My family has a hard time accepting that all I want for Christmas is books; for some reason, they think a variety of gifts is better. Silly family. I did get quite the stack this year. And I got a gift card for Barnes and Noble as well, so ebooks, here I come.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollestonecraft
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Ain’t I a Woman? by bell hooks
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer*
The Women's Room by Marilyn French*
I already own four of the other books listed, so it looks like I'll be participating during 8 months. *These two were, I think, on the original list, but they didn't make the revision.
I also got two very awesome art compilations from Chronicle Books that I am totally geeked about:
Bad Santa
For the first time, I ordered books from the Book Depository. I placed the order on November 24, believing I had plenty of time to get the books, wrap them up, and send them off to Enna at Squeeky Books. Unfortunately, the books took their sweet time getting to me, and Enna ended up getting the horribly unoriginal present of a gift card (not to Book Depository I might add). I am a Bad Santa.
Luckily Enna has really good taste, so the books I ordered for her get to be added to my own tbr shelf.Stork by Wendy Delsol
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
Awesome Santa
On the other side of the Secret Santa spectrum, we have Vasilly, who rocked my world with an overly generous gift including:
Blameless by Gail Carriger
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliot
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
and hot chocolate and Christmas mints. That's right peeps. Be jealous.
The Joy of Borrowing
Book Blogger Borrowing is something I've been toying with in my mind for quite some time. The cost of shipping books is relatively low (especially nationally with media mail) and while I wouldn't want to do it all the time, sharing books with blogging buddies is fun. For the Indie Lit Awards, Amy from Amy Reads was awesome enough to send me three books. When I'm done, I'll be sending them on to Cass from Bonjour Cass, and she'll send them back to Amy. How fun is that?
Missed Her by Ivan E. Coyote
London Triptych by Jonathan Kemp
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Mexico Reading
Typically, I power through books on vacation, lounging by the pool working on my tan and reading. This time around was a bit different - more eating and walking, less sunbathing - and so I didn't quite make my usual numbers. I only read four books:
Blameless: I can not tell you how freaking excited I was to receive this in my Holiday Swap package from Vasilly. The first two in this series by Gail Carriger blew me away, so I started it on the plane and finished it the next day. I am still in love with Alexia and company.Room: Emma Donaghue was not my favorite person while reading her book, Room. What a heartbreaking read! Once I got through the sadness of content, I had time to really appreciate the skill of form. The narrative point of view perfectly captures a child's voice and perspective while simultaneously implying enough mature thematic content.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson: A book by John Green and David Levithan really should have been further up my to-read list, but it took some time for me to be inspired to read this one. Silly me. I loved it. The book is filled with wonderfully eccentric characters.
The Book Thief: I read a lot of WWII-holocaust type books for some unknown reason. This may be the first fictional one I've read, and it was a really interesting experience. Like Donaghue's Room, Markus Zusak uses a unique perspective to tell his story. In this case, it is Death, an outsider, who relates the story of one girl's life in Nazi Germany.
Big Apologies
So sorry for the awful quality of the book pictures. I am down in my dungeon and too lazy to go upstairs to the natural light.
A Wish After Midnight is really, really good, sort of like Kindred only set in the north. I got it as one of my swap gifts this year too and loved it. :)
ReplyDeleteLove the beach picture!
I've been hearing so much about Will Grayson - must read it soon!
ReplyDeleteWhat an eventful season you have had, and such great gifts as well! I am glad to hear that you had such a good time with Blameless and look forward to getting started with Soulless this year. I also want to read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt, seeing how you did with your challenges this year, that you will blast through everything you take on this year. And what a haul of books you received! I was sitting here getting excited for you!
ReplyDeleteMy family also thinks it is unacceptable to give me books! I sent them a wish list and they were all like "There is nothing but books on there. Send a different list!"
ReplyDeleteBad family!!
Amanda - I'm glad to hear it's a good read!
ReplyDeleteJill - I don't know why I put it off so long; it was a really good read.
Heather - I can't wait to hear your thoughts on the series!
Sandy - I certainly hope so as I'm already going a bit overboard with challenge sign ups. I'm a freaking addict.
Lenore - When will they understand? I would be absolutely thrilled if they would all pool their money and give me a gift card to B&N. :)
my family thinks i have wayy too many books too. and anytime i want to go to the bookstore they just look at me like i'm crazy.
ReplyDeleteyou had a great christmas haul though! i hope you enjoy all of those books! and you have no idea how jealous i am of your trip to mexico. that view is gorgeous!
Ooohhh what a great Christmas! Sorry we changed our list around a bit :( And also - I LOVE STORK! I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. I really hope you enjoy it. And I'm jealous of Mexico :) I hope you had a fantastic time. Happy reading!
ReplyDeleteI had to stare at the Mexico pool photo for quite awhile, because my eyes were convinced that the pool was on a hill. I think I've ruined my eyes by reading too much.
ReplyDelete