There are three things guaranteed to be winners under the CityMag Christmas tree - books, chocolate and Campari. Here's a head start on the first option.

Bookstores have many hundreds of books in them. Rather than send you blindly panicked into the rows of shelves this Christmas shopping season, we’ve curated a few selections to match the interests of those around you.

With any luck, that will leave you with plenty of time to find a book as an early Christmas present for yourself too.

For the kitchen:

TAQUERIA: New-Style Fun and Friendly Mexican Cooking / Paul Wilson / Hardcover / Available Now

Paul Wilson brings a genuine and in-depth knowledge to Mexican – the most universally-lovable and frequently-adulterated of all cuisines – in his new book. Taking cues from the Taqueria street stands of Mexico, he shows that quality ingredients, a good attitude and a bit of work are all that is required to cook Latin American food properly. Straying far from the realm of Old El Paso, Wilson lays out more than 80 recipes – many of which are vegetarian, and many of which aren’t, but all of which are ideal for a hot Australian summer evening.

 For the kids:

Penguin Problems / John Jory and Lane Smith / Hardcover / Available now

A truly magical kids’ book is one that still seems as charming to the adult doing the reading as it does to the kid doing the listening, even after it’s been read over, and over, and over again. In creating Penguin Problems Jory John and Lane Smith may have achieved this unlikely feat. Shaped around a penguin levelling with humans about what Antarctic bird life is really like, this book aims straight for the funny bones in little people and results in appreciative sighs from the bigger ones.

For the mind:

NEW SCIENTIST: The Origin of (Almost) Everything – From the Big Bang to Belly Button Fluff / Hardcover / Available now

It seems quite possible to us here at CityMag that the evolution of the infographic is almost as important to the accessibility of knowledge as the evolution of the World Wide Web. Capable of explaining immensely complex things to even the most uninitiated of lay(wo)men, infographics bring important disciplines like science within reach, and they also lie at the heart of this book success. The Origin of (Almost) Everything is spearheaded by The New York Times’ graphics editor Jennifer Daniel, who – through a compendium of witty essay and demystifying infographics – takes us on a whistlestop tour from the start of our universe all the way through to modern technology.