Books Under Your Tree? Gift cards in your stocking?

17 years ago

Christmas has come and gone. Santa's back at the North Pole enjoying a well-deserved holiday. What books did he leave under your tree?

I am so excited. I've wanted a book for 16 years and would never spend the money on it. Well, DH bought it for me for Christmas. I got one book. Workers in the Dawn by George Gissing. It was hard to hold onto it because I was shaking so badly as I discovered its title! Sixteen years I've waited for this book! Just one book and a $25 gift card to B&N... and that one book has me happier than if I'd received 200 other titles.

Hope your gifts were equally exciting!

PAM

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Comments (30)

anyanka
17 years ago
I only got one book this year, from my bookworm daughter, but it was a perfect choice - a collection of Tim Burton's weird poems with even weirder illustrations, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. Sort of John Hegley meets Edward Gorey (in a cemetery).
cindydavid4
17 years ago
PAM, that is so cool! Now I need to go find out what that is!

I got Echo Maker by Richard Powers and The Great Deluge (about Katrina)by Daniel Brinkley,plus tons of gift cards. So I went shopping (and can I just say that I love Border's Rewards Program?....Lots of savings on this pile)

Suite Francais

Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)

Moral Disorder (Margaret Atwod)

Best Travel Stories 2006

Children's Gate (Adam Gopnick - author of Paris to the Moon)

Book by Book (Michael Dirda)

Women's Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present

I am a happy camper.

I also gave many books to my favorite kids:

Jan Brett The Three Bears and Night Before Christmas to my favorite 'nieces' (aka children of good friends)

Sesame Street Sign Language to a grand niece who has discovered she loves this stuff

The Pretties and The Uglies, to a 'niece' in Jr Hi plus several other Scholastic books that I don't remember but were on her list (she knows who her book Santa is!)
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When the kids were young they got three gifts each then their Santa gift and stockings. Now they get about $50 worth of gift (usually one gift) or as a couple $100. Depending on what they have asked for. Two are married one is single, no significant other (yes if they had a bf or gf we spent that much also, I wanted them to feel special also). Same amount is given to DGD..only one grand child, so sometimes I don't stick to that. I do buy clearance stuff through out the year that she also gets, so it's probably more like $100 for her, but it equals TONS of gifts. We also include donations to church and giving tree gifts. Each child has a stocking...we use to fill it, now each child has to give for the others ($5 or so gift, nothing big), and I give each kid an ornament that signifies something about that year or themselves. Example, this year DS will get an ornament of a door with their house number on it (they bought their first house. DD#1 gets a the Bride and Groom as she was married. DD#2 gets a Santa with a fire helmet (Her apartment burned down). Still working on other ornaments. My siblings get nothing, My Dad and step-mom haven't decided. This year DH's siblings (who usually get nothing) will get a family picture (taken an DD#1's wedding, first time in YEARS to get that many family members together). We get for my nephew, he's still under 18, but that's the cut-off. We'll have to decide after that what to do. It's hard, but we're honest with the kids, and try to be creative. I've always wanted to celebrate Christmas AFTER the day, and see who can get the best deal...the kids say that's not fair. DD#2 is the BEST shopper and will put the others to shame! Vickey-MN
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cindydavid4
17 years ago
As I was googling I noticed that this was quite a prolific writer. Did you know there is a website?

Here is a link that might be useful: George Gissing
netla
17 years ago
I got two books for Xmas, which has not happened in years: the Icelandic translation of "The Thirteenth Tale", and a book on an old Icelandic knitting tradition. Both show that the givers in question were either in a hurry or don't know me as well as they think, since I prefer reading books in the original language whenever possible and I don't knit. Fortunately neither is likely to want to know if I read the books, so it will be safe to exchange them for something I do want.
woodnymph2_gw
17 years ago
An English friend sent me a lovely book with photographs of the English countryside -- very much to my liking.

The other books I got were quite forgettable: one about tea, a novel by Madeleine L'Engle ("Certain Women") which does not look at all appealing, and several about classical ballet. I will probably give away all three.

My stepdaughter very thoughtfully sent me a generous gift certificate to B & N, so I could'nt be more pleased....
rosefolly
17 years ago
Just one, the biography of Edith Head my stepdaughter gave me on Christmas Eve. It was a perfect gift for someone enrolled in a costuming/dressmaking program!

Like CindyDavid, I gave several books, a biography of Tony Hillerman to my husband, a book on great cars to my son, a student in an auto mechanics program, a book on the Academy Awards to my daughter who is an actress, and a book on knitting to the daughter who has recently taken up that hobby. Some years my book presents cause eyes to glaze over, but this year everyone was quite pleased. And that was the best part.

Rosefolly
ccrdmrbks
17 years ago
two strange books from a used book sale from a family member who should know better...but they will benefit my library when I recycle them into our used book sale.
One book from a book club friend that I look forward to reading-a biography
and B&N cards that will keep me happy for a while
;-)
frances_md
17 years ago
This year I received three of The Best American Series 2006:

The Best American Sports Writing
The Best American Mystery Stories
The Best American Nonrequired Reading

and

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Remember last year when we gave ourselves $30 to spend on books as gifts from RP because we felt we needed them? It appears we did well this year and don't need the RP gift (although I may do it anyway because I am a bookaholic with no will power).
carolyn_ky
17 years ago
I got three books as gifts: 1,000 Places to See before You Die by Patricia Schultz, Just Hand over the Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt by Karen Scalf Linamen, and I'm Too Young to Be Seventy by Judith Viorst.

I love the last one. It's a very short book of poems, mostly funny but some not so. The title piece is great, as is one called To My Husband When He Starts Comtemplating Remarriage. The last line says, "Let her receive a B-minus and me an A-plus," but the line that gets me is "Let her be friends with the grandkids but never their nana."

My SIL got the Chocolate one for the title, but it turns out to be a look at women's emotional, physical, and spiritual health. It's quite good but not what she thought it would be.
dynomutt
17 years ago
Well, a friend gave me the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel. So, if I ever encounter a runaway camel or aliens who want to abduct me, I'll be prepared!

(Personally, I don't plan on having to take care of a severed limb or having to deal with a leech invading my air passage .....)
cindydavid4
17 years ago
frances, I am also a fan of the Best American series - tho I read the travel and the science and nature volumes. I was disappointed in the selections from the former - the stories selected were more about the person's travels and incidentals rather than stories about where they were. Ah well.

Judith Viorst also did a book about turning 50, which I gave to my sis. I have a funny feeling I'm going to be getting that book back in a week or so! But she loved it and I probably will too.
phoebecaulfield
17 years ago
I received one book this year--a used copy of The Bermuda Triangle in paperback, which I'm giving away to someone else.

I don't read printed books--haven't for about 25 years. The person who gave me the book is my sister-in-law, who's known me for at least 35 years. She does most of the talking whenever I see her, and never has known me very well, or she'd know this about me by now.

Still, it was nice of her to think of me.

Has anyone read this book? Is it good?
sheriz6
17 years ago
I made out like a bandit this year, mainly because the ONLY thing I asked for were books. And as my birthday is the day after Christmas, it added up to quite a nice stack of reading.

I received: Katharine Hepburn Once Said ... (a collection of pithy quotes and great photos), Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category (the title alone got me), Latin for the Illiterati (a dictionary), Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors, Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans, Nobbut a Lad (by Alan Titchmarsh), After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe.

Plus, my BIL and his family gave me an Amazon gift certificate. I am one extremely happy camper!
martin_z
17 years ago
I got a few books. I got We all Live in a Perry Groves World which I did talk about on the "what do you want for Christmas" thread. I'd have been astonished if I hadn't got it!

I also got a book of humourous quotations and a book of quotes from school reports of famous people. Always fun to dip into.

But the one I'm most interested in, and I think will interest people here, is a little paperback book called The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac. It was first published in 1992 in France, and has sold over a million copies there and elsewhere in Europe. It's just been translated into English. It is (it says here) a passionate defence of reading for pleasure. I'm ashamed to say that I've never heard of it - has anyone else? And I'm thoroughly looking forward to reading it.
mariannese
17 years ago
I had no Christmas presents as we don't give adults any in my family. I gave my four grandchildren two or three books each and all were well received, except one. The 9-year-old already had one of the books I gave him so I am going to change it today. He had three books because he is the only one old enough to read fluently. But the biggest pleasure was watching him open his books, the way he held them, opened them and looked at the back blurb and the first page, the way his eyes lit up with excitement. He shows every sign of becoming a great reader.
cindydavid4
17 years ago
I love watching that too. My little grandniece is only 6, and she already shows excitement when she opens a gift book. She'll stop opening other presents, sit down, and turn the pages, till someone tells her 'here, open mine!'.

>Has anyone read this book?

If its the one that was written back in the 70s, you can include it in the same pile as Chariot of the Gods. Interesting conjecture, but take with a huge pillar of salt. Would have made a better novel.
anyanka
17 years ago
Husband and I took back the gloves today which he gave me for Christmas - they didn't fit, but I also didn't need them as the pair he gave me last year are still fine! - and used the cash to get two beautiful pictorial books on macrocosm and microcosm; The Planets and Inside the Body. A large number of my paintings are inspired by the similar shapes and patterns that are found in the body and out in the universe. Taken out of context, you very often can't tell which is which.
phyllis__mn
17 years ago
I received Light on Snow by Anita Shreve, Sharing Good Times by Jimmy Carter, and Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson. I also got a wonderful craft book, plus one on digital photography and another on counter top ovens! The last two are because I have been hoarding gift money to get a camera with larger zoom, plus that counter top oven.
ccrdmrbks
17 years ago
Just ran amok at BN.com-but the sale annex is outstanding!
7 books, all under $5. goody goody goody.
gooseberrygirl
17 years ago
cc, I thought that was you on the CNN footage of a woman running amok at BN. The Book Police almost gotcha. They said you made a fast getaway in the Bookmobile!

couldn't resist!! gbg
veer
17 years ago
I received The Best of Girl Annual which wont mean much to you if you are not from the UK or maybe Aus, where weekly children's 'comics' (much more than just 'funny pages') were a way of life and the annual bumper book of stories, articles, jokes etc were the highlight of any Christmas.
A VA Aunt sent Southern Fried Women by Pamela King Cable a writer of whom I have never heard.
I also received a beautiful book of country photos of VA from a US friend. Why don't we have such lovely 'Fall' colours as you do in the US?
OK it's because we don't have very hot summers followed by cold Autumn nights and warm days or whatever the combination is.
The DH received Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?

Sheri, after receiving all those books on pre-history, I expect you will be moving into a roundhouse in your garden and probably worshipping at some giant henge. At least the family will be kept busy for the next few decades
hauling stone and painting themselves blue. ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: UK Children's Comics
ccrdmrbks
17 years ago
hehehehe! no, I shopped in my jammies and slippers-
especially looking forward to
The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life, Updated With The Latest Revelations by Charles Higman, who wrote a well-received bio of her 15 years ago, and
Secret Lion: A Novel of Suspense in the Tudor Court by Gortner...apparently the first in a series...The Duchess was on $4.50, and the Lion was $1.80...so if they are awful...oh well. Little ventured.
Also ordered a couple cookbooks for DD, who continues her adventures in self-catering in Maryland. They can't afford to eat out, so the 4 friends experiment with different cuisines. And the cookbook of the week from the library!
Chris_in_the_Valley
17 years ago
Sigh, the only gift card I received was from my brother for Home Depot - and he put it in a three dimensional maze I had to solve before I could get to it. come to think of it they do have lots of gardening and how-to books.

I only gave books to a teenage first cousin, once removed. He has started reading science fiction so I gave him two Heinleins -- Red Planet, a juvenile, and The Door into Summer which the grandfather he never knew loaned to me when I was a kid. And Bester's The Stars My Destination which is currently my "best science fiction book ever written." We will see how he likes the classics.

Woodnymph, sorry to say L'Engle's Certain Women has been completely forgotten by me except for the title -- and that is probably from seeing it on the shelf.

Rosefolly, I'd love that Edith Head book myself. I remember reading a fascinating bio of her decades ago. Have I ever mentioned to you that the dvd of Double Indemnity has some extras about the costume design. Apparently Stanwyck had a broad behind that Head had to design for. Who knew?
sherwood38
17 years ago
I got one book-the yearly cookbook edition that Costco puts out on meals to fix buying foods from Costco-my DD works for Costco and has given me the books each year since they started printing them.

DH did get a set of books by David McCullough, he was delighted with them as he only reads non-fiction.

I also got one gift cert-for Olive Garden and my DH got one for Home Depot....maybe it is time to use the Amazon gift cert I got one year ago from a friend...?

Pat
sheriz6
17 years ago
Vee, ah, to have a Henge of One's Own ... I do tend to go on non-fiction subject jags, and half those pre-history books will probably sit a while before I get to them. But ... who knows what might develop? Come to think of it, the garden could use a focal point *g*.

Cece, please report back on that Duchess of Windsor book, it sounds interesting.
georgia_peach
17 years ago
I got two B&N gift certificates. I just used one of them today and ordered two books by Guy Gavriel Kay: Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan. I haven't read anything by Kay and given how highly recommended he is, I thought it was about time. Also, I noticed on IMDb's site that Lions of Al-Rassan will be adapted for film.
twobigdogs
Original Author
17 years ago
cindy,

A belated thank you for the Gissing website. He is my favorite author and I tend to collect his stuff. I've three copies of New Grub Street in hardcover because I cannot bear to leave them on the bookstore shelves. Sad but true. I've not yet started Workers in the Dawn because I've been out of town. Now that I am back and the New Year is upon us, I hope to slow my life down, just a notch, so I can savor this book slowly. Then I want to do a re-read on New Grub Street. If you read any Gissing, please let me know. I think he is wonderful.

Happy New Year to all.
PAM
janalyn
17 years ago
I got one book this year and it was a naturalist identification book about birds in central American and Mexico. Much appreciated because the last two times I have been in Mexico I have "disappeared" following birds that I couldn't identify. For Christmas, I was given a digital camera with some super-zooms lens which will help me ID those feathered friends. (I suspect my family got tired of my frustrated ponderings "well, it looked sort of like a rufous but the colour wasn't quite right." I do the same thing with flora.
vickitg
17 years ago
I mentioned on another thread that I received "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama. I bought myself the latest Tony Hillerman. Rosefolly - that Hillerman biography sounds intersting. I'll have to look for it.

chris-in-th-valley -- I'm with you on Bester's "The Stars My Destination" -- definitely the "best science fiction book ever written."
Jodi_SoCal
17 years ago
Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield

My boss gave it to me (I'm a designer) and I can't wait to find time to go through it.

Also got a B&N gift certificate which I will have no trouble finding time to use. :-)

I'm very curious twobigdogs, what is Workers in the Dawn about?

Jodi-

Books Under Your Tree? Gift cards in your stocking?

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