Need recs for your holiday gift list? Ask a Penguin

Penguin’s book gift-giving hotline returns this year for its sixth season. Modeled on the famous Butterball hotline, which gives frustrated cooks tips on cooking their turkeys to perfection, the Penguin Hotline offers advice on which books to buy for the people on your holiday list. People visiting the Hotline section of the Penguin website can fill out a form explaining a bit about the person they’re buying for (for example, a dad who likes Tom Clancy and watches cop procedurals — the more info given, the easier it will be for Penguin staffers to tailor the recommendation). A few days later, a tailored recommendation will arrive in an e-mail. And no, the staff isn’t just recommending books from Penguin Random House.

“It’s publisher-agnostic. I always make a point of recommending books that aren’t from the company,” says Tom Colgan, an editorial director at Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of Penguin Group. “We have people who will write back again with more requests from their gift lists. It’s a lot of fun, and after all, we’re in this business because we love books. Sometimes people will give you some pretty outof-the-box ideas — ‘ I’m buying for someone who really likes romances

and apple pie.’ And you wonder, how important is that last part? Does there need to be mention of apple pie in the romance?”

The Penguin Hotline starts Tuesday and runs for two weeks. To receive a personalized recommendation, go to penguinhotline.com and complete the form. This year several readers will receive a “golden ticket” and have their request answered personally by a VIP author like Celeste Ng or Sophie Kinsella, among others.