Holidays are supposed to be the festive stop signs of the year, occasions to pause and get the bigger sense of things. Books can also offer a welcome pause, which is why they make ideal gifts. Long after Yuletide, a volume found beneath the tree can be a respite in a hurried time.

That’s the idea behind the holiday books list I offer here after each Thanksgiving. These aren’t necessarily my “best-of-the-year” titles. They’re just books I’ve recently enjoyed that you might also consider as gifts for that special someone — or maybe yourself.

Since our theme today is the useful pause, I’ll start with Margaret Renkl’s “The Comfort of Crows,” a chronicle of four seasons in her Nashville backyard. A lot of us paid more attention to backyard nature when we were home during the lockdowns, but Renkl does this sort of looking all the time. “Wherever you are, stop what you’re doing,” she tells readers at the start. It’s a call to cease our ambitions for a moment and savor nearby wonders, and Renkl is such a lovely writer that she makes you see beauty as she does.

Another recent book in this tradition is “Stranded,” marine biologist Maddalena Bearzi’s account of what she saw from her window when the pandemic kept her home. “Hold tight to joyful memories; they can rescue you when you need them,” she wisely advises. Yet another nice entry in this category is “A Farm Life,” Darlyn Brewer Hoffstot’s collection of essays about her rural Pennsylvania homestead. Hoffstot lives far away from my Louisiana home, but her sharp attention to the trees, birds and plants just beyond her doorstep helped me see my own corner of the world more clearly.

Seeing clearly is the theme of Roger Rosenblatt’s “Cataract Blues,” a small, lyrical memoir about how surgery successfully restored his vision, giving him a new lease on life in old age. At 92, John McPhee knows a few things about old age, too. In “Tabula Rosa,” he recounts stories from his long career as a writer at The New Yorker. Though McPhee is known for exhaustively reported and detailed magazines pieces, these reminiscences are more casual and compact, which makes a fitting capstone to a stellar career. In “The Noise of Typewriters,” another recent work from a longtime lion of letters, Lance Morrow reflects on his Time magazine career and the broader currents of journalism that shaped the 20th century. How wonderful to be reminded that a writer I first discovered in college is still writing flawless sentences.

“Flawless” best describes “Small Things Like These,” Irish writer Claire Keegan’s fictional story about a family that faces a daunting decision about whether to shelter a girl who desperately needs help. This moving tale is set at Christmas, but it can be read anytime.

Good books, after all, defy season. Happy reading during the holidays — and throughout the coming year.