Can you gift an iBooks book?

At the moment no, it's not possible to gift ibooks, sending a gift card and suggesting that they buy a particular book with it is all you can do

Does anyone know if this feature will become available soon? I just released an iBook (Trap the Elf) and friends want to purchase for other friends gifts (kids birthdays, holidays and the like). Providing a direct method would certainly help us indie digital publishers out.

As far as I know Apple haven't announced anything yet, but it will presumably need all the publishers to agree to it. This page still just says :

No, you cannot gift a book in the iBooks Store at this time