Just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping, the "world's librarian" Nancy Pearl, who is also a best-selling author herself, shares her favorite books for giving (or reading yourself) this holiday season (find titles and links below).

Nancy also shares her advice for testing out a new friendship: give your new friend a book for Christmas, and whether they bother to read it (or love it or hate it) might inform whether your friendship has longterm potential.

Here our Nancy's picks for this holiday season:

The Company: A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell

The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War-a Tragedy in Three Acts by Scott Anderson

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (illustrated) by Gertrude Stein and Maira Kalman

Here We Are by Graham Swift

Hench: A Novel by Natalie Zina Walschots

Set My Heart to Five: A Novel by Simon Stephenson

Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown

Find Nancy on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or at her website.

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