What to Buy a Mum Who Loves Reading (When Flowers Feel Too Small)
Buying for a mum who loves reading should be easy. You know what she enjoys, so you buy her a book.
Except if she reads a lot, there’s a fairly good chance she’s already read the one you choose.
And sometimes a single book — lovely as it is — doesn’t quite feel enough. Maybe it’s a big birthday, you can’t be there in person, or you simply want to send something that feels a little more special than the usual flowers.
If your mum always has a book on the go but you haven’t a clue what’s already on her bookshelf, there are plenty of gifts for book lovers that don’t rely on you choosing exactly the right title.
Here are the ones we think work best.
Start with the kind of reader your mum is
You don't need to know her favourite author or remember the title of the book she was reading last Christmas.
A little information goes a long way.
Does she race through crime novels? Always have a thriller beside the bed? Love romance? Read a bit of everything? Or is she the kind of reader who gets as much pleasure from browsing a bookshop and choosing her next book as she does from reading it?
The more someone reads, the more difficult choosing an individual book can actually become.
If this is exactly your problem, we've written a separate guide on what to get someone who reads a lot when you don't know what they've already read.
But when you're buying for Mum, there's usually another consideration too. You want it to feel like a present.
A book hamper when you want her to have something lovely to open
This is probably where we'd start for a birthday.
A book hamper gives you the pleasure of giving her a book without making the whole present depend on that one book.
At The Book Resort, our book gift boxes and hampers combine a new book with other gifts and treats, so there's plenty for her to discover when she opens the box.
It works particularly well for the mum who loves putting her feet up with a book, something nice to eat and, ideally, a few uninterrupted hours to herself.
And that's where a book hamper can feel very different from flowers.
Flowers are always lovely to receive, but sometimes you want to give Mum something she'll still be enjoying after the flowers would have gone.
If it's her birthday, have a look through our Birthday Gifts Ireland collection. Or, if you'd rather browse everything, you can see all of our gift boxes and hampers here.
What do you buy a mum who already has everything?
This is probably one of the most familiar conversations between grown-up children and their mums:
“What would you like for your birthday?”
“Nothing. I don't need anything.”
If your mum is anything like many of the mums we send gifts to, the problem isn't really that you don't know what she likes. It's that she doesn't need another thing for the house.
Knowing that she loves reading is useful here.
Instead of searching for another possession, you can give her something connected to something she already spends time enjoying.
That could be one beautiful book hamper to enjoy over a weekend. Or it could be several months of books, with a new one arriving each month.
It's why we think reading gifts work particularly well as gifts for readers who have everything. You're not trying to find something they don't already own. You're giving them more of an experience they already love.
We've also put together a wider guide to Birthday Gifts for Someone Who Has Everything if you're still deciding.
For a mum who reads constantly, give her more than one book
If Mum finishes one book and immediately reaches for another, a prepaid book subscription starts to make a lot of sense.
Instead of trying to identify the one novel she hasn't already read, you're giving her new books to discover over several months.
Our Advance Book Subscription is the option we designed for gifting. You pay for it upfront, choose how long you'd like it to last and tell us the kind of books she enjoys.
We choose the individual books.
That's an important distinction because you don't need to know enough about books to choose for her yourself.
If you know Mum loves crime, for example, that's enough. You don't have to know which of this year's crime novels she's read or which new authors are worth trying.
A three-month subscription can be a lovely birthday present without becoming an enormous gift. For a milestone birthday, a longer subscription turns one present into something she can keep looking forward to.
You can see the Advance Book Subscription here or browse our Book Subscription options.
What if you don't know what she likes to read?
Sometimes the sum total of your knowledge is:
“Mum reads all the time.”
That's still useful.
Our subscription choices include Mixture and Surprise Me, so you can leave more of the choosing to us.
There are also times when we'd tell you that a Book Resort subscription probably isn't the right present.
Our selections concentrate on contemporary adult fiction, including crime, thrillers, romance, bestsellers and Irish writing. We generally avoid horror, fantasy, non-fiction and series.
So if Mum exclusively reads fantasy novels or spends her weekends buried in biographies and history books, we'd go with a specialist bookseller or a bookshop voucher instead.
A good gift for someone who loves reading should suit the books they actually enjoy, not simply have the word “book” attached to it.
And what if she's already read the book you send?
This is the question people buying for avid readers quite rightly worry about.
You might know Mum's taste perfectly and still have no idea what she's read.
With a Book Resort subscription, if we've selected a book she's already read, she can keep it and let us know. We'll add another book to her next month's subscription box at no additional charge.
She doesn't have to package the original book up and send it back.
For someone who gets through a lot of books, we think that matters.
It also means you don't need to conduct a suspicious inspection of Mum's bookshelves before her birthday.
Don't rule out a bookshop voucher
We sell books for a living and we'll happily say it: sometimes a bookshop voucher is the better present.
Some readers really don't want anyone choosing their books for them.
If Mum loves spending an afternoon browsing shelves, has very particular tastes or keeps a carefully planned reading list, letting her choose for herself makes perfect sense.
The difference is in the kind of present you want to give.
A voucher gives her complete control.
A book hamper gives her something substantial to open.
A prepaid book subscription gives her a surprise now and something else to look forward to next month.
There isn't one answer that's right for every book lover.
A three-month book subscription makes a particularly good birthday gift
For an ordinary birthday, three months can hit a nice middle ground.
It's more than one present, but you're not committing to an entire year.
Mum gets her first book box and then, when the birthday itself is long over, another one arrives.
That's the part people sometimes overlook when searching for birthday gifts for book lovers.
The gift doesn't have to be something that is completely consumed on the day.
If you'd rather give her one beautiful present, browse our Birthday Gifts or book gift hampers.
If you'd like the present to continue, look at the Advance Book Subscription.
For a 50th, 60th or 70th birthday, make the gift last
Milestone birthdays can be even harder.
There's often an expectation that you should buy something bigger because it's a significant birthday, but that doesn't necessarily mean Mum wants an expensive object.
If reading is genuinely one of her favourite things, six or twelve months of books can be a very personal big-birthday present.
Instead of spending the budget on one item, you're spreading the present across the year.
Her birthday arrives. Then her first book box. And weeks later, when nobody is talking about her birthday anymore, another one turns up.
For the mum who always has a book on the go, that can be far more enjoyable than something expensive bought simply because she's turning 60.
Our Advance Book Subscription is the prepaid option for this type of gift.
What about a Monthly Book Subscription?
Our Monthly Book Subscription is slightly different.
It's the flexible ongoing option rather than a fixed prepaid present.
For a birthday or Christmas gift, we'd generally choose the Advance subscription because you can pay for the complete gift upfront.
For someone subscribing for themselves — or where flexibility matters more — the Monthly Book Subscription may make more sense.
You can compare our book subscription options here.
A reading gift for Mum when she's unwell
Not every present for Mum comes with candles on a cake.
If she's recovering from an illness or operation, or simply needs a bit of cheering up, a book can be a lovely thing to send.
It doesn't demand anything from her. She can pick it up when she feels like reading and leave it beside her when she doesn't.
For this situation, we wouldn't automatically recommend a subscription.
One of our Get Well Soon Gifts with a book and a few other things to enjoy may be just right.
If you're deciding between flowers and something that will last a little longer, we've also written about what to send instead of flowers.
What if Mum lives in Ireland and you don't?
This is something we see all the time.
You might be in London, New York, Sydney or somewhere else entirely while Mum is at home in Ireland.
You don't need to buy the present where you live and post it to her yourself.
The Book Resort is based in Waterford, and you can order with us and have her gift sent directly to her in Ireland, including Northern Ireland.
Enter Mum's address as the shipping address and add the message you'd like included. We'll handwrite it on her gift card.
We don't put receipts or prices inside the parcel either, so the gift can go directly to her.
If you're ordering from overseas, our guide to sending a gift to someone in Ireland when you live abroad explains everything in more detail.
And if you're going to miss the birthday itself, you might also find What to Send Someone for Their Birthday When You Can't Be There useful.
So, what's the best gift for a mum who loves reading?
It comes down to the kind of present you want to give her.
If you know exactly which book she wants, buy the book.
If she loves choosing every book herself, give her a bookshop voucher.
If you want her to have something lovely to open on her birthday, choose a book gift hamper or browse our Birthday Gifts.
If she reads constantly and you'd like the present to continue after her birthday, a prepaid Advance Book Subscription is likely to be the better fit.
If she wants a flexible ongoing subscription, have a look at our Monthly Book Subscription.
If she already has everything, don't feel you have to find another thing for her to own. A book hamper or several months of reading gives her something to enjoy instead.
And if your biggest worry is that she's already read whatever you choose, that's exactly the problem we cover in our guide to buying a gift for someone who reads a lot when you don't know what they've already read.
Gifts for book lovers don't have to start with choosing a book
When people search for gifts for book lovers, gifts for avid readers or gifts for readers who have everything, the obvious answer is usually another book.
But that's often the hardest thing to buy.
You don't know what they've read. You don't know what's sitting unread beside the bed. And unless you share Mum's taste in books, you may have no idea whether the bestseller everyone is recommending is actually her kind of thing.
So don't start with the title.
Start with Mum.
If she'd love a whole present to open, choose a book gift box or hamper.
If the idea of somebody choosing a new book for her each month sounds exactly like her kind of present, explore our Book Subscriptions in Ireland.
And if you want to give it as a complete prepaid gift, the Advance Book Subscription is the place to start.
You don't need to know every book Mum has ever read to buy a brilliant gift for someone who loves reading.
