What books did you get for Christmas?

12 years ago

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and got the gifts they wanted.

For me, this was definitely a Christmas of Books. Every parcel but one contained a book. I got:

The latest Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam
The new Discworld Companion
A brand new novel from Swedish author Jonas Jonasson which doesn't yet have a title in English
An illustrated book of ghost tales from Reykjavik
A lovely cookbook

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Comments (11)

yoyobon_gw
12 years ago
ONE SUMMER : AMERICA by Bill Bryson

Just finished HOME and really enjoyed it.
He is one of the most interesting writers of historical factoid stories...IMO :0)
carolyn_ky
12 years ago
A step-grandson and his wife, both non-readers, gave me two books, The Christmas List by Richard Paul Evans and The Paper Bag Christmas by Kevin Alan Milne. I am not familiar with either one but will read them with pleasure just because they tried to please me.
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Annie....ooooh, I love your quilt. Those browns and pinks look good enough to eat with a spoon. I made one quilt of just brown repro colors, and it's the only one I've ever named. I called it "the boys in butternut" for the boys from the south that dyed so many of their uniforms with butternuts. At the time I was just reading a book on quilt made in the era of the War between the States...in it they said there were few documented southern quilts of that era...for several reasons, not the least of which was the shortage of cotton fabric due to the cotton embargo ..... but another reason given was that it was believed many southern soldiers were buried with their quilts as shrouds - it struck me as so sad, to be buried wrapped in a quilt lovingly made by a mother or wife -thus the named quilt.... what a terrible war that was! I have a lot of brown fabrics left from that quilt, and will combine it with the pinks and new browns I got for Christmas. I haven't decided on a pattern yet, but it must lend itself to many different fabrics, and I want a pattern used in the 1860-1880s....and, one not too tough, as I make and quilt mine all by hand, but tend to belong to the 'close enough' school! By the way, your points are gorgeous! the top, unquilted.... the '0ld' brown fabrics.....most of those I got for Christmas were the double pinks or brown and pink together
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I had a very quiet Christmas, and just as well because it was a stinking hot day (35C at 7am!) and there was no energy to breathe, much less anything else. My son and his lady came for breakfast, the first of many visits they had scheduled for the day. This was just fine by me. I got them when they were full of Christmas spirit, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and by the time they left their appetites were ruined for everyone else's food! The best part of the breakfast was that THEY did all the cooking - I just 'supervised' and provided the food. We had a lot of fun and laughter together exchanging our little gifts, and when they left, I was able to recuperate by sleeping most of the day in front of the fan, or beginning to read one of the several books they gave me (from a list I'd prepared of Must Haves). My sleep was, however, disturbed by a number of phone calls from interstate friends, all very welcome. And in the evening a friend visited, ostensibly to watch Dancesport on TV with me (we are both into ballroom dancing), but mostly to escape her rowdy family at home after a mountain of a day. (She often uses my place as a refuge when things get A Bit Much.) In between these interuptions, I had the opportunity of watching all those silly little Christmas shows on TV. You know, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy and so on. I have a sneaking liking for these little things - maybe I'm in my second childhood! All very pleasant indeed, thank you.
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Meant to add that I read House in the Sunflowers by Ruth Silvestre a year so so ago. I think she has written 3 books with similar titles. It is worth trying to read them in order (which I'm sure I didn't do). They are about her family finding a run-down old farmhouse in Gascony (?) doing it up and meeting and becoming friends with the 'locals'. Wonderful details of the huge meals cooked by these French women. The last book is rather sad. I didn't get any terrible presents this year; although a while ago I received a hot water bottle two year running from my DH plus those electronic scales that worked out how much stored fat was wobbling off my delicate form. You can guess how pleased I was. Mary/woodnymph, your friend may appreciate your abstemious habits by giving you wine bottle stoppers. She obviously knows you never finish a bottle at one sitting. Or is she trying to tell you something? ;-)
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janalyn
12 years ago
I got two books by Alice Munro from my son. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in October and writes mainly short stories. He actually went to a small bookstore she owns in Victoria and got a book bag with the name of the store on it, which I can use for library books.
phyllis__mn
12 years ago
A couple of light mysteries "Pick Your Poison", and another that I can't recall the name; "Dixie LaValle" (A Minnesota Story of Moonshine and Murder), an Ernest Hemingway book on fishing (!) and one that looks like fun....."The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody"
J C
12 years ago
My brother gave me Murder In Peking by Paul French. It is nonfiction and the book jacket promises that is is gripping and I won't be able to put it down. I don't usually read true crime and I don't know why he chose this book but I am going to read it.

My sister thoughtfully gave me an Amazon gift card, I am very excited about that!
veer
12 years ago
I received two books from younger son. Dear Life by Alice Monroe, which I had asked for and Philomena by Martin Sixsmith as I had recently seen the film. It stars Judi Dench as the Irish woman who as a poor ignorant girl had found herself pregnant. Rejected by her family she had gone into a convent for 'sinners' where after giving birth she was forced to work in the laundry for three years to pay for the upkeep of her child and the sin of being a fallen woman. The child was then sold by the nuns to an American couple . . . and the film 'story' follows the years-later events when reporter Sixsmith helps Philomena look for her son. Well worth watching with an excellent understated performance by Dame Judi and keeping pretty true to the events.
The book, which I have only just begun, goes into far more detail about the then practice by the Irish Catholic Church of sending thousands of babies to the US bringing in a much needed source of revenue and ridding the country of the 'shame' of these illegitimate children. No questions were asked of the prospective parents other than they had to be Catholics and no checks were made/kept on the child's further life.
In England it was always known that Ireland was 'priest-ridden' but I had no idea that the Church held sway over the various Governments (of all parties) as the moral arbiters of education, hospitals and 'social welfare' and that President de Valera was totally under the thumb of the archbishop of Dublin. Things have certainly changed in the last 50 years with the modern Irish Govt having broken off diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
Well worth reading the book and seeing the movie.
annpan
12 years ago
I can't say I am surprised at these events in Ireland. We have been having some similar revelations in Australia where unwed mothers were drugged for the birth and the babies signed over for adoption. One mother found the authority with her unusual name on it was incorrectly spelt, confirming her assertion that it wasn't done by her.
One wonders what the adopting parents have thought as they realise what happened.
It has caused a lot of grief. The head of the investigating committee did an interview on TV and said grimly that they all cried on hearing the stories. "We needed a lot of tissues."
socks
12 years ago
I didn't receive any books for Christmas, but I did give one:

"Read My Pins"--book about Madeleine Albright's pins, where she got them, wore them, with lots of wonderful photos of the pins. My friend liked it a lot.
Artiste8
12 years ago
I got An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield and The Drop by Michael Connelly. Also, I bought myself some Alice Munro books.
yoyobon_gw
12 years ago
ONE SUMMER: American in 1927 by Bill Bryson
rosefolly
12 years ago
Yoyobon, I gave that book to my DH. The bonus is that I will get to read it myself when he is done. (I did also give him books that do not interest me.)

Rosefolly

What books did you get for Christmas?

Comments (11)

yoyobon_gw

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