Today I’m delighted to share the first annual Lightplay Gift Guide. I had a lot of fun putting this together. Inspired by my pleasure in reading other folks’ gift guides, I decided to collect some of my own idiosyncratic taste and try to boil it down into a compact package. I hope it’s entertaining—and who knows, maybe you’ll find something for someone you love… or for yourself!
For your browsing ease, I have sorted the gifts into five categories:
I. For Your Lifehacker Uncle
II. For the Writer in Your Life
III. Youthful Pleasures for All Ages
IV. For the Literary Political Junkie
V. For Cooks and Zinemakers
Full disclosure: I’m recommending a handful of books and one video game made by friends. I mean, what, are we supposed to only like things made by strangers and/or enemies? Anyways, you have been warned.
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This archived Lightplay was sent on 3 December 2025.
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I. “FOR YOUR LIFEHACKER UNCLE”
Magnetic Wallet Phone Stand ($40)
This Japanese-designed marvel is a triple threat: it holds some cash and three cards, it’s a sturdy Magsafe phone stand (working both for vertical and horizontal), and it will make the gift recipient’s phone just heavy enough that they will be less likely to use it for long periods of time. Win-win-win! But for real, I love this thing and leave it attached to my phone all day, every day.
Chico Bags ($16)
The perfect stocking stuffer: stuff it with a stuff sack stuffed with a bigger sack: a bag in a bag in a bag. Having one or more of these on your person is an essential and cost-effective superpower—a real-life Bag of Holding.
(See also Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”; chaser: the Between the Covers episode about the essay, with Lidia Yuknavitch.)
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II. “FOR THE WRITER IN YOUR LIFE”
iClever IC-BK06 Wireless Keyboard ($40)
On the topic of magic devices that fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans: this clamshell keyboard lets you turn your, uh, telephone (?) into a typewriter so futuristic it would have made Isaac Asimov gasp.
Electric Typewriter ($16 – ∞)
But maybe instead of turning a telephone into a typewriter, we should turn a typewriter into an … electric typewriter? But really! An electric typewriter takes the main problem with trying to write more than a few pages on a mechanical typewriter—finger fatigue leading eventually to carpal tunnel—and mostly resolves it. This was cutting edge tech in 1966, and it’s still pretty cool. Miraculously, the Mechanical Typewriter Resurgence™ hasn’t really happened, at least not yet, so you can still pick these heavy boys up for cheap.
(I got mine, a “Smith Corona Coronet 12 Electric Portable Typewriter (Untested),” for $15.99 plus shipping from Goodwill’s auction website.)
MD Notebooks ($10-20)
Disregard the previous two entries: longhand is where it’s at. These fancy Japanese notebooks are my current fave: lovely to glide a Pilot Precise V7 (fine) across, handsomely bound, and they look great if you illustrate / collage the cover and then protect it behind a layer of packing tape. Dreamy.
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III. “YOUTHFUL PLEASURES FOR ALL AGES”
Giant on the Shore by Alfonso Ochoa and Andrés López, tr. Shook ($20)
A spare, moving picture book about a giant who never fully appears. The artist used their own footprint in this composition; the text also has an intriguing metatextuality. Despite or because of this high literary quality, the kid is riveted.
Path of Achra by Ulfsire ($10)
The only video game I have loved in the last decade. The gameplay is totally compulsive, and the world evocative and strange. It was created by a single creator, Ulfsire, who happens also to be a wonderful poet and teacher. If you don’t have a PC or don’t have time to get sucked into a video game, you can get a flavor of Achra on its lore website. Get this for the gamer in your life!
Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall ($19)
My favorite picture book I read this year, Hello Lighthouse is a story about cycles of life and about how lighthouses work and about loneliness and longing. Spreads include entrancing cutaways and pleasingly geometric compositions and everything you could want from a lighthouse story. (Except a visit from the Old Ones.)
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IV. “FOR THE LITERARY POLITICAL JUNKIE”
The President by Xander Beattie ($27)
A thriller about a corrupt president might sound exhausting today, but, au contraire, Xander’s debut novel, The President, is fun and alive. It has on its side that it’s gay and African and set in 2012 and formally inventive and full of twenty-something literary yearning. Plus, this edition (put out by the author) is quite cute, with flashy binding and an unusual pocket-size form factor. It could definitely fit in a stocking!
Agrippina the Younger by Diana Arterian ($19)
Through propulsive and by turns funny and gutting (sometimes literally) poems, we learn that Agrippina was far more than “Nero’s mother.” Though she was that, too. (He arranged her murder.) This is the only book of poetry I’ve ever read where I regularly consulted the family tree in the front. A potential eye-opener for your relative who “thinks about the Roman empire X times per week.”
A Subscription to N+1 (or The Believer, or Aperture) ($45 – 75)
A single magazine subscription can do real good in the world: it helps writers and editors get paid, it underwrites the creation of art and culture, and it brings a thoughtful and curated collection of writing into the subscriber’s home on a regular cadence. Here are three journals I get in the mail and read like a fiend:
- N+1 regularly publishes the sharpest writing on politics and art available today.
- Aperture is a must-read for anyone who cares about photography.
- The Believer is experiencing a second golden age, now that it’s back under the care of McSweeney’s; every issue has something amazing in it.
Whether it’s to one of these or to some other publication, I think a subscription to a quarterly journal can be a fun and impactful gift.
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V. “FOR COOKS AND ZINEMAKERS”
Chuannan Hot Chili Oil ($6)
Soooooo gooooood. With all the emphasis on chili crisps over the last half-decade, I think many cooks have forgotten about the power of a good chili oil. Chili crisp is a condiment, but chili oil is a key ingredient in so many delicious dishes. Get it for someone who loves Chinese food. (Also good: Shuita Superior Mature Vinegar.)
Trade Coffee ($30-200)
Getting fresh coffee beans in the mail is both fun and practical. Trade arranges for small, independent roasters from across the country to send fresh-roasted beans to subscribers. The subscriber sets up the roast profile and cadence, and each bag is a delicious surprise. I have it so that every ten days a new roaster sends me a bag of freshly roasted, fruity, light-roast, single-origin beans. Pure pleasure.
Four-Waffles-At-A-Time Waffle Iron ($75)
Waffles are one of the great compensations of modernity. Even better: getting to eat waffles at the same time as your friends and family, rather than waiting hungrily for the waffles to finish one by one. So why not buy your favorite waffle-slinger an iron that makes four at once? And while you’re at it, turn them on to my world-famous banana waffle recipe.
Long-Reach Stapler ($27)
If the photocopier is the iconic tool of the zinemaker, the long-reach stapler is their secret weapon. This funny looking stapler makes saddle stitch binding a cinch. So if someone in your life has been talking about making their own zines, why not get them one of these bad boys? Call their bluff!
The motes from this edition of Lightplay are archived at jasper.land.