Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature  brought to you by the Broke and the Bookish.

I think my mom was heartbroken when I asked her if Santa was real in the second grade. She loved the magic of it. She told me that while Santa and fairies might not be real, the magic of Christmas and giving was. My mom told me that it was my job not to spoil the magic for anyone else, and I solemnly vowed not to reveal Santa’s mythical origins to anyone who believed.

Whether or not you still believe in Santa, there’s no denying that a book is a perfect Christmas present. For more on how books started modern Christmas gift giving, read this.

I try to be really choosy with the books I ask for. I’ve either read the book before, or I’m pretty certain that it will meet the criteria to stay on my bookshelves after I’ve read it (it’s good enough to reread or I would recommend it to someone else).

So here are ten books I asked for this holiday season:

• The Last Love Song Tracy  Daugherty– This biography of Joan Didion (who is amazing by the way–read her books, especially her first collection of essays) was written by a college professor of mine. I took his Joan Didion class and found it interesting and illuminating. No doubt the book will be the same.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore–Another professor talked to me about this book when she was trying to convince me to think about graduate school. She said I could find an illustrator for some awesome idea I’d yet to come up with.
• The next books in Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series that I don’t have.  I consider these books to be a guilty pleasure–historical fiction replete with spies, dashing escapades, and the right amount of romance.
• A collection of Oscar Wilde’s plays–The Importance of Being Earnest is probably my favorite play of all time. Wilde’s wit just spews forth like a fountain. I wish real life were as clever as this play.
• Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman–I enjoy Whitman’s poems whenever I read them, but I don’t have this book. I love broadening my poetry collection, and I almost always keep poetry books, even if they’re not my absolute favorites.
• The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov–This book is fantastic. I want to read it again, and I want to recommend it to everyone.
• The Princess Bride William Goldman–ditto
• As You Wish Cary Elwes–I’m really eager to read this, even if it doesn’t make the bookshelf.
• Royal Wedding Meg Cabot–I got rid of all my YA books when I went to college, so now I’m borrowing the Princess Diaries series from the library so that I’m ready for this book, you know, mentally.
• The complete Lord of the Rings series–I haven’t read these, only The Hobbit, and I really want to do so next year.

How do you choose books for people? Do you ask what they want? Have the perfect formula? Give the same perfect book? Let me know in the comments (and also link you own TTT’s if you made one).