Buying for a history lover is hard. They have already read the famous ones, their shelves are full, and anything with “history” printed on a mug has been done. What they want is a book that shows them something they didn’t know they were missing.
While writing An Almanac of Us, I read hundreds of books. Forty of them made it into the book’s Further Reading list. Below are sixteen of those, plus my own book, grouped by the kind of curious mind they suit. Every note is mine, and every pick is a book I would be glad to unwrap.
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In this guide:
- For the big-picture thinker
- For the animal lover
- For the food lover
- For the money mind and the maths fan
- For the lover of old books and old print
- For the science and medicine fan
- For the tech-curious
- For the storyteller
- How to choose the right one
- Short on time, or far away?
- Frequently asked questions
For the big-picture thinker
These are for the person who loved Sapiens and wants the next big idea.
- An Almanac of Us (paid link) by Ujjwal Ganesh. My own, so take this with a pinch of salt. It tells the human story as fifteen “superpowers”, from the first kept fires to machines that answer back, and asks what each one cost us. The hardcover is the one to wrap.
- The Secret of Our Success (paid link) by Joseph Henrich. How culture, not raw brainpower, made our species successful, told through many vivid examples.
- The Dawn of Everything (paid link) by David Graeber and David Wengrow. A long, provocative rethinking of how early societies worked. Best for a reader who enjoys arguing with a book as they read it.
For the animal lover
Three books that sit right where history meets the natural world.
- The Genius of Dogs (paid link) by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. What experiments reveal about how dogs read people. The easiest win on this list for a dog lover.
- How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog) (paid link) by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut. The famous Siberian fox experiment, told by one of the scientists who ran it.
- Other Minds (paid link) by Peter Godfrey-Smith. A philosopher and diver on octopus minds, and why such clever animals die so young.
For the food lover
- Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (paid link) by Richard Wrangham. The case that cooking changed our bodies and our lives. It is a bold argument, and some scientists push back on parts of it, which makes it a great book to talk about over dinner.
For the money mind and the maths fan
- Money: The Unauthorized Biography (paid link) by Felix Martin. Money as a system of credit and trust, opening on the island of Yap, where giant stone discs changed owners without ever moving.
- The Number Sense (paid link) by Stanislas Dehaene. How babies, animals and adults sense quantity, and what that tells us about where mathematics comes from.
For the lover of old books and old print
- Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (paid link) by Christopher de Hamel. Twelve famous manuscripts, visited one by one. A beautiful gift for anyone who lingers in library rare-book rooms.
- The Book Nobody Read (paid link) by Owen Gingerich. A hunt for every surviving copy of Copernicus’s book, and the notes its early readers left in the margins.
- Hicky’s Bengal Gazette (paid link) by Andrew Otis. The story of India’s first newspaper, and the governor-general it dared to attack.
For the science and medicine fan
- The Ghost Map (paid link) by Steven Johnson. The 1854 cholera outbreak on London’s Broad Street, told hour by hour. Reads like a thriller.
- Life’s Greatest Secret (paid link) by Matthew Cobb. How the genetic code was cracked, with Rosalind Franklin’s part told fairly.
For the tech-curious
For the person who works in tech and secretly loves history, or the other way round.
- Where Wizards Stay Up Late (paid link) by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon. The people who built the ARPANET, the network that became the internet, told as a story.
- AI Snake Oil (paid link) by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor. How to tell real progress in AI from hype. A thoughtful pick for anyone tired of breathless headlines.
For the storyteller
- Songlines: The Power and Promise (paid link) by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly. For anyone who loves stories told aloud: Aboriginal songlines as living knowledge that carries maps, law and history in song, explained by an Aboriginal curator and a memory researcher.
How to choose the right one
Four quick questions will get you most of the way:
- What do they love besides history? Dogs, food, money, technology or old books. Pick from that section first.
- Do they like to agree or to argue? The Ghost Map and The Genius of Dogs are easy, satisfying reads. The Dawn of Everything and Catching Fire are for readers who enjoy a debate.
- How much time do they have? How to Tame a Fox and The Ghost Map are quick and gripping. The Dawn of Everything is a long winter project.
- Do they read on paper? For a gift, choose the hardcover or paperback. A book on the shelf keeps reminding them of you.
Short on time, or far away?
Most of these books also come as Kindle editions, and a Kindle book can be sent as a gift. On Amazon.com or Amazon.in, choose “Buy for others” on the Kindle page. The person gets a redemption code or link and can read the book on a Kindle or in the free Kindle app on a phone. In the US, they can exchange the gift for an Amazon gift card instead. A wrapped hardcover still wins under a tree, but an e-book gift can arrive the same day.
My own pick: An Almanac of Us
An Almanac of Us: The Story of the Superpowers That Made Us Human tells the human story in fifteen chapters, from the first kept fires to machines that answer back, with the price of each power printed alongside it. It is written for curious readers of any age, and the hardcover makes a handsome gift.
I wrote this book. Links to Amazon are paid links: I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases, on top of my author royalty.
Get it on Amazon: Hardcover (paid link) · Paperback (paid link) · Kindle (paid link)
Readers in India: Kindle on Amazon.in (paid link) · More about the book on its book page.
Frequently asked questions
What do you get a history lover who has read everything?
Look past the famous titles to books that connect history with something else they love, such as dogs, food, money or technology. Books like How to Tame a Fox, The Ghost Map and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts are well loved but rarely on a casual reader’s shelf.
What is a good book gift for a history teacher?
A book they can bring into class: The Ghost Map turns a single outbreak into a lesson on evidence and maps, and The Book Nobody Read shows how historians work from surviving copies and handwritten notes.
Are history books good gifts?
Yes, when they match the person. A history book tied to one of their other interests feels personal, and a hardcover lasts for years on the shelf.
Illustrations created with AI (Google Gemini) and edited by the author. Book descriptions are the author’s own, adapted from the Further Reading list in An Almanac of Us.
