Wow. Ok. I might have jumped in a bit over my head with the gift guide thing because I have done nothing else for the past week but look at amazing things online (well, in addition to all the other stuff I normally do, the usual professional blogging stuff, you know, WHINING). And I realized that the gift guide suggestions for someone who is buying stuff for someone like me was like my hair during my book reading in Portland back in March: OUT OF CONTROL. I got going with the curling iron, and next thing you know I couldn't stop, and there I am in front of a large group of people reading passages from my book looking like Medusa had climbed on top of my head and taken a yawping crap.

So I'm breaking up the gift guide into several parts. The first one: books. All of these are ones I have read or plan to read in the next several months. I don't think you could go wrong with a single one. And yes, most of these are female authors, that wasn't intended, it's just how it happened, although I can see some dude looking at this list and going, wow, what a bunch of vagina.

1. Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures Amanda Blake Soule $14.93

2. Kirtsy Takes a Bow: A Celebration of Women's Online Favorites Laura Mayes $16.47

3. The English American: A Novel Alison Larkin $10.20

4. The Alternative Hero Tim Thornton $18.21

1. Rockabye: From Wild to Child Rebecca Woolf $10.85

2. Rage Against the Meshugenah: Why it Takes Balls to Go Nuts Danny Evans $10.20

3. Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater Matthew Amster-Burton $15.64

1. Wife in the North Judith O'Reilly $11.66

2. i am neurotic: (and so are you) Lianna Kong $9.35

3. Who by Fire: A Novel (P.S.) Diana Spechler $12.71

1. Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years With Down Syndrome Jennifer Graf Groneberg $5.60

2. Believe Me: A Novel Nina Killham $11.70

3. The Handmaid and the Carpenter: A Novel Elizabeth Berg $8.00

4. Hell Is Other Parents: And Other Tales of Maternal Combustion Deborah Copaken Kogan $10.49

5. Notes from the Underwire: Adventures from My Awkward and Lovely Life Quinn Cummings $11.99

1. Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood Adrienne Martini $14.49

2. The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love Michelle Maisto $10.20

3. Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love Tasha Blaine $16.50

4. Songs Without Words (Vintage Contemporaries) Ann Packer $10.17

5. The Middle Place Kelly Corrigan $4.65