With 12 shopping days left until Christmas, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is ready to help time-pressed shoppers looking to gift a few good books.

In an e-mail to campaign supporters sent Monday morning, Daniels unveils his personal book list, recommending nine tomes that he has read in the past year, spanning an eclectic mix of subjects.

“You’ll need some suggestions when you sneak out to exchange those fuzzy slippers or that Grateful Dead necktie,” Daniels writes.

His picks include “Diplomacy” by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and “After the Fall” by Nicole Gelinas, which studies the financial collapse. On the fiction side, Daniels plugs Elmer Kelton’s latest novel, “The Time It Never Rained.”

There are also a few Indiana sports books, including “Underdawgs” by David Woods, which examines Butler University’s 2010 journey to the NCAA basketball national championship game. “The story of Butler’s historic run to the final shot of the final game would be epic in anyone’s hands, but Woods does a first-rate job of telling it,” Daniels writes.

Daniels also recommends “Death to the BCS,” the Dan Wetzel-Josh Peter work that looks at college football’s controversial Bowl Championship Series. While Daniels writes that readers shouldn’t expect “balanced arguments or particularly good writing” (ouch!), he does say the book effectively explains why college football doesn’t have a playoff. “Caution Big Ten fans: our conference’s leadership gets worked over pretty hard,” he writes.