Advent Calendar of Books

So, as blogging has been so difficult for me this year, and reading so terribly hard since Oct 22, I wanted to do something a little different in the run-up to Christmas.  Instead of having a chocolate advent calendar, I thought I would write every day about books.  Either a book review of a book I've read and particularly liked, or thoughts on reading, or books I want for Christmas, or anything bookish that catches my eye.  So, it will be a surprise every day for 24 days.

Of course, I have already missed two days, so you get a triple treat today.  Three bookish things! 

Day One: Book Christmas Advent Calendar:  In which I review a book
                     The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomson
                            

I read this book in March of this year.  Stella Darnell is a policeman's daughter.  Jack is the son of Kate Rokesmith, an unsolved murder from 30 years ago, that haunted Stella's father.  Upon DI Darnell's death, Kate begins sorting through her father's papers to prepare to empty his house.  She comes across a book of papers and realizes her father never got over not solving Kate's death. 

This isn't a simple murder mystery, however.  Stella is a little different, although it is not spelled out in the book, I suspect she is Obsessive-Compulsive to a high degree.  She runs a cleaning company and everything has to be spic and span or else....everything in her life is run the same way.  It is interesting in this novel to see what happens when she meets Kate Rokesmith's son, Jack who was 4 when his mother was murdered.  He was the only witness.  The story that Thomson weaves around grief, parents who are oblivious to their children's wants, and coming to terms with loss, and the slow uncovering of who killed Kate, made for a fascinating mystery novel.  I liked that Kate had to feel compulsive about her cleaning, and how she changes when she meets someone more damaged than she is, is enjoyable and realistic.  I liked the characters, and the mystery, very much.  If you want a good mystery with some emotional glimpses and growth in characters, this is one to get.

Day Two:  Book Christmas Advent Calendar:  surprise!  another book review!  hurray!
                      Invisible City by Julia Dahl
                                                           
I came across a review of this book in one of the mystery review magazines I occasionally buy. I read it this past July. It is a debut mystery, featuring a female reporter who has arrived in New York City from Florida.  The catch?  Her mother is from New York City, and was one of the Hasidic Jews.  Rebekah Roberts doesn't remember her mother, her mother abandoned her and left her father when she was a baby, and disappeared.  Rebekah has come back to New York City to find what happened to her mother, while she works as a stringer newspaper reporter.  She is called out to cover the story of a dead woman discovered at a building site.  The woman is a Hasidic Jew. One of the men who arrive on the scene from the Jewish community is a man named Saul, who recognizes Rebekah because she looks so much like her mother. Her Hasidic background gives her access to the community, with some members willing to talk with her because she is one of them.

I thought this was an excellent debut mystery.  I was drawn to it because of the Hasidic Jewish storyline, which is rarely featured in general fiction. In this novel (as in real life), it is a culture closed off to much of the Western city around it, functioning, with the permission of the city fathers, with its own laws and customs, which Rebekah learns about and questions because she has not been raised in the Hasidic tradition.  We learn much on the way along with Rebekah.  Fascinating.  There are few stereotypes in the characters we meet, the mystery is decent and heart-breaking as we get to know the family members, and at the heart of it is what Rebekah learns of her mother and why she might have left her all those years ago.  Highly recommended.

Day Three: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: in which I confess, I was finally able to look at  some used books.

This is what I bought: and they are NOT for my Christmas box of books!!!  I'm a little naughty, aren't I?  Plus, still reading every so slowly.  Two books finished in 6 weeks, with another almost done now.  However, I can look at books again in a store so this is a big improvement for me. 

Because I'm reading so slowly, and haven't been able to shop much for Christmas, I don't have much of a Christmas list done yet.  I'm just beginning to look at what books are out now. Do you, Gentle readers?  What books are you really wanting for Christmas?  Have you done any secret book buying that is not a present for anyone this year, but is for you and just because you love books and they are irresistible?

'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!