Christmas 2012: Classic books - Telegraph Although ephemeral ebooks continue to flourish on the screens of ereaders, could we be seeing a return of a need for the haptic? Psychologically it makes sense: one doesn't feel one owns an ebook (in fact, legally, you don't - you only have a licence to it). However, a beautifully produced book not only belongs to you, but to future generations. Published earlier this year, in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, was a series of books with starry designers. Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea (Vintage, £9.99) has a bold, swirling cover by Zandra Rhodes. There's also a striking geometric cover for Ian McEwan's Enduring Love (Vintage, £9.99) by WilkinsonEyre Architects. Penguin Classics don't disappoint with their compact cloth-bound editions: they fit in your hand (or man) bag, and are a serious treat to hold and contemplate. Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin, £18.99) is the dark green of the waters around that fabled isle; on its cover are crimson Venetian masks, reminding us of the layers of deception that inhabit this most wonderful of romances. Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (Penguin, £18.99) is a more serious black, with scarlet birds poised between vertical lines - souls trapped, yet singing. Alma Books has a selection of F Scott Fitzgerald's novels, including The Great Gatsby (Alma, £6.99), with illustrations of spindly, flapperish characters set against raised gold lettering that capture the books" jazzy brilliance. If you want something affordable, you could do worse than The Complete Jane Austen (Wordsworth, £11.99). More Christmassy are two editions of Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books (Everyman, £10.99), introduced by Margaret Atwood, and Dickens at Christmas (Vintage, £15). You can practically taste the mince pies. For the fashionable, what about Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (Virago, £12.99) or Elizabeth Jenkins's The Tortoise and the Hare (Virago, £12.99), so sophisticated you can only read them with a cigarette holder and a martini? The latter is introduced by this year's paramount novelist, Hilary Mantel. Philip Womack is the author of The Liberators and The Other Book