From LEGO Sets to Crochet Card Decks: Unique Christmas Gifts from Exclusive Books

Searching for the perfect gift for a family member, friend, partner or colleague this holiday season? Exclusive Books is here to help, offering a diverse array of unique gifts that go beyond just books. From BookNooks to puzzles, elaborate LEGO sets, and more, you’ll leave your recipients satisfied with a new, thoughtful gift this Christmas.

Exclusive Books Gifts BookNook and Book Stenciling Kit | What's on in Joburg

Arts & Crafts gifts

If you’re looking for a gift for a booklover or a book-loving creative, these will make the perfect gifts.

BookNooks

The Shakespeare and Company BookNook is the perfect purchase. The Rolife Bookstore’s design was inspired by France’s famous ‘Shakespeare’s Bookstore,’ and its iconic scenes have been incorporated into this book nook kit.

More BookNooks include the Sakura Densya BookNook which is a DIY bookshelf decoration in the form of a miniature house showing an amazing scene of Tokyo streets in Spring, the Gardenhouse BookNook that takes the shape and look of a beautiful garden house, and the Sunshine Town BookNook, a creative 3D Wooden DIY miniature house book nook shelf insert designed to look like a storybook European town.

Cost: From R804 each. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Book Edge Stenciling Kit

This Book Edge Stenciling Kit includes clamps, sponges, a 24-page book, sticker stencils, paints (acrylic, glow-in-the-dark, metallic), and markers perfect for book design and bookbinding, painting, drawing and art manuals, and book and paper crafts.

Cost: R300 each. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Exclusive Books Gifts Paint by Numbers and Granny Square Card Deck | What's on in Joburg

Hobbies & puzzle gifts

These make the perfect gifts for those who like crafty indoor activities and games.

Paint by Numbers

This gift is perfect for creative individuals with an eye for detail. Purchase the Paint by Numbers Sunday Blooms, and once done, a beautiful bouquet of blooms emerges, or get the Paint by Numbers Lucy kit, and once done, a portrait of a woman draped in florals emerges.

Cost: R360 each. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Granny Square Card Decks

For those that love to do things with their hands, the Granny Square Card Decks are a great option. The original Granny Square Card Deck™ features 50 eye-catching granny square designs in a stylish card deck, perfect for on-the-go crochet. This card deck of 50 gorgeous grannies will help inspire you with a mix of colour and design combinations.

The Granny Square Flowers Card Deck™ is a fabulously floral follow-up to the sell-out sensation, The Granny Square Card Deck™ and features exclusively floral designs.

Cost: R350 per deck. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Puzzles

Those who love problem-solving and enjoy patient activities will love the puzzle selection available at Exclusive Books. The kiddies can play around with the 45-piece Into the Wild set, whilst older kids and adults can take on the 1000-piece Lemon Haze set.

Cost: R135 for the 45-piece; R399 for the 1000-piece set. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Exclusive Books Gifts Lego Botanicals | What's on in Joburg

Journals

This is for the writers, notetakers, artists, and students.

Exclusive Books is selling a collection of beautifully crafted Flame Tree Studio notebooks, including a Van Gogh Artisan Notebook and a Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers Notebook, an Alice in Wonderland Artisan Notebook, a Vincent van Gogh: Café Terrace (Foiled Quarto Journal), and an Esté MacLeod: San Pedro (Foiled Journal).

Cost: From R190 to R260. Purchase in the Gifting section online

LEGO

LEGO enthusiasts will have a blast building these botanical-themed sets. Available sets include the Tiny Plants Lego, the Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet Lego, the Mini Orchid Lego Botanicals, the Chrysanthemum Lego, the Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree Lego, the Petite Sunny Bouquet Lego Botanicals, the Happy Plants Lego Botanicals (perfect for little kids), the The Fauna Collection Tiger Lego, and the Plum Blossom Lego.

Cost: R359 to R1142 a set. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Emotional Monsters Snap

Use this Emotional Monsters Snap 52-card pack to teach the little ones about emotions, with each card revealing a cute little monster displaying a different emotion.

Cost: R124 per deck. Purchase in the Gifting section online

Exclusive Books Gifts Colouring Kit and Alice in Wonderland Notebook | What's on in Joburg

Games and more gifts

These items are perfect for kids and adults who love to play and craft as well as people with niche world interests.

Colouring kits

The Cosy and Cute Colouring kits are perfect for relaxation and slowing down. With 10 specialty alcohol markers, create a moment of calm with happy scenes of animal characters baking, gardening and more.

Cost: R225 per kit. Purchase in the Games & more section online

Minecraft The Ultimate Mobspotter’s Collection Gift Box

This incredible Minecraft gift box includes three mini books, a zombie model, and a poster with a free game on the back. Partake in Minecraft activities and games, learn more about Minecraft mobs, and more.

Cost: R399 per box. Purchase in the Games & more section online

Niche interest books

Gift someone the Guinness World Records 2026 and open the ultimate window on record-breaking with this compilation of the most remarkable records from around the world as of this year.

For the language buff, the Dictionary of Fine Distinctions is a great gifting choice. The book explores the world of the vanishingly small, teasing apart the terms that people tend to collapse, conflate, or confuse.

Cost: R300 for the Guinness World Records 2026; R395 for the Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. Purchase in the Games & more section online

Exclusive Books Gifts Madam Impossible | What's on in Joburg

Book gifts

It’s not an Exclusive Books gift guide without a few books on the list. Browse everything from coffee table books to humour and fiction novels.

Coffee table books

Coffee table books are the perfect home addition, and at Exclusive Books, you can purchase two of them. The first is an advice book titled Always Remember, and written by best-selling author Charlie Mackesy, that covers love, bravery and how to deal with the dark days. The second is Nataniël’s Bloei + Blom, an Afrikaans book about Afrikaans culture, celebrated through the stories of 200 trailblazing Afrikaners.

Cost: R600 for Always Remember; R865 for Bloei + Blom. Purchase in the Coffee Table Books section online

Nature and Science

The books in this category make the perfect gifts for curious minds. David Bristow’s Loony Birds, Lion Men and the Snake That Was a Gerbil draws from Bristow’s Stories from the Veld collection to bring readers the ultimate compilation of fascinating characters, extraordinary insights and action-packed bush tales of derring-do.

For the history lover, Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0, makes complex subjects clear and compelling for everyone with an interest in the world around them. Finally, for those with an interest in all things to do with the universe, Stephen Hawking’s Brief Answers to the Big Questions illuminates the fascinating science of our universe like never before.

Cost: R305 for Loony Birds; R350 for A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0; R710 for Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Purchase in the Nature & General Science section online

Humour

This category is perfect for purchasing a gift for someone who loves to laugh or just needs a bit of humour in their life right now. Fans of the politically satirical Zapiro cartoons will enjoy Zapiro Annual 2025: What Else Could Go Wrong? offering even more satire as he chronicles the nation’s latest highs and lows.

Another satirical classic is on the shelves with Madam & Eve Annual 2025 Madam: Impossible. Join Madam, Eve, Mother Anderson, Thandi and the rest of the beloved cast of characters for a laughter-filled ride on the rollercoaster that is yet another crazy year in South Africa.

Cost: R250 each. Purchase in the Humour section online

Fiction

There are tons and tons of fiction books at Exclusive Books that would make the perfect Christmas gift.

A highlight includes Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain, a one-of-a-kind novel that grapples with the supernatural mysteries of life, death, and human connection that emerges from an unprecedented collaboration between the globally bestselling author of love stories like The Notebook and the renowned writer and director of blockbuster thrillers like The Sixth Sense.

Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets is another hot pick. In it, Robert Langdon accompanies celebrated academic, Katherine Solomon, to a lecture she’s been invited to give in Prague. But his world spirals out of control when she disappears without trace from their hotel room.

Another choice is Deon Meyer’s Skorpio, an Afrikaans crime fiction where two detectives investigating two separate crimes find that there may be much more to the cases than they seem, with international conspiracy at the centre of it all.

Cost: R320 for Remain; R605 for The Secret of Secrets; R385 for Skorpio. Purchase in the Fiction section online