One of these days I’m going to get around to a real, meaty post about bookish stuff. I am deathly ill with the cold that’s been going around the office this month. I was one of the last to get it, and I was thinking that my usual routine of Nyquil and insane amounts of hydration would see me through better than some. Not so much. I’ve been floored for 3 days now, and I still sound like I have a clothespin on my nose.
I’ve been consoling myself with Christmas. Brian and I got the tree up last weekend, actually managed to put Christmas lights on our house, and bought a new angel for the tree. She’s made of shell, and she lights up. The pregnant angel – one of mysterious origin who had her little china hands centered over a mysterious bulge in her dress – is no more. I’ve also been reading a bunch of Christmas-themed romance novels. Which, frankly, have been terrible. I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly something better than I got. The recommended ones seem to be mostly anthologies of short stories, of which I’m not as much of a fan. Any recommendations? Send them my way, please! I am still throwing off the tired from this cold, so I’m sure I’ll be snuggled up in bed often over the next few days.
Nanowrimo went well-ish. I won by all official measures (50,000 new words in November), but I didn’t finish the novel. I’m back to editing other things, although I’m sure Easterbay will become an actual, edited thing someday.
In the meantime, I thought I might put up links so some of my favorite bookish stores for your perusing pleasure. If you have a bookworm you’re shopping for, but are afraid that they probably already have any books you might consider getting for them, all of these are good options.
Out of Print Clothing: http://www.outofprintclothing.com/. Between my “American Gods” shirt and my “Little Prince” shirt, I practically live in this stuff on the weekends. So soft! I’ve been drooling over their tote bags, too. You can’t help but love a place that sells a nice Holden Caulfield hat as a necklace, or lets you light things on fire with your “Fahrenheit 451” matchbook.
Sainted Writers: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SaintedWriters. Who doesn’t need a saint candle to burn to your favorite writer? I need the Saint Neil Gaiman one STAT! But we also bought Saint Stephen King for an old professor of my husband’s, and it comes complete with hilarious prayer on the back.
Literary Emporium: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LiteraryEmporium. Pretty literary quotes with matching baubles, magic notebooks, and other fancy stuff. They even have cufflinks for the male variety of bookworm.
Other things to consider are bookplate stamps, funky bookmarks, and Moleskine notebooks. Those are all things I’d drool over.
, by Rainbow Rowell: Georgie McCool has always put her career as a scriptwriter front and center, and her husband Neil has picked up the slack. When she and best friend Seth have the chance to pitch the script of their lifetime, if they can write it in five days, Georgie knows Neil will be upset. But he’ll probably roll with Georgie’s assessment that they can’t bring the girls to his family’s house for Christmas like they planned. Georgie didn’t forsee that Neil would be more than pissed. He takes the girls to his parent’s house, leaves Georgie in California, and then is strangely unavailable. Frantic, Georgie calls Neil from an old rotary phone in her bedroom to find that she’s dialed 20 years in the past. But can she save her marriage from decades away?
, by Terry Pratchett: Tiffany Aching accidentally joins the dark mummer’s dance, and then has to contend with Jack Frost, who thinks she’s his new girlfriend. Embarrassing snowflakes in Tiffany’s shape, a cornucopia spilling out all sorts of things you just don’t want, the Nac Mac Feegles, and relations with the human boy Tiffany has a thing with are just some of the problems she faces. But now that Tiffany has dethroned the goddess of spring, will Summer ever come again?
, by Ursula K. LeGuin: Genly Ai has agreed to go as an emissary to the planet deemed Winter to see if he can get them to join the ecumenical society of planets. It is first contact, and Genly is more than aware that he could be killed or imprisoned. Winter is a world where most humans there are genderless until they mate, and over the course of a lifetime can be both male and female. The planet is as unforgiving as it’s icy landscape, with a strange code of behavior called shifgrethor, and Genly is getting nowhere with his quest. He places his trust in Prime Minister Estraven, who is then accused of treason and cast out of the kingdom. But Genly and Estraven meet again in a work camp on the outskirts of civilization, and together they undertake a perilous journey over icy wastelands so that they can be free.
Casey E. Hamilton 