Halloween is over, festive lights are winking, and Mariah Carey is defrosting. It’s time to launch our Christmas Shop!
While we are showcasing a range of books that we believe make the very best gifts for everyone on your list, we’re also fundraising for Crisis, a charity that provides vital support to people who are homeless in the UK. The work Crisis does is important year-round, but the message rings loudest at Christmas. We are seeing record levels of homelessness in this very punishing economy, with more than 3,000 people sleeping rough on the streets and 104,000 families in temporary accommodation. That’s why we want to do what we can to support Crisis this Christmas.
With your help, we’re aiming to raise money to help Crisis buy household starter kits (£100 each). These are filled with household essentials that homeless people need, but cannot afford. Every penny of your donations will go to this cause.
You can read more about the vital work Crisis do here.
As we’ve done previously in our Christmas shop, we have put together a combination gift allowing you to buy your loved one a book whilst also donating to an important cause in their name. When you buy the Crisis Book Bundle or the Crisis Voucher Bundle, both priced at £20, a donation from this of £8 will be made to Crisis, and we send a certificate to your recipient along with their book or voucher.
If you can’t decide on which books to buy for your loved ones, check out our handy gift guide for inspiration.
Crisis Donation and Book Bundle
When you choose our Crisis Donation and Book Bundle as a gift, your loved one will receive a paperback book of your choice as well as a donation made in their name to Crisis to help those without homes this Christmas. To thank you for your generosity during the season of giving, we’ll include a personalised certificate along with the book, so the recipient knows you donated £8 in their name to Crisis.
Crisis Donation and Book Voucher Bundle
When you choose our Crisis Donation and Book Voucher Bundle as a gift, your loved one will receive a paperback book of your choice as well as a donation made in their name to Crisis to help those without homes this Christmas. To thank you for your generosity during the season of giving, we’ll include a personalised certificate along with the book, so the recipient knows you donated £8 in their name to Crisis.
We have a range of premium gifts selected especially for Christmas.
Paperback Selection Box
To make your Christmas shopping less stressful (AND support an independent press!), choose any three paperback books from our collection to make up your Selection Box. You can either treat someone to a reading bonanza, or split your purchase into individual gifts for three of your loved ones this Christmas. (Or perhaps one for you, two for them… it’s your choice!)
In the Moment Duo
The books in our In the Moment collection are compact, elegant and (of course) easy to wrap, all of which makes for excellent stocking fillers this Christmas. Select any two of our In the Moment titles to complete your Duo Bundle.
The In the Moment titles are:
Writing Landscape, by Linda Cracknell
The Zen of Climbing, by Francis Sanzaro
Watching Wildlife, by Jim Crumley
Interpreting Dreams, by Clare Gibson
Case Study Bundle
From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted His Bloody Project, Case Study is a dazzling – and often wickedly humorous – meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive and widely admired novelists writing today. Earning Graeme Macrae Burnet a second Booker Prize nomination, Case Study enters the world of 1960s counterculture and psychology, and is the perfect book for lovers of literary fiction that is original, clever, funny and thought-provoking (and for all fans of Graeme).
The Case Study Bundle includes a either a hardback or paperback copy of Case Study (you choose which edition you’d prefer), a signed book plate, plus an exclusive themed Case Study notebook and postcards.
It Came From the Closet Movie Night Gift
Edited by Joe Vallese, with a foreword by Kirsty Logan and with contributions by writers including Carmen Maria Machado, It Came from the Closet is a superb, surprising and sometimes provocative anthology of essays on horror films, seen through a queer lens. Each contributor brings the particulars of the their own experiences, whether in relation to gender, sexuality, or both, to their interpretation of horror films from Jaws to Jennifer’s Body.
Exploring a multitude of queer experiences from first kisses and coming out to transition and parenthood, this is a varied and accessible collection that leans into the fun of horror while taking its cultural impact and reciprocal relationship to the LGBTQ+ community seriously.
This Movie Night Gift includes a copy of It Came From the Closet along with the official watchlist so you can keep track of which of the films included in the book you’ve watched, and some movie-night sweet treats.
Brontë Sisters Collection
Charlotte, Emily and Anne are the world’s favourite literary sisters, but they were misrepresented by biographers and historians for so long that readers are only recently learning the real Brontë story. In these biographies with a twist, three young Brontë studies experts share their love of the famous sisters, debunking myths about their lives and introducing readers to their life and works from a new angle.
The Brontë Sisters Collection is the perfect gift for the Brontë lover in your life. The bundle includes a copy of all three of the Brontë biographies (Anne Brontë Reimagined, Charlotte Brontë Revisited, Emily Brontë Reappraised) plus limited edition postcard-sized prints featuring quotes from each of the sisters, and three individually wrapped Yorkshire teabags, direct from Haworth*.
*Not really – they’re from the Yorkshire Tea factory.
Anne Brontë Bundle
Anne Brontë was underestimated from her own day to modern times. But why exactly has this remarkably talented and pioneering author been so overlooked until now? Anne’s writing has often been compared harshly with that of Charlotte and Emily – as if living in her sisters’ shadows throughout her life wasn’t enough. But her reputation, literary and personal, has changed dramatically since Agnes Grey was first published in 1846. Then, shocked reviewers complained of her ‘crudeness’ and ‘vulgarity’ – words used to this day to belittle women writing about oppression. Her second and most famous work, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was ground-breaking in its subject matter: marital and alcohol abuse and the rights of married women. A book that refused to sweep difficult truths under the carpet. A book so ahead of its time that even her sisters weren’t ready for it, Charlotte being one of its harshest critics. And yet could this even be the best of all the Brontë works? With such a contradictory life and legacy: who was Anne, really? It’s time to find out.
This Anne Brontë Bundle is the perfect gift for the Brontë lover in your life. The bundle includes a copy of Anne Brontë Reimagined, by Adelle Hay, plus a limited edition postcard-sized print featuring a quote from Anne, and an individually wrapped Yorkshire teabag.
Charlotte Brontë Bundle
Charlotte Brontë Revisited looks at Charlotte through new eyes. Discover her private world of convention, rebellion and imagination, and how these factors shaped her life, writing and obsessions – including the paranormal, nature, feminism and politics. It’s a celebration of all things Charlotte, and emphatically shows why she’s as relevant today as she ever was.
This Charlotte Brontë Bundle is the perfect gift for the Brontë lover in your life. The bundle includes a copy of Charlotte Brontë Revisited, by Sophie Franklin, plus a limited edition postcard-sized print featuring a quote from Charlotte, and an individually wrapped Yorkshire teabag.
Emily Brontë Bundle
Emily Brontë’s incomparable Wuthering Heights is one of our most cherished novels, with the character of Heathcliff being the ultimate romantic hero – and/or villain. It is a work that has bewitched us for almost 200 years, with its passion and gothic sensibility. But Emily herself remains an enigmatic figure, often painted unfairly in a negative light, portrayed as awkward, as a misanthrope, as “no normal being”. That’s the conventional wisdom on Emily Brontë as a person, but is it accurate? Is it fair? Emily Brontë Reappraised conjures a new image of the great writer by looking at her afresh. It’s a biography with a twist, taking in the themes of her life and work – her feminism, her love of the natural world – as well as the art she has inspired, and even the “fake news” stories about her.
This Emily Brontë Bundle is the perfect gift for the Brontë lover in your life. The bundle includes a copy of Emily Brontë Reappraised, by Claire O’Callaghan, plus a limited edition postcard-sized print featuring a quote from Emily, and an individually wrapped Yorkshire teabag.
His Bloody Project Limited Edition
This limited edition exclusive hardback of His Bloody Project makes for a gorgeous gift this Christmas. Published to great acclaim around the world, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Booker-shortlisted novel is a must-read and deserves the top spot on anyone’s Christmas wishlist.
Case Study Exclusive Hardback Edition
We have some VERY limited exclusive hardback editions of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Booker-longlisted Case Study, featuring a stunning turquoise case with a silver-foiled spine, handwritten endpapers and signed book plates.
Saraband Premium Membership Subscription
Treat your loved ones to a gift that keeps on giving: a subscription to our Saraband Premium Membership. The subscription includes a quarterly paperback book selection of your choice, access to exclusive bonus content, advance news and interviews with our authors, latest acquisitions and publishing news, and glimpses behind the scenes in a dedicated monthly Premium Members newsletter on Substack. Each Premium Members newsletter also includes a voucher for 75% off our Audiobook of the Month, and Members are also entitled to 50% off all other audiobooks purchased directly from our website. Choose from either 6 months or 1 year – and you’ll also be supporting your favourite independent press!
North Country
Featuring contemporary writers – Sarah Hall, Lemn Sissay, Benjamin Myers and more – as well as voices from the past, from Thomas Bewick, the Brontë sisters and the Wordsworths to Ted Hughes, North Country is a rich celebration of northern landscapes. It’s a reminder of rugged moors, magnificent vistas, and iconic manmade places, and of northern people rising to the challenge of defending their access to open spaces and confronting climate chaos.
This essential volume features stunning wrap-around jacket art by Cumbrian artist Fiona Clucas, so beautiful that you might be tempted to place it unwrapped under the Christmas tree.
Seasons of Storm and Wonder
Hailed as his “masterwork” (The Scotsman), Jim Crumley’s Seasons of Storm and Wonder combines lyrical prose and passionate eloquence to lay bare the impact of global warming and urge us all towards embracing a more daring conservation vision. Crumley documents the changing seasons in the Scottish Highlands, witnessing not only nature’s unparalleled beauty, but also showing us how climate chaos has brought unwanted drama to wildlife and widespread destruction of ecosystems and habitats.
This handsome hardback edition features the painting ‘Zephyr Dreaming’ by Scottish artist Lizzie Rose on its jacket and makes the perfect gift for anyone interested in nature writing this Christmas.
Please read our FAQs or email ellie@saraband.net with any questions.