I've always wanted THE ILLUSTRATED RUMI.........perhaps this year I will just buy it for myself!

Hey!.........No wonder I've never received this book as a gift!
It's not the ILLUSTRATED Rumi, It's the ILLUMINATED Rumi!

Now I guess I can sit back and expect a stack of them under my tree!
LOL

Yvonne

A large gift certificate to Barnes & Noble! (I like to choose my own books).

Failing that, a fairy godmother from somewhere to put under my tree all those obscure English books that I can never, ever find in the States!

Yoyobon, a friend gave me the Illustrated Rumi and it is, indeed, wonderful. It sits right on my coffee table.

What's a rumi?

yoyobon - from what I have learned in following the creation of the St John's Bible (to be completed in 2009),the difference between illustrated and illuminated might be said like this (at least as far as books are concerned): An illustration is art that clarifies, defines or embellishes a storyline; an illumination does the same thing, but uses gold, which reflects light, and therefore 'illuminates' the art.

Here is a link that might be useful: The St John's Bible

Rumi was a thirteenth century Sufi mystic from Konya in Anatolia (present-day Turkey), who wrote incredibly lyrical and beautiful poetry, in the Persian style of that day. He was known for his "wisdom" and had quite a following. I understand he also invented the "Whirling Dervish" dance ritual which is still used today. His work has been translated by an English-speaking poet. I am sure you could find much on him if you went to Google or Wikapedia. Personally, I adore his work.

The top three books I'd love to see under the tree would be: Shakespeare:The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson, The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong, and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (though this last one won't be published until January 08). And, of course, I'd be VERY happy with a nice, fat, Amazon gift card.

The foremost translator of the work of Rumi is American writer Coleman Barks -- worth looking into.

I will take just about any book I can get my greedy little hands on.

I want what woodnymph wants ! : books written/published in Great Britain that didn't come over here (USA) -- even if they were successful. Don't understand why.

Of those books, I'd choose one by Daisy Waugh that had charming reviews (in British magazine). (Yes, she's the granddaughter of Evelyn, daughter of Alec; that piqued my curiosity, too.)

I'd also like some of Antonia Fraser's mystery books. I've only seen one over here (and liked it).

BTW, woodnymph, you can *order British books* from Chartwell's -- a bookstore in New York City (55 East 52 Street) at churchillbooks.com, or call (212) 308-0643. If they don't have it in their store they'll order from England. I've done it with two books recently...both were popular over in Britain but weren't published here.

Oh laura, thanks for that! I have two books on my list that I was waiting to be published here. I'll contact them.

I have several on my Amazon list, a list that I make sure my family knows about. The one below is first on my list:

Also:

>Marco Polo: Venice to Xanadu

>In Europe: Travels through the 20th Century

>The Road Home by Rose Tremain (this is one of the books I've been waiting for)

>Penguin Lives Series

If I don't get these, fortunately my birthday is just a month away, and DH always gives me the perfect present: a dozen silk roses, each attached with a Borders gift card. Those usually last me a while, so I can use them for any new books I know are coming down the pike! Chanukah in July!

Here is a link that might be useful: Mapping Civilizations

I know I am getting (because I sat over her indoors and watched her order it...)

1) Charles Buchan's Arsenal Gift Book: Selections from Football Monthly 1951-73. Football to me means what you call soccer, as you are probably aware, and Arsenal are the team I've been supporting since 1967. Charlie Buchan's Football Monthly was a glossy magazine about football (in the early days, tinted b&w photos and everything) and this (I hope) should be quite a good historical survey of my team from 1951 to 73, covering the years when I supported them as a kid, when I went to every home match and lived and breathed them. (My wife still thinks I live and breathe Arsenal, but these days I'm not in the same class as I was when I was a kid...!)

2) You are the Ref - again about football. You are the Ref a strip that appears in various comics and newspapers giving (with wonderful illustrations) various possibilities that might occur in a match, and asking you, as the match referee, what you would do about them. It's a summary of fifty years of the strip (during which time, some of the rules of football have changed a bit, too!)

For Christmas I would like a book that I have never heard of before, but one that is unexpectedly wonderful, beautifully illustrated and well-bound on good quality paper. It can be fact of fiction, but something I can really treasure for the rest of my life.
Probably too much to ask.

Mary, thank you for the Rumi information. We/I learn so much at RP. I had heard of Whirling Dervishes in history lessons as having something to do with the murder of General Gordon at Khartoum but not their origins.

Sheri, and anyone else interested in Shakespeare, add The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street by Charles Nicholl. I haven't read it but it has really good reviews, much better than the Bryson (amiable as BB's work is his latest doesn't tell you much).

Cindy, your Mapping thing looks interesting.
I am always fascinated by atlases, maps etc.
We heard on our local TV yesterday that the firm in Taunton, Somerset, which has printed Admiralty charts for years is cutting back on its work-force as all the shipping fleets of the world go over to computer graphics and no longer need paper maps.
I see a time when the crew of some huge oil-tanker jump into the life boat during a terrible storm and the helmsman shouts "Who remembered the laptop?"

Here is a link that might be useful: Hydrographic Charts

Oh, I've loved maps since I was a little kid. I used to pour over the various atlases in our house, and loved looking at the globe. But I think my adult interest was sparked by my first trip to Britian, when I got to see the Mappa Mundi, and by visiting the Map Room at the Vatican. Since then I've been interested in all types of maps, but in particular those early ones that were based on such little information, but still tell volumes about the maker and his culture.

I still use atlases and my globe when I am reading fiction to get a sense of place, and when reading travel writing because few authors include a decent map and I want to follow where they are going.

>For Christmas I would like a book that I have never heard of before, but one that is unexpectedly wonderful, beautifully illustrated and well-bound on good quality paper. It can be fact of fiction, but something I can really treasure for the rest of my life.

The closest I've come to a gift like that a few years back called The Tatooed Map. Its about a woman in Africa who finds that a mark on her arm is turning into a map. The illustrations and travel memorabilia that the author uses to fill the pages are probably more interesting than the plot, but its still a story that gets the mind traveling. Similar in style to the Sabine and Griffin works a few years back, this is well worth a look to map lovers and travel lovers.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Tatooed Map

Cindy......

I also loved to look at the globe when I was a child and the best Christmas was when I received my own globe ( which I still have today....many, many years later!)

When I discovered and uploaded GOOGLE EARTH I was absolutely in heaven! I can go to that site and visit any place on earth...up close!
I have been able to find things I never imagined existed.

The best thing too is to be able to see a friend's home anywhere on earth. One morning I was chatting with a gal across the country and was telling her how wonderful Google Earth is.......and she had me enter in her address and "ZOOM!" there I was looking down at her home as she explained where her gardens were and other neat features about her property and area ( and I could see them all as we talked!).
One day I was curious about Dubai and immeditately went to Google Earth and "visited" . WOW.

Best part.....the upload is FREE!!

( I don't have any affiliation with Google Earth, although you'd think so by my enthusiastic endorsement, wouldn't you! )

Yvonne

The Complete Calvin & Hobbes! 'nuff said. (I've been wanting this since it came out..........)

Yvonne, my DH loves Google Earth, too. He can sit there for hours poring over the images.

I know what book I'm getting for Christmas because I dragged my dad into Borders, picked it up off the shelf, and placed it in his hot little hands and told him that was what I wanted. It's the first volume in a new fantasy series titled The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and I've been eager to read it since I read about it on Amazon. Now that Amazon has included it on its best books of 2007 list, I'm even more eager to read it.

Laura, thanks so much for the tip re ordering British books.

Another map-lover, here! I still have the circa 1945 yellowed old globe from my childhood. Can't bear to part with it! I also cherish the old atlas with maps my father had from the Forties. What fun to look at the countries whose boundaries and names had changed over the past decades. When I was recently reading Dinesen's "Out of Africa", I refered to these old atlases repeatedly, to locate Kenya, the Belgian Congo, and other areas and try to compute the newer names. It is really mind-boggling to me to note how the boundaries of Germany and Poland have changed over the years....

I still have saved all the older maps out of the National Geographic when I subscribed -- what a collection!

Vee, thanks for the recommendation, I've put The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street on my wish list. It won't be available in the US until the end of January, though.

> I see a time when the crew of some huge oil-tanker jump into the life boat during a terrible storm and the helmsman shouts "Who remembered the laptop?"

LOL!!

I must have the new translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace! Nothing else will do.

My very own copy of "Before the Sun Goes Down"; I might have to twist my arm and order it myself.
Bob

No books for me, please - armed with my library card, I am hoping for some spare time to read.

I blush to say that I have bought the new books I might have wanted for Christmas. Well, it's the one way to get what I want, right? One I haven't read yet is The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, which some of you have mentioned and which was cracking up the Englishwoman sitting beside me on a plane to London.

A gift card to B&N would suit me...I enjoy browsing as much as buying and reading...well, almost as much.

Barnes & Noble has a reissued edition of Samuel Schoenbaum's "Shakespeare's Lives" that I'm thinking about asking for. Does anyone recommend it?

Robert-e: What is "Before the Sun Goes Down" about? Amazon didn't have a blurb on it.

I have my eye on a couple of new books re the history of knitting that I doubt I would buy for myself. Maybe if I receive a gift card?

Pammyfay,
I have to thank Friedag for refreshing my memory about this book. Please see the link for the thread about this book.

glyphs.gardenweb.com/forums/load/paradise/msg0317494320323.html?43 - 140k

Regards,
Bob

Well, I made absolutely sure that i will receive this book, "The New Kings of Non-Fiction" by buying it for myself and putting it under the tree. Hee.

I have to ask -- where are the Queens of Non-Fiction?

How about some Canadian literature? I wanted to let you know about an opportunity to get a cool gift for yourself or another literature lover and support literacy in Canada at the same time.

You'd likely be shocked to know that 42% of adult Canadians have trouble using reading and writing in every day life. Can you imagine!!

Frontier College is Canada's oldest national literacy organization, working in high-needs communities across the country.

As part of our holiday gift promotion they're auctioning a full set of the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlisted books, each signed by the author.

- Late Nights on Air
- Divisadero
- Effigy
- A Secret Between Us
- The Assassin's Song

All proceeds from this First eDitions auction will support Frontier College literacy programs.

The perfect gift for Canadian literature lovers, and a unique way to support literacy in Canada.

Paste the link below into your browser to bid on this unique package on eBay, or go to www.frontiercollegefoundation.ca and click on First eDitions.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Signed-Late-Nights-on-Air-Divisadero-Effigy-1st-Ed_W0QQitemZ180192843511QQihZ008QQcategoryZ377QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Frontier College. Literacy. Learning for Life.
www.frontiercollege.ca

Here is a link that might be useful: First eDitions

>I have to ask -- where are the Queens of Non-Fiction?

We are perambulating through the bookstore in the latest fashions and the long, flowing trains of our richly embroidered gowns will prevent the customers from getting too close to us (and allow us the benefit of dominating the entire book aisle!).

Seriously, I ask for bookstore gift cards because my reading is so subject to my mood that I never know what I might want from one day to the next.

I usually do get gift cards. I've even got the parents of the kids I teach trained: I don't want candy or smelly candles or ornaments for my non existant tree, but I do love bookcards! I found that my Amazon wish list has pointed a few family members to books that I never would have gotten for my self, and am thrilled with that!

I would dearly love to have the Oxford English Dictionary, the complete version. Years ago I heard of a two-volume "miniaturized" version that came with a magnifying glass--I believe it's the complete OED but am not sure.

I don't know if that version has been updated since I first heard of it (MANY years ago), but I hope so.

I just want time to read the ones I've got.

Now, Cece, that's just entirely too sensible! :)

Went to Borders to buy the Planet Earth DVDs for my son, and since it was my birthday today, browsed the shelves-and bought:
Sex With the King and Sex With the Queen and a book of the letters of the Mitford Sisters.
SSSOOOOOOOOO-Happy Birthday to ME! Something to read on Christmas Day!

Happy birthday to you, CC. Sounds like you got a good haul for some winter reading!! Very juicy!! :-)

Opened one of my gifts early and it WAS, indeed, a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble! Nothing could have pleased me more....

We had our regular Christmas brunch with our blended family (three daughters and now including two great grandchildren) this morning. I didn't get a book, but I got a doll, which is a first for some time now. She is a long, skinny lady (don't I wish), with a package of books on one arm and wearing skewed reading glasses. She looks lovely reclining in my chaise longue.

I wasn't actually expecting any books, but I received quite a nice one, The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-57. I'm going to enjoy this one very much!

Rosefolly

I received a BN gift cert. for 50 dollars from my loving parents-that will be a fun trip-I also have 2 books to pick up at the library that I had reserved. Today DH and I have our sweet granddaughter with us as our DDs and DS went shopping post Christmas-or as they say-"on the hunt" for bargains. They can have it!

I received a book from my MIL called "Straight Up and Dirty" by Stephanie Klein. It's a novel - Klein is a blogger and the book is described by reviewers as "making Sex and the City look passe`". Not my usual choice but we'll see. It has the potential of being awful or awfully good. The jury is open. Still, the thought was there so that was nice.

Now that I have seen the movie, I would like the Golden Compass. My son and I saw it yesterday. After reading some of the reviews and reactions, neither of us really saw any Christian symbolism one way or the other. My son was in a better positon to decide. Being old and tired, I dozed off in the middle of the movie, so I'll just have to see it again.

I certainly did better than usual on the book-front this Christmas.
From the DH I had asked for Katherine Swynford by Alison Weir. I gave the DD Selective Memory by the well-known English journalist Kathleen Whitehorn . . to be read by me later!
From an American friend Memories of Times Past a collection of stories/articles on the slower pace of US life in years gone by.
From a US Aunt In the Shadow of the Blue Ridge by VA writer Carolyn Feagans (Mary, do you know her work?) and finally from the boyfriend of the DD Roy Strong's A Little History of the English Country Church.
I must say these books press all the right buttons; I can see those I have from the library going back unread.

Vee, who was Katherine Swynford?

I just sent you a message re the Feagans book and the Monacans....

Mary, Katherine Swynford was the mistress and later the wife of John of Gaunt and s-in-law of Chaucer. Her children and children's children went on to become Yorkist kings, Beauforts, Tudors and Stuarts.
I just listened to an interesting piece on the BBC with Alison Weir and other writers about Mistresses. It should be available at the site below until next Wednesday.(click on 'Listen Again')

Here is a link that might be useful: Mistresses

She's the same one whose story is told in the Anya Seton's novel Katherine. Loved that book; knew about the Wier history and have meant to read it.