Time once again to choose those books best suited as gifts for fathers, uncles, aunts and other "hard-to-buy-fors". The Atheist's Guide to Christmas (Friday Books, £8.99) features essays by Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, Charlie Brooker, Brian Cox, Ed Byrne and other TV people. The gist of most of the pieces is best summed up by the late Claire Rayner's contribution in which she announces "Pooh to Deep Meanings". And wee to them also. Life of Pee: The Story of How Urine Got Everywhere (Aurum, £10.99) is an A-Z of useful urine facts: the German artist who injected bananas with urine; the uses of pig wee and urine bombs. The book is compiled by Sally Magnusson, who presents Songs of Praise. It's as if Thora Hird had written The Biography of Malcolm X.

Life of Pee is of that sub-genre of books that one might call quirky reference. There are many contenders for the crown of best QR, but the undisputed heavyweight of the lightweight remains QI, the BBC panel game. QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance (Faber, £12.99), edited by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, contains everything one might wish for and expect, including a snuggly "Forethought" from Stephen Fry. Fry fans might also enjoy Mrs Fry's Diary (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99). Or they might not. A spin-off from the spoof Twitter character, it is dedicated to "Stephen and the bills". 1 January: "Made our New Year's resolutions. Mine is to be even more patient and understanding than I already am and Stephen's is to give up swearing. And kebabs. And karaoke. And tequila. And her at number 38."

Other celebrities with bills to pay include Clare Balding, whose delightful Britain By Bike (Batsford, £16.99) is based on a TV series, and Roger Sterling, with Sterling's Gold (Grove Press, £12.99), though Sterling isn't strictly speaking a celebrity. He's a character in the TV drama Mad Men, and the book is a compilation of his most memorable lines, including: "You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation. You drink for the wrong reasons. My generation? . . . We drink because it's what men do."

Men do other things, of course  such as keep squirrels. Ten pence from the sale of each copy of Axel Scheffler's How to Keep a Pet Squirrel (Faber, £9.99) is donated to the charity Save Our Squirrels. Caroline Taggart's Her Ladyship's Guide to the Queen's English (National Trust Books, £7.99) is also true to its title, with advice on spelling, grammar and the correct way to address non-royal dukes and the offspring of earls.

Which brings us to the top three gift books of the season. (Schott's Almanac, Bloomsbury, £16.99, is discounted because it no longer counts as a gift book, but as a Christmas essential, like Delia Smith, or turkey.) In third place is A Dodo at Oxford (Oxgarth Press, £12.99), edited by Philip Atkins and Michael Johnson, a spoof of a 17th-century student's diary of his pet dodo. For smart-alecks. In second place is The Truth about Santa: Wormholes, Robots and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve (Bloomsbury, £9.99) by Gregory Mone. "As anyone with a decent grasp of physics, biology, and materials science understands, Santa's advertised abilities are perfectly plausible," writes Mone. And in first place: David Rose's Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland (Picador, £9.99), the second volume of personal ads from the London Review of Books. Rose describes himself as "the angst-devouring love-conduit through which Britain's most romantically awkward eggheads play out their weird and frequently disturbing sex rituals," which is accurate. "The LRB personals tell us not to be ashamed; to relax a little and enjoy what's out there without feeling threatened by it. We can read them without ever having to suck in our gut." This is good news at this time of year, as at any other.

To order titles with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to www.guardian.co.uk/bookshop

"Every complaint about Christmas has been made, and made often," journalist Andrew Mueller points out in this scepticism-heavy gift book, featuring essays on the festive season by scientists, comedians, philosophers, activists and artists. It would be unsurprising, he continues, if a witness to Christ's birth had reacted to the Magi's gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense with "an indignant tut of, 'Tch, it's all got so commercial'".

Nevertheless, this heathen's guide to the holidays trots out more than a few of the same old gripes. Christmas seems to come around earlier every year, a couple of commentators point out. It has been hijacked by Jesus despite its traditions having pagan roots, we're reminded more than once and  yes  it's announced that Christmas has become less about togetherness and more about buying things.

About a third of the book's contributions rely on these sorts of cliches, but thankfully they're outweighed by juicier essays. David Baddiel and Arvind Ethan David take a look at why blockbuster movies rely on religious themes; Kapka Kassabova talks about below-ground churches in communist Bulgaria, where she grew up; and physicist Simon Singh encourages readers to spend Christmas tuning their radios to hear echoes of the big bang.

There are plenty of famous names involved, perhaps because all royalties will be donated to HIV charity the Terrence Higgins Trust. Simon Le Bon (soppy), Derren Brown (clever) and Charlie Brooker (angry, as usual) have all been roped in alongside familiar campaigners for rationalism, such as Prof Richard Dawkins and "Bad Science" writer Ben Goldacre.

A contribution by the agony aunt Claire Rayner is given extra poignancy due to her passing away earlier this month. "We cannot know when we will die," she says, "and as a humanist I know my universe will die with me so eat, drink and be merry." Other entries, about the atheist bus ads, the massive meet-up Skeptics in the Pub and Robin Ince's sell-out concerts Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, suggest organised atheism is on the rise.

None of this is going to convert believers and the book's tips for organising an atheist holiday aren't going to be much use to anyone who receives it on the day. But if you've got an office Secret Santa coming up in mid-December and you've been stuck with the clever-clogs curmudgeon in a "Darwin is my homeboy" T-shirt, The Atheist's Guide to Christmas could be a godsend.