These are the gaming books you need to read this holiday season, from my shelf to yours

Love gaming but don't quite know why? Whether you want to understand more about the hobby that steals so much of your time (and cash) or you're keen to work out exactly why it feels so damn good to watch those numbers go up, there's a wealth of literature out there exploring this wonderful world of play. I've been ripping into these titles for years now, but I keep a select few on my shelf within easy reach, and I've brought them all here to you today. Hint: they make excellent gifts for gamers if you're at a loss.

Jane McGonigal's 'Reality is Broken' is one of the first I picked up when I got serious about learning how this artform ticks and it's potential away from the controller. It's where I'd recommend most players start, but it's complemented beautifully by works of Tom Bissell, Jordan Erica Webber, and Daniel Griliopoulos. These first three titles are more about what games can give us outside of their textual stories and mechanics. The next three are about these structures themselves. If the top three are about what games can do, the next three are about how. Values at Play in Digital Games, How Games Move Us, and Uncertainty in Games all look much closer at the everyday elements of games we take for granted.

Then we take a slight detour into a Jason Schreier's Blood, Sweat, and Pixels to hear a little more about development before diving into the point of all this in the first place; play. Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens is a pretty seminal exploration of the role creativity, problem-solving, and experimentation plays in human history and development, but if you'd prefer a lighter approach, Steven Johnson's Wonderland approaches the modern world from the same vantage point.

Check out our retro gifts, the best Nintendo gifts, or the best PlayStation gifts if you're on the hunt for some gaming goodies for the holidays.