Jane Austin or Julia Childs; any book written by a woman is a great gift to give a woman. Consider it letting her know your acknowledgement of the creative and literary ability of the female persuasion. She doesn’t want to read Arnold Schwartzenegger’s guide to body building, she wants to read about Maria Shriver’s struggle with post-partum depression. She is a woman, and this is something you can acknowledge as powerful in itself, then she will see you as very appealing. Try Amazon.co.uk again or one of the smaller online used bookstores which are great for finding rare books. Once you receive the treasure, try writing a little ditty in the front cover telling her how much you love her.

For something really beautiful, go to Abook4all.com where they offer leather bound books. The site has a whole array of subjects for you to browse through, such as humour, numismatics, gardening, and my favourite - royalty and heraldry. Given all the associations these guys are members of; I think this is a great site to start out at in developing a quite extensive library.