A Book for Every Relative at Your Thanksgiving Table

For Your Marriage-Obsessed Grandmother: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
If you could erase one thing in your grandmother’s mind, it would be whatever impulse tells her to pester you about your marriage prospects every single time she sees you. No, you haven’t “settled down” yet, and no, you don’t have any plans to in the next six months. Years, maybe. So just hand her a copy of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl—not only should the suspense give her something else to think about (finally), but hopefully it just might change her mind about marriage being the end all, be all of life. Because not all marriages are happily ever after…

For Your Lovelorn Cousin: Grey, by E. L. James
Your cousin is lovely and smart and totally capable—which is why you’re going to throttle her if you have to hear her complain about her latest ex for hours on end. What she really needs is a good boyfriend, and you know what makes the best boyfriend of all? A book. Specifically this book, which should provide all the romance, drama, and excitement your cousin needs, so she can get back to doing interesting things with her life.

For Your Sports-Loving Father: The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
The trouble with sports fans on Thanksgiving day is that it’s pretty much impossible to change the subject. Distract your favorite football fanatic, then, with The Art of Fielding—a sports book that’s so good, it could quench his need for sports conversation altogether. Or at least inspire him to talk about the book for a bit first.

For Your Niece with the Attitude: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
There’s nothing like a nice healthy dose of perspective to check the overconfident, right? It’s not like your niece is that much younger or hipper than you—there’s what, ten years between you?—but she acts more like it’s forty. Kaling’s hilarious book might make her rethink the way she looks at life (and her own sense of self-importance). And if nothing else, you two will finally have something in common to talk about.

For Your Know-It-All Brother: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
You love your brother, but if he interrupts you to mansplain his latest dubious opinion one more time, you’re going to “accidentally” eat that last piece of pie he’s been gunning for. Occupy that brain of his with all 1,104 pages of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which at the very least should keep him busy until the new year rolls around. Bonus? You can spend the rest of the holidays asking for impromptu book reports on his progress and quizzing him on the plot—especially the footnotes.

For Your Guilt-Tripping Mother: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
How do you guilt trip a guilt tripper? Subtly, of course. And who better to make your mother reconsider her ways than Enid, Franzen’s sympathetic yet terribly frustrating portrait of overbearing mothers everywhere? She’ll love her and hate her for her needy-yet-domineering ways (how is that even possible?), and maybe, just maybe, she’ll learn to cool it on the pressure.

For Your Perfect Sister: The Opposite of Loneliness, by Marina Keegan
You want to give her a book that’ll express your frustrations, but let’s face it: even you think your sister is perfect. She’s up there on that glowing, golden pedestal for a reason. So despite the fact that her awesomeness annoys you to no end, you can’t help but want to be the one who gives her a book that’ll fascinate and impress her. With its combination of fiction, nonfiction, and sheer brilliance, The Opposite of Loneliness will make your sister fall in love with being young and break her heart all at once, and she’ll have you to thank for it. (Well, you and Keegan.)

For That One Inappropriate Male Relative: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
Is he your uncle? Your second cousin? No one’s really sure how, exactly, he’s related to everyone at the table; he just showed up one year, and no one’s been able to stop him since. But between his creepy prolonged staring and totally terrible jokes, you really wish you could send him back to his real family—or at least get him to stop waggling his eyebrows whenever he talks to you. The solution? Give him a subtle reminder that anyone in your family could take revenge a la Jackson’s creepy classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Because nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving” like arsenic in the sugar bowl.
What reading recommendations do you have for your obnoxious relatives?