The best book I had was called Twins - a practical guide to parenting by Katrina Bowman and Louise Ryan. It was Australian so the info was more relevant than the American/UK ones.

As for a practical gift - the best thing I had was probably the girls bath seats. They were just from Target I think, and it meant that you could bath them without having to hang onto a squirming wriggly baby/ies. Other practical things like lots of socks and singlets were fantastic, although a little boring , but I never realised how many I would actually go through especially with 2 chucky babies. Nappies were another thing we recieved heaps of. We also were given an extra big playmat/play gym which meant they could lay under it together. Another thing that will come in handy is a big basket made up of lots of food - cans of soup, museli bars, nice biscuits etc. Shopping with twins is hard - everyone wants to look and ask questions so I would of love something that kept me well fed while I was a bit housebound with the bubs at the start.

There is a good website called Think Twins with lots of ideas for twinnies