CNET Book Club: Holiday 2018 gift guide special
Find a great gift idea with these books that are only available, or only really work, in physical dead-tree form, from a lavishly illustrated history of Dungeons & Dragons to the creativity-inspiring Wonderbook.
For many readers, ourselves included, books are most often consumed via Kindle or another e-book platform. Sure, there's something lost in the transition from paper to screen, but the convenience and storage capacity of Kindle readers, or phones and tablets using e-book software, far outweighs the compromises. Except when the opposite is true.
Some books work better, or only, in physical format. We've compiled some of our favorites for a special Holiday Gift Guide edition of CNET Book Club, where we talk about awesome art books, tabletop books and just plain strange books that will never translate well to a Kindle screen. On the plus side, they make excellent real-world holiday gifts, and look better wrapped up than an e-book gift code. Many brick-and-mortar book stores are open until the wee hours in the days before Christmas, so there's still time to get someone an awesome nondigital gift.
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Dan's picks:
Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History
by Sam Witwer, Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman and Jon Peterson
House of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski
Ship of Theseus
by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down
by Gina McIntyre
Paperbacks from Hell
by Grady Hendrix
The Moviemaking Magic of Star Wars: Creatures & Aliens
by Mark Salisbury
Giraffes on Horseback Salad
by Josh Frank, Tim Heidecker and Manuela Pertega
Scott's picks
Wonderbook
by Jeff Vandermeer (listen to our CNET Book Club interview with Jeff here)
Theory of Fun for Game Design
by Raph Koster
The Electric State
by Simon Stalenhag
Codex Seraphinianus
by Luigi Serafini
About CNET Book Club
The Book Club is hosted by a pair of self-proclaimed book experts: Dan Ackerman (author of the nonfiction video game history book The Tetris Effect), and Scott Stein, a playwright and screenwriter. We'll be announcing our next Book Club selection soon, so send us your suggestions and keep an eye out for updates on Twitter at @danackerman and @jetscott.
Previous episodes
- Episode 1: Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
- Episode 2: Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
- Episode 3: Artemis by Andy Weir
- Episode 4: Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley
- Episode 5: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
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