The Independent suggests 10 different scented candles as Christmas presents. Just in case anyone is thinking of buying me a candle for Christmas, here is a selection of books that I’d much rather have.

Wild Rose by John Lewis, “It needs to burn for a while to get a strong smell going…” £5

OR

Why Look at Animals? by John Berger, “Everywhere animals disappear. In zoos they constitute the living monument to their own disappearance…” £4.99

 

 

L’Occitane Provencal Landscape, “The compact tin is good for travelling…” £12.25

OR

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince.  £7.99. “Interweaving stories of encounters with nomadic Arabs and other adventures into a rich autobiographical narrative, it has its climax in the extraordinary story of Saint-Exupery’s crash in the Libya Desert in 1936, and his miraculous survival.”

AND

Ox-Tales Fire short story collection, with stories from John Le Carre, Ali Smith, Geoff Dyer, Vikram Seth and many more. £5. This pushes us a tiny bit over £12.25, but 50p from Ox-Tales goes to Oxfam.

Cowshed’s Moody Cow Candle. It’s a “Balancing candle.”  It’s £28.

 

OR
 

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Hoarold Morris Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton.  It’s a love story told with an auction of the couple’s belongings. It’s lovely. Time Out says ” Leanne Shepton has accomplished a small victory in the age-old artistic struggle to do something unprecedented.” £12.99

This one is green, but the one we have is red.

And

The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore. A beautiful thick brick of a book, ” The nearest thing we have to Chekhov.” says Alison Lurie. £9.99

AND

Days of Reading by Marcel Proust, £4.99. Very pretty little book. Proust writes, amongst other things, about losing yourself in books as a child.

Diptyque’s Beauty and the Beast, £55, “…a floral aroma…”

OR

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco, £20 ” A complelling masterpiece proclaiming to the world the relevance of sequential art in recording modern history”  This is an important book, it’s also beautiful and terrible.

and

The Poetry of Birds, edited by Simon Armitage and Tim Dee, £25. ” Marianne Moore and David Wright on the Ostrich and the emperor penguin…Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens on the oriole and the red-winged blackbird.” Amongst many others.

and

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, £8.99. The Independent show that they don’t really mean for us to buy £55 candles: “Savagely comic, yet equally tender…This novel is an elergy for a generation.”

and you’ve still got £1.01 left to buy yourself a cake.