Christmas is coming, the annual festival of shiny barbarism and excess, and in theory at least good will and giving. Surprising as I doubt you find it, one of my favourite gifts to give or receive at Christmas are books.

As a gift books are always popular, as you can stroll through your local Waterstones and find books that will make for a good gift for almost anyone because Big Publishing knows what they need to put out at Christmas for the ‘easy gift for the hard to buy for’ market. If your dads a golfer buy him the autobiography of someone who won a major twenty years ago. If your brother is a football fan, buy him that book by the player who use to kick an inflated pigs bladder around for that team he likes. A cook book for you mum ‘always a welcome gift when she is going to spend half the day slaving in the kitchen doing the annual turkey wrestle… You know the kind of thing.

This Christmas however I am going to suggest a few alternatives to the same old same old, Big Publishing Christmas churn out of run of the mill reads. (click on pictures for details) Because there are tens of thousands of indie authors out there, books you won’t find in Waterstones (though you will generally find them on amazon) they may not be as easy a fit. But on the plus side its unlikely anyone will buy the same gift as you do and leave dad with two copies of ‘Tiger: the long road back form the woods…’

If you must buy your dad a golf book why not try this one instead by Indie writer and wit, Will Nett.  (note, I have not read this myself yet but i have met the author and he is a great guy) In this book he takes to the fairways in an attempt to master the most absurd of sports. Garishly outfitted, and armed with nothing more than a set of Ladies’ Clubs and a bad temper, he becomes immersed in the game, and all its infuriating foibles.

If your buying for a football fan look a little further than the latest autobiography detailing the life of a play whom discovered as a young boy they were quite good at kicking a ball about. My selection for this is ‘the Little Book of Boro’ which is admittedly only likely to appeal to fans of the Teesside club. Though the stories by fans about fans are more or less universal (which may explain why my alter ego Mark Sayeh has a story in the book about how he became a football fan…) Defiantly not base on my own experience as a Leeds fan…

If on the other hand you’re looking to buy something a little more reflective, on the none fiction side of things I can’t recommend Down Days by Craig Hallam enough for anyone who has struggled with or knows someone who has struggled with depression. I also recommended any of Craig’s fiction, be it his short horror stories, his gothic opus Greaveburn or his steam punk  Alan Shaw novels, to anyone who likes a fine read.

Going a bit further afield than sporting books and cook books if your buying for teenagers of all ages or fans of Sci-fi, Horror, Fantasy or any other genre films and fiction then you can’t go wrong with any of the Harvey Duckman series of books, the first three of which are available from amazon and elsewhere. And the Christmas special ebook will be out in the next coupe of days …  Book 4 will be out early 2020, I suspect I will mention it when its released…

Beyond Harvey for those who like SciFi, the latest of C G Hatton’s Thieves Guild series, Arunday’s Convergence  has just be released (I’m reading it at the moment, and it is so so good… A review will follow when I have finished it no doubt, if I can find a few new superlatives to use for C.G’s fiction, as I think I have used them all in the past). If you’ve read her previous books then you should get this now, if not you should get the first one (which I believe is free on kindle) and if you know anyone who likes fast paced exciting, brilliantly written sci fi, you can’t go far wrong buying them a paperback copy of the first book in the series ( or all of them )

Then there are all the indie books form the likes of Tom , Nimue, Merry, Kate, Pete, Maddy, Karen, Nils, Pheobe and all the rest of those great indie authors (and artists) I have not earned the right to call by their first names but tend to do so anyway, that I have not  banged on about over the course of this year all of which can be found in the Indie’Omacron, along with Craig and C.G and others. So go have a peruse and find something that appeals to you, because if none of that wonderful lot appeals then you lack a soul ….

Oh and finally of course, I can almost guarantee than anyone you still have to buy a present for will look any one of my own novels… Because whats better at Christmas than to hide your head in a book after dinner and try and avoid the obligatory game of monopoly with people who just want to sleep off the excesses of the day…

And finally, if you want to give an indie author a gift this Christmas, other than buying one of their books, try spreading some good cheer by writing a short review for them on amazon… Its bound to make them smile if you do…