Holiday Gift Guide: 25 Books We Want This Year

From powerful works of fiction to in-depth non-fiction reads, these page-turners won't destroy your wallets this holiday season.

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Unless you eat dinner using silver spoons or have more zeroes in your bank account than the New York Jets have in their locker room, you're probably watching and conserving every possible dollar. The nation's economy is still struggling, and now that it's officially the holiday season, those personal bank accounts are about to take major hits in the name of present-buying. So what's the best way to still be generous without flirting with bankruptcy? It's simple: Give the gift of words typed on bound pages.

That's right, we're talking about staying away from e-readers and going back to the days when all people clutched novels, non-fiction works, and coffee table novelty reads while traveling or merely chilling at home on a lazy day. Whether you're looking for easy stocking stuffers or affordable items to conceal in festive wrapping paper, these 25 Books We Want This Year should cover your bases when it comes to dropping reasonable bucks on thoughtful gifts the loved ones will truly appreciate.

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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

Pharrell: Places and Spaces I've Been, By Pharrell Williams

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How to Swear Around the World, by Jason Sacher

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Ultimate Book of Sports: The Essential Collection of Rules, Stats, and Trivia for Over 250 Sports, by Scott McNeely

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Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

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This is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz

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The Fifty Year Sword, by Mark Z. Danielewski

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NW, by Zadie Smith

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The Twelve, by Justin Cronin

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Pulling a Train and Getting in the Wind, by Harlan Ellison (under the pseudonym Paul Merchant)

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Alien vs. Predator, by Michael Robbins

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Farther Away: Essays, by Jonathan Franzen

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Detroit City is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis, by Mark Binelli

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People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo, by Richard Lloyd Parry

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LIFE 50 Years of James Bond

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Spielberg: A Retrospective, by Richard Schickel

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House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films, by Kier-La Janisse

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Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (Second Edition), by Glenn Kay

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The Slasher Movie Book, by J.A. Kerswell

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The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion

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We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, by Yael Cohen

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Inside HBO's Games of Thrones

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True Blood: Eats, Drinks, and Bites from Bon Temps, by Gianna Sobol and Alan Ball, with Karen Sommer Shalett

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Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal

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Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe

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Drawn Together: The Collected Works of R. and A. Crumb, by Aline and R. Crumb

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