Literary Christmas presents

Spectator staff and writers name one book they simply must give away for Christmas

Susan Hill – William Trevor’s Love and Summer is one of the most perfect novels I have read for a very long time. Trevor is a master of prose, a master of conveying deep emotion and life-changing human events in the most beautifully understated way. No one now living writes better about Ireland nor anyone about love.  Not long, every word tells, rich beyond measure.

Mark Amory - Literary biography has been declared dead. Nevertheless three major ones appeared this autumn: The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings, William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies by John Carey and Muriel Spark by Martin Stannard. Also there have been fine books on John Cheever, Charles Dickens and James Lees-Milne. Surely your friends are interested in one of them ?

Fraser Nelson - Andrew Marr’s latest offering, The Making of Modern Britain, is a must. My wife is Swedish, is interested in British history – and there is no better book on the market. It’s addictive history, full of character and consequence and all written in the inimitable, sparky and addictive Marr style. It’s fashionable to look down one’s nose at Marr’s history, but I can’t get enough of it. I have two copies of History of Modern Britain - one heavily annotated, the other undefiled. Even those who know the story can’t help but admire the way Marr brings it all to life. The only problem is that my wife knows she’s getting it, and is growing impatient.

Alex Massie - Tomorrow We Ride, Jean Bobet's memoir of life on the road supporting his brother Louison, the first man to win the Tour de France three years running, is an enchanting account of cycling's post-war Golden Age that will please any cycling fan and most Francophiles too. The age of Coppi and Bartali, Kubler and Kobet, Bartali and Anquetil has long since gone, but this short book is a delightful evocation of the glamour, the glory and the romance of an era when the roads and mountains of Europe were ruled and conquered by giants.

James Forsyth - I can’t really tell you what book I’ll be giving as a present this Christmas as that would rather spoil the surprise for the intended recipient. But the book that I gave as a present that went over best in recent years was Lewis and Clark’s journals of their mission to the Pacific coast and back. At thirteen volumes it is not a short read, but they do give you a real sense of what it was like to head into the unknown.

Clare Asquith - The Rack, by A.E. Ellis, is set in the enclosed, paranoid world of a Swiss TB sanatorium in the mid 20th century, with its sadistic doctors, agonising treatments and fluctuating hopes, this shocking, but wryly humorous novel explores the depths of physical and emotional desperation. Unforgettable.

Liz Anderson - I am giving myself a Christmas present this year – and why shouldn’t I?  I’m going on a long train journey to the middle of France and so The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third book in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, will, I hope, be the ideal novel to pass the time. I read the previous two on a beach, so I just pray a draughty train carriage will prove as good a place to succumb to this Swedish author.

Peter Hoskin - If you're after something a little more current, then Evan Wright's Hella Nation is a breezy read.  It's a collection of the Generation Kill author's long-form journalism, all focused on the ignored, underground and downright freaky elements of American society.  Reminded me of the books that Tom Wolfe was pumping out in the 1960s; which is to say, it's trenchant, compulsive stuff.

David Blackburn – I’ve bought Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall in bulk. This book brings out the totalitarian and the evangelical in me: people should be forced to read it. Fiction and character develop within the parameters of a faithful historical narrative, with all its bawdy, gruesome and conniving figures and events. Everything derogatory you’ve heard about Wolf Hall is accurate – it’s demanding, frequently opaque and occasionally infuriating, but it’s also perfect.