I must confess, as strange as it sounds, I have never been very comfortable with receiving gifts and I am especially uncomfortable about telling people what I would like for Christmas. My wife comes from a large extended family and every year I struggle to think what to say when people ask me. This year when I received an email from my brother-in-law asking the dreaded question, I decided to take a different approach and just distribute my Amazon Wish List.
My wish list was never actually a list I put together for the purposes of distributing, I have always kept lists of books I want to read and thanks to a life long history of insomnia and also a one hour train ride to work I am always looking for new books.
The result was great, I didn’t feel awkward being specific about what I wanted and based on the number of books I received from the list my in-laws where OK with using it.
Another useful thing to note is that after Christmas I went onto my wish list to remove the books I had received only to discover that Amazon had already done so which I thought was a very nice feature.
Here is the list of books I very kindly received that will be keeping my nights and train rides occupied for the foreseeable future.
The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
by John Maeda
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People: What Makes Them Tick? (Voices That Matter)
by Susan Weinschenk
Living with Complexity
by Donald A. Norman
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
by Scott McCloud
The Design of Everyday Things
by Donald Norman
Design by Nature: Using Universal Forms and Principles in Design (Voices That Matter)
by Maggie Macnab
Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences (Voices That Matter)
by Stephen P. Anderson
If anyone else is interested in seeing what else is on my current wish list then the address is here. Think I could learn to like this gift receiving thing.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/1Z8DGRZRF12W7
