(Photo: Courtesy of Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.)

David Del Vecchio, Idlewild Books
12 W. 19th St., nr. Fifth Ave.; 212-414-8888
The gift: The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy
Why: "Some of the tales are very sexy. The tales themselves were collected over centuries from India, Persia, and the Arab world, and this beautiful edition is the best translation yet."
Excerpt: "She rose like the morn as she shone through the night
And she gilded the grove with her gracious sight.
From her radiance the sun taketh increase when
She unveileth and shameth the moonshine bright."

(Photo: Courtesy of HarperCollins )

Linda Marotta, Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers
Various Locations
The gift: Latin Love Lessons, by Charlotte Higgins
Why: "Let this book fool your valentine into thinking you have some class. Its expressions of love include pain, passion, positions, and paintings. 'Procul hinc, procul este seueri.' (Prudes, this book is not for you.)"
Excerpt: "With Propertius, experience the traumas of obsession, and encounter an almost Proustian determination to express precisely what being in love feels like. With Horace, learn how to grasp life by the balls and live it to the full."

(Photo: Courtesy of HNA Books)

Gabe Fowler, Desert Island
540 Metropolitan Ave., nr. Union Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-388-5087
The gift: Erotic Comics: A Graphic History, by Tim Pilcher and Gene Kannenberg Jr.
Why: "This is an amazing history of sexy drawings, from Victorian smut to R. Crumb and his progeny. It's extremely sexy, hilarious—even a little educational."
Excerpt: "Erotic Comics have always had to battle with the tricky debate of erotica versus pornography....As the late artist Stephen Gilbert quipped: 'The difference between erotica and pornography is simple. Erotica is what I like. Pornography is what you like, you pervert.'"

(Photo: Courtesy of Picador)

Anne-Marie Belli, Crawford Doyle Booksellers
1082 Madison Ave., nr. 82nd St.; 212-288-6300
The gift: Call Me by Your Name, by André Aciman
Why: "This Proustian novel of love takes place in the crucible of a leisurely summer abroad. It's a story of yearning and learning, love and compromise that speaks to all with delicious intensity."
Excerpt: "Perhaps the very least I wanted was for him to tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was no less human than any other young man my age. I would have been satisfied and asked for nothing else than if he'd bent down and picked up the dignity I could so effortlessly have thrown at his feet."

(Photo: Courtesy of Verso)

Dustin Kurtz, McNally Jackson
52 Prince St., nr. Mulberry St.; 212-274-1160
The gift: From A to X: A Story in Letters, by John Berger
Why: "This is the most romantic book I've read in years and, strangely enough, I don't mean that as an indictment."
Excerpt: "When I hold a letter of yours in my hand, what I feel first is your warmth. The same warmth that's in your voice when you sing. I want to press myself against it but I don't, for, if I wait, the warmth will surround me on every side."