Time is ticking and you’re starting to panic aren’t you? Only 14 more sleeps till the big day and you still haven’t got your act together. Well, it goes without saying that we’d recommend a book as the perfect present, but which book?

We thought, who better to choose some cracking Christmas books than our very own BookRabbiters? We scoured your reviews and picked some of your all-time favourites. Here is a whole heap of ideas if you want to give a book but just don’t know where to start…

For the one you love (especially if they grew up in the Eighties)

15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, one day. ‘Touching, surprising and very emotional’ according to BookRabbiter, Sonia. Read her review.

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Milton Crawford, author of The Hungover Cookbook, discusses his love of authors who have been fond of the occasional tipple – from Tennessee Williams to Hunter S. Thompson – and that very schpecial relationship between writers and alcohol…

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Many great writers have been great drinkers too, or perhaps, as The New Yorker suggests, that should be drunks. Dylan Thomas famously said that ‘An alcoholic is someone you don’t like, who drinks as much as you do’. I suggest that the distinction between the two categories lies in a question of productivity. If you can drink a lot and produce a lot of great writing, you’re a writer that drinks a lot. If you drink a lot and fail to do much of anything (except, perhaps, fall over, sleep and walk to the off-licence the following morning), then you’re a drunk. Kingsley Amis clearly realised how delicate a balance it was between the two, saying that ‘Now and then, I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time’.

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Here’s what the BookRabbit team have on their bedside tables this week. You can breathe a sigh of relief – there’s not one celebrity memoir in sight.

Tim After a break from reading anything but Twitter, I have just completed Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd.  Boyd is one of my fall-back authors who has gotten me out of a literary rut in the past and this latest instalment didn’t disappoint. A pacey little number that had me gripped from start to finish. Told through the eyes of several key characters it never lost focus and offered enough variety to keep me coming back for more. Considering my increasing reliance on Twitter for news of the business world, the fate of Chilean miners and the whereabouts of my family members I may be pre-disposing myself to this type of book for the future. I have literally just picked up The Lacuna in the last day or so and it hasn’t grabbed me in the first few pages so it might be a return to 140 characters or less for a while.

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I adore urban fantasy. I first came across this genre about ten years ago when I picked up the fantastic Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton, the first book in the Anita Blake series. I have also just started to read more in the paranormal romance genre from authors such as Anya Bast, MaryJanice Davidson and Linda Wisdom.

I love that the world is similar to ours but contains supernatural creatures, magic and otherworldly elements. Sometimes humanity knows about the paranormals but some author’s like to keep the world in the dark, which can make for a darker read.

If you are new to the paranormal world, there are a few differences between the sub-genres you should know. Urban Fantasy is usually of a fantastic nature but with an urban setting. Many books are set in present times, but can also be set in historical or futuristic times too and for the majority of time the heroine or hero have some kind of mystery element to solve. For me urban fantasy also means kick-arse chick with lots of fighting with guns or swords, but that’s just me!

With Paranormal Romance, it’s the romance that is the main focus. The love between heroine and hero, but the supernatural element is still very much present. It may be the love between a human and a vampire, faery or shapeshifter.

Mira have and will be releasing what looks like a fantastic array of paranormal fiction. I am literally drooling at the amazing choice – I’m particularly looking forward to getting my paws on the following…

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With book apps now outnumbering games in the Apple app store, we thought it was time we did a handy guide to some of the top book apps around. Some will need you to part with a little of your hard-earned wonga, others won’t cost you a bean. We’ve avoided some of the more obvious ones (iBooks, Stanza, Kindle) but if you know of any other book-related apps for the iPhone, iPad or other platforms that we’ve missed – let us know in Comments. As a bookworm, what app can’t you live without?

Audiobooks

iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Free version/59p

This app gives you access to LibriVox’s public library of more than 3,500 free classic audiobooks. They are read by volunteers but the quality is excellent. The free version of the app streams the files and is a great way to try it out, but it’s worth paying for the 59p version so you can download audiobooks and listen to them offline. You can choose books by title, author, language or genre. The only downside is that you can’t use other apps while listening.

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A BookRabbit guest review by Sue Keogh

Like in Thornton’s debut novel, The Alternative Hero, the focus here is the British music scene. Tracing the fortunes of an indie band desperate to get signed and finally start making some money, the book is light-hearted, heavy on banter rather than long-winded description and given pace through large sections being presented like an interview with a rock journalist.

The band is dominated by Russell Groom, a coffee-drinking, rucksack-wearing unlikely rock’n’roll hero who is one of those people who relishes other people being inefficient so he has something to moan about. There’s an underlying affection for bass player Karen and ongoing tensions with the other members – as you would expect with any band worn out by the struggle to get ahead in the competitive indie scene.

There’s plenty of references to Glastonbury, starting-out venues like the Water Rats and the Barfly and artists on the British alternative music scene like Doves, The Libertines and Radiohead, which all sets the book in a very specific time. It will either make you think ‘oh yes!’ or, in a couple of years, ‘sorry, who?’ They talk about wanting to support JJ72 and I’ve already forgotten who they were.

The book’s great for anyone who enjoyed the music nerd element of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, or as a summer read for anyone who’s watched too much X Factor and needs to realise that it’s not that easy to make it in the music business, y’know.

Find out more about Tim Thornton in his author profile.

Review by Sue Keogh

Sue Keogh is a web editor who has produced content for AOL, Yahoo!, ITV and Magic FM, and who has written over 250 music reviews and features for the BBC. Her first book, an informative graphic novel called The Entrepreneurs: Dividing Equity, is due out this autumn.

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