Durban — This year’s Exclusive Books Christmas selection – The List – is the widest selection in years, making the offering truly “something for everyone”.
Exclusive Books is one of South Africa’s largest book selling chains with stores throughout South Africa, and one store in Gaborone, Botswana, and in Namibia.
The campaign itself, Santa’s No 1 Supplier, is traditional and nostalgic, featuring Santa himself, with his trusty elves.
“This is a departure from Exclusive Books’ usual approach, where we would emphasise the general holiday aspect of the season, rather than the particularity of Christmas.
“But our feeling for this year, post-Covid and amid our current challenging times, was that we all needed a bit of festive magic and wonder, a universal need no matter how you choose to celebrate at the end of the year,” said Exclusive Books marketing general manager Batya Bricker.
Bricker added that during the year, books were bought individually by each Exclusive Books store, but for Christmas, the list is chosen with input from all store managers.
The books are chosen with various criteria – the most important being “giftability”.
“Our research shows that many of the customers who visit our stores during December are not necessarily regular book buyers themselves, but at the height of the giving season, come to a bookstore,” Bricker explained.
“We also see a huge spike in the sale of Exclusive Books gift cards.
“The catalogue, which features all the titles, is a bumper issue this year, jam-packed with exclusive content, interviews and the ever-popular word search.
“Because gifting for children is such a priority at Christmas time, we have curated a bigger selection than ever in this category, with great gifts across all age groups.”
The selected list has to be wide and nuanced, the themes varied and carefully considered, with categories and genres more granular than ever.
Books to consider reading this festive season:
Young Adult (age 16-20) is the very heart of Booktok territory with Karen McManus, Holy Jackson and Adam Silvera leading the pack, together with books like “Babel” and Olivie Blake’s “The Atlas Paradox” which start to speak of deeper, more complex, more thought provoking plots and characters.
There are boxed sets galore – from Dr Seuss to Harry Potter – which still offer tremendous value.
The Afrikaans fiction list features impressive authors like Irma Venter, Chris Karsten and Madelein Rust.
Fiction spans from the Nicholas Spark romance and classic thrillers to heavyweights like John Boyne and John Irving, and ever popular book club authors Jodi Picoult, Maggie O’ Farrell and Kate Atkinson.
Apart from classic page-turners, the book stores also feature the classic whodunnit – with books from Richard Osman and a compendium of new Miss Marple stories from 12 contemporary writers.
The list is littered with big personalities, local icons like Patrice Motsepe, Whitey Basson, Koos Bekker and Robert Marawa, lit greats like Agatha Christie and Bill Bryson, Terry Pratchett and Antjie Krog, modern day gurus from Ryan Holiday to Oscar Chalupsky and Gabor Mate.
Michelle Obama’s new book, “The Light we Carry” is also set to blaze a trail. With embargoes and no information offered, we’re all in suspense… waiting for its release with bated breath!
In cookery, pooh-pooh it if you like, but cooking in the air fryer is all the rage, and so the “SA Air Fryer Cookbook” is a winner, but sits alongside the lush new Donna Hay or Sabrina Ghayour’s “Persiana Everyday”.
“Local cooking is well-represented; Martelize Brink’s “Oor die Kole”, Zola Nene’s “Seven Colours”, or @dinewithneo bans boring from the table,” Bricker concluded.
Daily News