Merry Christmas!

It's that time of year, gentle Readers.  Time to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very happy 2012.  I wish for each and every one of you, new books to read, gift cards to go buy books you really want to read, and a joyful holiday, whether you are with family, friends, or enjoying some solitude. Wherever you are, may peace be part of your day.


                                                  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Girls who read are COOL

I should be writing my list of favourite books I read this year, which I promised in my last post.  Sadly, I find that my brain has shut down for the evening.  We are finally ready for Christmas - more or less, all the wrapping still awaits, and I'm about to watch A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sims version) with my daughter.  I love the creepy effects. 

In the meantime, I thought I would give you this link to a wonderful post on why it's good to date a girl who reads, here.  I have to thank Terri Windling for the original link, it was on her post a few days ago.  I wish I had had this post to read when I was younger.  It would have saved me when all those people rolled their eyes at me when I said I like to read. Or who asked what I was reading and yawned as soon as I showed them my book. I have never been ashamed of reading, good heavens no!  It's others who have turned away from me because I read, that startled me.  I have often felt alone in my reading habits, especially as a teenager and young adult, before I began working in bookstores and discovered there was a whole world of readers out there, book lovers like me. Now I find through here that there are so many of us who love the pages and bindings and words as much as I do.  How many of you had your own library card when you were twelve?  How did the writer of that post know that I did?

May you find a book you've always wanted to read, under YOUR tree this year, my Gentle Readers!!!  And remember: it's easy to buy gifts for girls who read.  All we want are books!

Folktales to begin the new year, and the books I didn't read (again)

Books I Can't Wait for in the New Year
So there I was on Friday, looking through the Guardian book site on my lunch time at work.  This is always a dangerous thing to do, since I am always finding out about books I haven't read yet.  This is what happened

on Friday.

It's not out here until the beginning of January, but honestly, after reading in the Guardian this review by Neil Gaiman on this Alan Garner new book, who could resist this?  It looks so good, so perfect, a lovely way to begin the new year. 

Among Others by Jo Walton is out on Jan 3 in softcover.  I've been waiting 8 months for this.   All of you who've read it - Carl, Memory, Nymeth,  have loved it.  I so want to read it too!  Two weeks now, and counting......
 The House at Sea End by Elly Griffiths is also out in softcover Jan 3. I think I like this day already.  This is part of the ongoing Ruth Galloway series which I am really enjoying.

Since I don't own these yet, I thought I'd ask you, what books are you waiting for to come out in the new year?

Random thoughts from other people's blogs:
In news around the book blogging world, Carl has a wonderful post up on books he thought he would have read by now, and hasn't, and wants plans to read next year.  If you have some of your own (and I dare any book reader to not come up with a list of those!), let Carl know what they are.  My  post today is in answer to some of the questions he asked in his wonderful, thoughtful post.

Nymeth also has a wonderful post on books she wants to read as soon as they are out next year.  I've already checked out the Diana Wynne Jones book on writing, which Amazon sadly isn't even listing here yet.

****Edited to add: I had to get off the computer in a hurry as the children were waiting to use it to search for cheats for their Star Wars Wii game.  While I was off, I remembered I had read Care's lovely post about how she failed at reading certain books this year, and challenges, here.  So if you are like us, drop us a line so we don't feel quite so guilty alone about not being the kind of readers we think we should be.  It's all in fun, I know, both wanting to be more well-read, and the plans we make for reading.  It's awfully fun to cross books off the to-read list!!!*******

Some books I thought I'd read this year, and haven't:
Certainly I have books I thought I would have read by now - indeed, Ulysses is top of that list, since I started it last winter, and it languishes on my to be read pile, along with Samuel Pepys Diary, which I also really want to read, started two years ago, and then got sidetracked.  That's only two.  Any Charles Dickens this year - and I'd better finish A Christmas Carol this year, or I am in trouble with myself! **I just checked, and I now own 4 novels by Dickens, PLUS Drood by Dan Simmons, which I also haven't read.  Points finger at self: read Charles Dickens in 2012, Susan! I haven't read either of the annotated Jane Austens I picked up,  nor have I finished the House by The Thames by Gillian Tindall, which I started reading when I got it out of the library, went out and bought my own copy, and now it sits on the same shelf. I wonder if it's possible to have ADHD  when it comes to reading??? Kraken or Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.   I really can't believe I haven't read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest yet.   Or Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb - I have loved the other two series.  So how have I missed this series?  Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Oh, there is so much I planned to read this year and haven't yet!  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Settlefield. A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan.

 Books I thought I'd read by now in my life, and haven't.  That's a harder question to answer.  Ulysses, certainly. Any novel by Ursula K LeGuin.  The Gentleman's Daughter by Amanda Vickery.  London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Bleak House by Charles Dickens.  Anything by Neal Stephenson - I own Cryptonomicon, Anathem, and Quicksliver.   Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein.  I can't believe I haven't read Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, when I loved the Swedish version of the movie so much that I bought it, and everyone who has read the book says it is one of the best vampire novels ever, and I loved  his Handling the Undead earlier this year.  I really can't believe I haven't read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest yet.    Anything by Anthony Trollope. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. War and Peace, on every 'I will read this year' list I've ever done. Emily Dickinson.

100 books?
So for the next week, I am setting some reading goals for 2012.  I've been looking at all the challenges surfacing, and thinking over joining some.  I did discover that I read more when I have lots of room for spontaneity.  While it's still in question if I will reach 100 books read this year - 10 books in 10 days, more or less....Christmas and New Year's in the midst of that......I remain optimistic that I will.  I already have had the best reading year in the past 15 years that I've been keeping a book list.  That is something, my friends, something indeed. So I am very proud of what I've accomplished, even if I might fall just short of my goal. My next post will be on the books I did manage to read this year and there are some that I am delighted I did get around to reading, and some new ones that thrilled me.

Meanwhile, Gentle Reader, let me know - are you happy with your reading year?  Is there anything you are really looking forward to coming out in 2012?

I hope you are finding some reading time today, on this Sunday before Christmas!

Mortal Love, Peter Lovesey, and The World's Wife - reviews!

I have been remiss at writing on here.  I plead shopping for birthdays and Christmas.  And another trip to the emergency room last week.  All that aside,  I have so many books I want to write about that I've read this year!  I've debated on writing about each book separately, or choosing a character series, or grouping them.  I still can't decide, so meanwhile, here are 4 that I have wanted to write about for the past couple of weeks, all of which I highly recommend and really enjoyed.

Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand.  Remember when I wrote about this book in November, and I was disappointed in it about halfway through?  I am here to say that this is probably the number one reason I don't often blog about a book while reading it - I am often wrong in my assessment, and I am delighted, completely thrilled to say now, I was wrong.  Ok, the beginning of the book is slow, and feels muddled because we are getting viewpoints and stories set in different times.  It all works so very well at the end.  What the book is about, is art, and faerie, and myth, and how when we get a glimpse of the Otherworld, it can shatter us for our daily reality.  It's about how some people spend the rest of their lives trying to capture that moment, that beauty, over and over again.  It's also about how other people find a way to hang on to their sanity, to let the strangeness of the glimpse of the other realm wash over them, and change them so that daily life is enriched, vibrant, and tinged with melancholy because it's not what was glimpsed.  It's about art, and how art changes our perceptions.  And it's brilliant.  I don't want to say who the myth is who is brought to life, because that is part of the mystery and enchantment of this story.  The myth is so well written and brought to life so beautifully that it works.  The reason myths are so powerful is because somewhere deep within us, we know them, we relate to them - this is what gives the myths their power.  It's an archetype we instinctively, deeply in our minds, know without having words to fully explain how and what we know. Mortal Love is about this deeply held knowledge, and how it inspires longing for whoever glimpses the myth.  I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone who enjoys art and wants a glimpse of what it is like to have to write, to paint, to sing, to create.  Once again, here is Nymeth's excellent review which convinced me to try the book.  Thank you, Nymeth!

This leads me to The World's Wife, by Carol Ann Duffy.  This is a collection of poems that take the myths we all know, Greek and Roman and Norse, and give the woman's point of view - the hidden voice, the other, the silent one.  The wife.  The one we never hear about.  What was it like to be married to Aesop?  to Darwin?  to Midas?  to be Penelope, waiting for Odysseus to return - or maybe not. The poems are filled with the voices of real women.  Penelope isn't waiting for Odysseus, pining away - she is enjoying her solitude, and using her cunning in weaving to keep all the suitors away, so she can be alone.  How clever!  and then she hears Odysseus' footsteps and her precious private life is gone.  Mrs Midas is about what it was like after Midas made his wish to turn everything to gold.  Of course he can't touch her, he can't touch anything. She misses the touch of his skin so much.  One of my favourites is Little Red-Cap, which opens this book of poems.  I love how the wolf lures her by holding - what else?  a book of poems.  Poetry.  And how he has a wall of books, and how in the end she becomes free.  It's a true poem, about how knowledge is always the lure, and with enough wits and courage and hunger to know, you can survive the wolf and the woods.  Brilliant.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry.  It has given me a new way to look at the fairy tales and myths. It  reimagines the world through the eyes of the women who don't explore (or make) the world but who through loving men, and determining if they stay or go in the marriage, find that determination is just as exciting as anything their more famous husbands have done. 

The last book I want to talk about is really an ongoing mystery series by Peter Lovesey,  featuring Peter Diamond.  Last year I reviewed The Last Detective, here.  Now I want to talk about the next two in the series, Diamond Solitaire and The Summons. In Diamond Solitaire, Diamond is on his own.  He quit the force at the end of The Last Detective, and we see him struggle to find his place in the world.  He tries being a Santa Claus, one year!  And it's being a security guard that leads him to find a silent girl asleep in the department store he is guarding.  He is fired as the security guard since he didn't notice her before, and of course it is not as simple as the girl wandering away from her parents.  This little girl is from Japan, and very special. It is delightful to see how protective and caring Diamond is of this abandoned little girl, and when his suspicions are aroused by the people who claim her, he follows them all the way back to Japan.  A very solid second book in the series.  The Summons opens with Diamond depressed because he has not been able to find any permanent work  It's been two years now since he left the force.  Unexpectedly, a summons arrives: a criminal Diamond helped put away, has escaped, and is holding the daughter of the ACC hostage and has asked specifically for Diamond.  The criminal claims he is innocent of the charges.  This is the book about how Diamond discovers he made a mistake, and that he is a policeman through and through.  How he gets his job back, and what he learns while going back over the case and reinvestigating the original crime, makes for a solid mystery with excellent characters and very good dialogue. It's fast-paced and while I spotted who was involved early on,I didn't know for sure, nor why, and I was thrilled when I was right at the end!  which makes for a feeling of being clever (and a really good mystery writer makes the reader feel clever, I find).  I really like this series.  This has to be one of my favourite discoveries in the past year, and I thank Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for reviewing the 10th book in the series - Skeleton Hill - last year and pointing me to this character. I also find it hard to resist a series that uses the real life author Jane Austen as a sort of ongoing backdrop to the series.  In The Summons, it is one of Jane's supposed houses that she lived in while in Bath, that plays a part in the book. 

If you have reviewed any of these, let me know and I will link to them.

I hope you are ready for Christmas, and enjoying the season.  We are planning a games party for the children on Saturday, as a way to give them something to do and share in the excitement leading up to the holidays.  As it's my daughter's 9th birthday on Christmas Eve, the tension excitement around here is so high in the final weeks to her birthday that this is when we build our gingerbread houses and try to keep them busy.  We don't have any snow yet, so there is no playing outside and making snowmen. I am enjoying the lack of snow, utterly content to not see any this winter, while my knee continues to heal. No snow means no slippery patches.......no hats, and no boots either!  I could get used to this!

Happy reading moments for you, my Gentle Reader, in the build-up to the big day.

Book covers - art for story's sake

I don't usually buy different editions of books.  I'm happy with one good edition - normally. However, lately Penguin have begun really tempting me with new illustrated covers on their Penguin Deluxe Classics that are beguiling, intriguing, artistic, and totally fabulous.  Today I found at Books on the Ceiling blog two more covers of books that I really want:

Sense and Sensibility has this gorgeous pink cover with a tea cup.
 
Persuasion has this cover by the Audrey Niffenegger:  I love it too.

Then over at the Penguin site (I linked it above) there is this one for Pride and Prejudice, which I think is perfect:

and then just because it's gorgeous, here is Jane Eyre. 

 This cover of Wuthering Heights might make me dare to face the boring Catherine one more time - I read it for Heathcliff and the descriptions of the moors and the weather, NOT for Catherine.  I once yelled at her out loud I was so mad at her wimpy teary character.

This cover though, could tempt me.

So what about you?  Have you ever been tempted by covers?  Do you own multiple copies of a book simply because the covers were beautiful? I could really do with owning all of the above!!! They are so pretty, so moody, so interesting and lovely. I wonder if one or two might find their way into my Christmas box of books?

And why not dream over owning beautiful editions?  That's partly what makes books so irresistible - we can change the cover, and illustrate some part of the theme or text or character, differently than other editions do. I've often bought specific books over other editions because of the artwork on the cover. And then referred back to the cover often, to gaze at it while I mull over something I'm reading in the text. Covers are - can be - part of the experience of reading the book, when they are done right. I think that is one reason why I am against the kindle - I don't get that experience of the book from cover to cover, from seeing the front and letting it work it's way through my imagination while I read the story itself.  Artwork and storytelling build on one another, at least in books, or they ought to.  Even though the above covers are more representational than representing an actual scene in each of the texts, to my mind each of the covers instantly reminds me of the story in some way.  That's what great artwork on the front of a book can do.

So, are there any special editions you are dreaming of for Christmas?  Any covers you've seen recently that tempted you, or were irresistible?  Do you agree with me about covers, or could you care less, so long as the story inside is good?

'Tis the season for the sense of wonder - Virtual Advent Tour 2011

2011 Virtual Advent Tour: Day 1

 Welcome to Dec 1, and the countdown is on!

I love the season of Christmas and the New Year.  The snow, the tree, the lights, the music, they fill my heart with beauty.  What I also love is the sense of comfort that the traditions around Christmas bring.  It's funny, for I am 48 years old this year, and I find I am creating more new traditions for this time of year than I did twenty years ago.  Back then, I wanted to keep everything the same as my original family did.  Right up to opening stockings only on Christmas morning, and all presents after breakfast.  As I've grown up and away from my first family of childhood, though I am creating traditions that are for now.  I like the mix of the old and the new, I am discovering. 

Here is a tradition that I started last year:  I found this right before Christmas, a tiny wood tree with ornaments to hang in it.  This year, the kids put the ornaments on. It's so adorable.

A few years ago, a friend at work gave me these three lighted houses.  As you can see, the village is growing:


One year, the people kept turning up on top of the houses.  I asked my daughter - she was 3 or 4 at the time - if she was moving them.  She said yes, and I asked why they were on the roofs.  "Because there is a flood coming, Mommy!" she said seriously.  We love this little village, and add to it every year.  This has become a new family tradition now.


One of the things the kids like most is their advent calendar.  My mother is a quilter, and she made them each an advent calendar when they were babies.

Now, the kids rush every morning to see what is waiting for them to start that day.  That's a lovely way to start any day, isn't it?  With a little present waiting for you?  It's usually some chocolate, as the squares are small and its' difficult to find anything small enough to fit in.  My kids don't really care - it's the surprise they like.  

The new tradition for this year is a surprise: the kids don't know.  Holly-Anne and Graham will wake up tomorrow to find this waiting for them.
 
Yes, that's right, the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar.  I really bought it because of the Yoda Santa Claus figurine.  I love it!  I'm really excited.  I know my kids won't let me build it with them, though I will be right alongside with them each day as they open each door.  One day when they are older and beyond this, I think hope that the calendar will stay with me - I know I will love putting this together every year.  I'm so excited for tomorrow, to see their faces! 

And this is what makes me think about what I also really love about this time of year: surprises.  I used to lay awake before Christmas when I was a child, thinking about what I wanted, wondering what would be under the tree for me. If I get a present early now as an adult, I keep it wrapped and save it for Christmas Day with NO peeking!, to open and so really, I can savour that sense of surprise and waiting and anticipation.  That's what I think this time of year really means for me: a sense of wonder.  Anything can happen.  It's the closest time for all of us to be that little child again, and let that little child come out and play, and no one bats an eye.  So you might find me playing with Yoda Santa Claus when no one is looking.......

And because this is a blog about books and you know that it wouldn't be Christmas for me without new books, I decided a couple of years ago to give myself a box of books every year.  Through the autumn, I buy books that I want to read, and into the box they go.  Even though I know the titles, I'm not allowed to read them, or to look at them once they're in the box.  Just knowing that the latest Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain  - in hardcover no less! -

is among the many books waiting for me on Christmas Day, makes me excited.  The joy I feel opening that box, the sense of wonder and yes, a little greed as I hold all the new books in my hands and wait for Christmas dinner to be over (I'm the one cooking it so I have to wait until it's all over with!) so I can read, deciding all day which of them will be first.  There's nothing quite like knowing there is a whole boxful of new books waiting to be read, is there? Some others I've added are  Michelle Paver's Dark Matter in paperback, and Yrsa Sigurdadottir's Ashes to Dust (finally! I waited most of the year to find this!), Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop, among some did I say greedy?  no, I'm not greedy or I'd add more books to the box! others.

I think this is a most lovely time of year, when we remember to look in the faces of the ones we love, and share in their delight, when we make memories that become suffused with love and tenderness as the years go by.

May your holiday season be bright, and filled with love, and joy, my Gentle Bloggers.  Thank you for stopping by.  I'll see you tomorrow as we go through Day 2 of this lovely Virtual Advent Tour. I can hardly wait to come see what you like or want to talk about, this year! Happy Holidays!

Advent Virtual Tour 2011

It's that time of year again.  Perhaps it was the snow that fell on Wednesday, that has brought Christmas to mind.  I think it was also seeing Arthur Christmas today with my children.
 
  A very sweet, fun movie that reminded me that Christmas - or this season for those who celebrate something different, this time of year as the old year winds down and the new year is just on the horizon - this time of year is filled with love and looking both forwards and backwards.  I came out of the theatre and quite suddenly, felt ready for Christmas in our home. Tomorrow we are putting our tree up, and I have been baking tonight to get ready for it.  I won't say any more, because I am still working out all I am going to put in my post for the Virtual Advent Tour.

Yes, it is also that most fun time of year, here in blog world, time for the Virtual Advent Tour 2011. I am excited to once again be participating in this most fun virtual tour of Christmas on all of our blogs. I love going to see what each of the participants has chosen to write about for that year. Recipes, tree decorations, Christmas ties, riding on the snow, music - whatever we like, and are in the mood to celebrate for that year.  I have signed up for  opening day for the Advent Tour.  Stay tuned, Dec 1 is almost here!  It's not too late to sign up, either.

I haven't been reading very much for the past few weeks. I am making my way through Mortal Love, by Elizabeth Hand.  I like parts of this book, though parts are also bothering me - not all artists are mad!  Art isn't crazy making!  - so I'm finding a bit of a tough go, because I love, absolutely adore the Pre-Raphaelites, who are in the background in this book (so far anyway, I'm a little over halfway through).  I wish I loved it, like Nymeth did (her review is splendid, so I linked to it), and the book reviewer at the bookstore I picked the book up at - she adored it too.  Perhaps going through the emotional states of a separation is not the best time to be reading about madness and art! As I am a writer and poet, some of what this books says is interesting about how the creative urge attracts hangers-on, too, and how it is difficult to draw the line between having a life and giving one's all to art - is there a line?  what happens when we draw one?  or don't draw one?  Questions that I ask myself as I try to do both.  It is good, I'm just not in love with it, and that I find disappointing. 

I did pick up Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill.  I have just started it.  I have to say I had a very odd reaction when I started reading it:  I imagined doing what Susan Hill did, not buying any books for a year.  A whole year!  I think I panicked.
 
  No books - and so many I am waiting to come out in paperback in the spring!!!  I think I almost had an anxiety attack at not buying any books for a year.  So, while I love the idea of just reading what I own and I know I have enough books on my shelves to keep me busy for at least a year without any new ones, it's not the right time for me to do it yet.  So it got me thinking.....Have any of you thought of not buying any books for a year, and reading what is on your shelves, instead?  Not just for a month, or a season, but a whole year?  Are any of you feeling a little wiggly and uncomfortable at the idea of not buying any books for a year?