Niche book gift ideas for every type of friend, according to Bacteria Books

Add it to the TBR.

I’ll happily admit I’m the biggest bookworm in the FJ office. I’ve asked booksellers for their favourite beach reads, interviewed local authors and delved into important areas, like books that centre the queer experience.

However, one area I’ve yet to tackle is the niche – those unique reads that hone in on one specific topic or theme, that can’t simply be summarised in one short sentence. And for those recommendations, there’s no one better to turn to than the team behind Bacteria Books.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

Founded in 2019 by Lora Ward on Bundjalung Country in Byron Bay, Bacteria Books is a specialist bookstore and distribution house known for its assortment of one-off, rare and vintage books. With a focus on those ‘left-of-centre’ titles, its shelves are lined with genres ranging from art and design, to poetry and cultural theory.

Given we’re fast approaching gifting season, what says ‘I know you and I love you’ better than a particularly niche book? From a softcover tracing a designer’s quest to make 100 chairs in 100 days, to a study into the rituals, symbols, habits and habitats of surfers, there’s something for everyone. Below, find six suggestions straight from the team at Bacteria Books.

JB Blunk, Edition 4

A book for: the friend who likes speaking with trees.

JB Blunk Edition Four is a portal into the world of not merely an artist, but an occultist intermediary between the human hand and the daydreaming mind of the Earth. In his wood and clay, you can feel the intelligence of a forest and the mineral patience of a mountain. To look through this book is to remember that art, at its highest function, is an act of participation in the alchemy of nature.

A perfect offering for anyone attuned to the frequencies of nature, intuition and the handmade.

Get it here.

100 Chairs in 100 Days and it’s 100 Ways (5th edition, 5th size) by Martino Gamper

A book for: the friend who likes rearranging reality just to see what happens.

Martino Gamper’s 100 Chairs in 100 Days is a psychedelic meditation on the ontology of objects. It’s a playful deconstruction of the platonic ideal of ‘chair.’ Each piece is a mutation, a revelation, a small act of design sorcery.

A joyful gift for the restless mind. For those who see humour in transformation and poetry in the everyday. 100 Chairs in 100 Days and Its 100 Ways is a tactile manifesto of creativity without hesitation, where imperfection becomes a religion.

Get it here.

Inventory Works by Max Lamb

A book for: the friend who likes finding transcendence in the process.

Max Lamb’s Inventory Works is a ceremonial archive, a compendium of forms as a philosophy. Each object is a fossil of intention, a crystallisation of the dialogue between hand, material, and time. The book itself is an initiation: the sealed french folded pages await the blade to be sliced open, demanding participation, ritual and curiosity.

A gift for those who savour the tactile and ritualistic. Inventory Works invites the reader to engage, by cutting open each page, transforming the experience of reading into a performance of discovery.

Get it here.

Worms Journal, Issue 8

A magazine for: the friend who likes composting thoughts.

Worms Journal Issue 8 is a subterranean bloom, a compost heap of consciousness where literature decomposes and regenerates into new forms of life. Worms transcends the conventional taxonomy of genre; it is an underground mycelial network bringing the unseen, the unheard, and the unclassifiable to the surface of cultural top soil.

A perfect gift for those who dwell between worlds, readers drawn to the edge, where literature merges with ecology, identity and resistance.

Get it here.

Primitive Skills Magazine, V01

A magazine for: the friend who likes chasing the eternal wave across time.

Primitive Skills Volume 01 is a salt-crusted transmission from the outer edges of consciousness. A field manual for those who have traded orthodoxy for oceanic revelations. It documents the rituals and mythologies of the wave-born nomads, the aquatic shamans who surf the thresholds between culture and chaos.

A perfect gift for those drawn to the feral frequencies of freedom: the seekers, drifters and sunburnt philosophers.

Get it here.

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction Ed. Two by Ursula K. Le Guin

A magazine for: the friend who likes collecting seeds and ideas.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction is a mythic recalibration of human history, a gentle yet radical shift from the masculine spear to the feminine basket. Le Guin reminds us that the true technology of consciousness is not the weapon but the vessel, the story that holds rather than wounds and gathers rather than divides.

A perfect gift for the quiet revolutionaries – thinkers, writers and dreamers who sense that the future will be woven, not won.

Get it here.

Find more from Bacteria Books here.