. A boy born into bad circumstances tries to make something of himself against systems designed to grind him down. This book is harder to put down than it has any right to be. Although reading Dickens isn't a prerequisite, listen to the audiobook of David Copperfield — its worth it.
Demon Copperhead on Bookshop.org
For the Man Who's Hard to Buy For
You know the one. He already has everything. These are the ones that work because they're specific, unexpected, and quietly great.
A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
In 1922, a Russian count is sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel. What follows is a novel about how, for the rest of his days, he builds a full life inside impossible constraints while the world outside moves on without him. The keys to the good life, it seems, are friendship, taste, and an almost stubborn commitment to elegance. Funny, charming, and profound. This is one of the best stories I've read over the past ten years.
A Gentleman in Moscow on Bookshop.org
A River Runs Through It
Norman Maclean
A short, perfect novella about brothers, fathers, fly fishing, and the strange love between people who can't fully reach each other. Maclean wrote it in his 70s after a lifetime of wanting to. Read the book, then watch Robert Redford's amazing film.
A River Runs Through It on Bookshop.org
The Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac
Although On the Road gets all the love, this Kerouac jaunt is equally great. A book about men climbing mountains and welcoming the isolation of the wilderness, it is also about reading poetry, navigating relationships, and trying to figure out how to live with intention. These famous and legendary figures didn't have the nut cracked on male friendship, which is kind of reassuring for us all.
The Dharma Bums on Bookshop.org
We talk about books like these every month.
The Wild Gentleman is a newsletter and book club for men who take reading seriously. Join us.
One last thing: The best book gift isn't wrapped. It's handed over (or left on a table) with a purpose. Tell the man you're giving it to why you thought of him when you read it. That's the part that matters.
If you're looking for even more ideas, our monthly book club works through one book at a time, every month, with men in the Boston area who take this stuff seriously. The list above is a good start. The conversations in person are better.