I have four children and most of the time I quite like them.  Four children means that I have 4 ‘Best Mum in the World’ mugs, coasters, fridge magnets, framed pictures of their handprint with a poem about mess and a few little plaques with nice things written on them too.  These are all lovely, I was delighted to have received them … but I am more glad that we are now all at the stage where we can have a discussion about book gifts for Mother’s Day!

 

I get that it is a nightmare to search ‘Mother’s Day Gifts Ireland’ or ‘Mother’s Day Gift Box Ireland’ and be faced with thousands of options. I can see my kids get a little bit stressed about getting the right, thoughtful gift that is within budget and manages to communicate all the quite complicated feelings that they might have about me at any one time (‘I love you to absolute bits Mum, but if you mention studying once more I am going to tape your mouth shut and lock you in the coal shed’ type of complicated), but it really is quite simple, I am a book lover, buy me a book, there are even searches they can do ‘gifts for book lovers Ireland’ or ‘book gifts Ireland’ even ‘book gift box Ireland’!

 

It is not that I haven’t loved everything they have ever given me or that I am looking for something big, flashy and expensive and I really get that Mother’s Day has become over commercialised and creates a lot of pressure and can be difficult for all kinds of reasons … but given those caveats, books start at €1.99 at Chapters and a book proves more than any other gift, I think in my very biassed opinion, that thought has gone into the purchase.

 

And why do I love a book for Mother’s Day?  It isn’t something for the house, it isn’t practical or useful, it isn’t something that other people will get more pleasure or use out of than me … and that is the core … a book is just for me and more than the actual item, is the knowledge that the kids thought about me.  Also pretty major in the gift of a book, is the inherent promise of some time for myself to actually sit and read and that is definitely NOT to be sniffed at!

 

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas 

Books from our childhood, over the years my children have given me copies of Peter Pan, Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree and To Kill a Mockingbird - all books that I have talked about being meaningful to me as a child.  A few years ago I remember finding an old copy of Heidi for my Mum, it was too fragile to be read, but it had the same cover as the one she had used for bedtime stories when my brother and I were kids and it really touched her (we never finished Heidi as Mum loved it so much herself, she read on and finished the book!)

 

There are quite a few publishing houses that are doing special editions of perennial favourites now and again they range in price and look.  In the store we all have our favourite sets and are adding to them slowly as spare cash allows!

 

I have picked up Little Women from Wordsworth as a beautiful clothbound hardback at €19.99 for a gift, but we also have it as a softback, with foil cover, which ties in with a whole collection of children’s classics in this style at €4.99 from Wordsworth and ALSO a plain, black and white paperback that matches all of the Wordsworth Classics and is €3.99, and if that isn’t enough, there is a Bloomsbury paperback at €15.60, a 150th Anniversary Special Edition from Vantage at €19.50, a Canterbury Trade Paperback at €15.60  and my favourite, which is on my own bookshelf is the Little Women WW Coll Edition Hardback with foil at €9.99 - the quotes on the back cover of these are just gorgeous and give you a key to reading the book.

 

This range of editions and prices applies to lots of other great books that are perfect as thoughtful, considered gifts. We have at least 7 different editions of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, as well as several Collected Works and her Witty Collection of Universally Acknowledged Truths.

 

We have modern classics from Penguin such as Don Quixote or Virginia Woolf,  Vintage’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the two volume set of Lady Gregory’s Myths and Legends; if murder is more your Mum’s thing, we have masses of different imprints of Agatha Christie, the Harper Collins Hardbacks are my favourite, really stylish and with a 1930s aesthetic that works well.

 

We have cookbooks galore, both in New and Secondhand, but lots are included in our 3 for €20 deal, which means you can mix up a variety of books from the absolutely rocking This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music by the incredible Sinead Gleeson and Kim Gordon, with the heartbreaking Belonging: One Woman's Search for Truth and Justice for the Tuam Babies by Catherine Corless and then add in some pure escapism with Sheila Flanagan and What Eden Did Next

 

And if none of these options inspire you, you can always go for either a Gift Card or a Mystery Box!.

 Mothers Day Mystery Box

 

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