Authors' Picks: Gift Ideas for Every Reader On Your List

PETER CAREY, True History of the Kelly Gang and the forthcoming Parrot and Olivier in America (April 2010)

I always want to give books by Richard Holmes. His Coleridge particularly. Now we have The Age of Wonder. It is history, biography, the Romantics, and science. It is also entertaining, well written, and generally improving. Who could ask for more than that? It is disgraceful that I haven't yet read E.L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley. If I am given a copy I'll pretend I bought it myself.