This holiday season, we're making it easy for you Give Canadian. For the next few weeks, we'll be helping our readers match their most special someones with the perfect Canadian Book. If you would like some expert advice, email your holiday book shopping quandary to hello@canadianbookshelf.com, and we'll do our best to get you sorted.

Dear Canadian Bookshelf,

Can you suggest a Canadian book that I can buy for my dad this year? He only ever reads books about the war.

Derek M, Brandon MB

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Dear Derek,

Oh, "the war." If there really only were just one, but then think of all the books that would never be. You're lucky in that your dad's narrow field of interest is not so narrow after all. If you do a search for "the war" at Canadian Bookshelf, the results are in the hundreds. But we've narrowed them down for you to highlight some interesting selections your dad will love.

The first is an academic book, but we love the approach and we really love the cover. In Victory Through Harmony, Christina Baade explores how the BBC and popular music were used as a rallying force during WW2. In Breakout from Juno, Mark Zuehlke chronicles the role of the Canadian Army through the Normany Campaign. Stephen J. Columbo's A Letter From Frank is the story of a friendship between Columbo's father, a Canadian Soldier, and a German paratrooper. And to bring your father's reading up to date, may we suggest Sunray: The Life and Death of Captain Nichola Goddard by Valerie Fortney, as well as Samantha Nutt's latest book Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid.

And if you're thinking fiction, with three very different twists, check out Steven Galloway's Cellist of Serajevo, Alison Pick's Far to Go, and the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner, Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists.

Happy Shopping!