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How to delight this reader
When it comes to gifts, I am transparent and quite easy to please. Those who love me are so generous with my favorite things, all of which make me extraordinarily happy. Gaze upon my lovely Christmas gifts. Click on photos to view larger.
A few books that I don’t own and haven’t read. Many have given up attempting to find me books
— but a steadfast few continue to surprise me with these unknown and exciting gems.
A very cool vintage potpourri book. I make potpourri from my rose petals which I thrust upon unsuspecting friends and family. This is full of great new concoctions to try.
Anything with roses, especially for serving and enjoy tea and biscuits. The plate is a gift from my Mom and is from her lovely china collection. The new cup is comfortably BIG — unlike my other dainty tea cups that are so pretty but are empty in minutes.
Some new music for the season and some to read by.
A gift subscription to my favorite cooking magazine.
A beautiful soft-as-a-cloud throw for my reading nook – it’s snuggly and warm. Now I can retire the light weight blanket I swiped off a Swiss Air flight. (I despise heavy, itchy afghans).
And finally in honor of this special night – Season 5 of Downton Abbey begins @ 9PM, in case you’ve forgotten. Luckily I’m here to remind you. I continually strive to provide a valuable service here at Book Barmy.
So best wishes for a lovely beginning to 2015. I’ll be parked in front of the television, sipping my Downton tea in my new rose cup underneath my new throw. Ahhh-hhh life is good.
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By the Book edited by Pamela Paul
By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the New York Times Book ReviewMy friend Reiko saves me her Sunday NY Times Book Review section and gives me a big stack of them whenever we get together. We laugh because we can judge how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other by the size of the accumulation.
One of my favorite sections of the NY Times Book Review is called “By the Book”, wherein a writer is interviewed about their reading. Each week we get a view into writers favorite books & writers, reading habits, their personal book collection, early childhood reads, etc.
The top interviews are gathered in this one book and while there’s nothing new here, I found it engrossing to read through them. At almost 300 pages and 65 writers interviewed it’s no quick read. I’ve been slowly savoring this book, making my way through this fascinating collection, underlining and making long lists of newly recommended books to read (like I really need more lists of books to read).
Included in the collection are interviews with the expected writers such as Anna Quindlen and John Irving, but also included are Sting and Arnold Schwarzenegger? (The question mark is mine.) But don’t let that dissuade you, this is a fascinating look at writers and their life with books. And, hey guess what? — the Arnold interview reveals he is surprisingly insightful.
When more than three of the authors listed the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn as their favorites, I had to add them to my list. It was also comforting to see that several writers also found the classics tough going – Dickens, Tolstoy etc.
You’ll discover the vulnerabilities of some writers — who knew Hilary Mantel actively reads self help books or Anne Lamott secretly likes People and US Weekly?
Many writers are delightfully unpretentious in their reading choices. Jhumpa Lahiri states: I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion. And Scott Turow, The only unfailing criterion is that I can hitch my heart to the imagined world and read on. My favorite quote is from Isabel Allende. A good novel or short story is like making love between clean ironed sheets: total pleasure.
Hilary Mantel wishes for a magic tablecloth to appear with dinner all prepared so she can have more time to read. Sting has kept every book he’s ever read and doesn’t lend books. Scott Turow admits to “reading at” a book, putting it down and then months later picking it up and diving in with enormous enthusiasm.
Jeanette Walls lists her favorite memoirs, which is like getting a food critics top restaurants.
And there’s lots of chuckles: under “The last book that made you cry” – Jeffery Eugenides answers The South Beach Diet.
Then there’s this: James Patterson talks about his first Alex Cross book, “Along Came a Spider.” He said a movie studio would have optioned the book early on in his career, when he could have really used the money –all he had to do was make Alex Cross a white man.
I don’t recommend reading this book all at once. Like the original interviews, it’s best to savor one or two at a time.
Also this book should come with a warning: Reading this book will increase your to-be-read wish list exponentially and may cause unbridled book purchases.
Advanced Readers Copy provided by Henry Holt & Co.
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New Years Eve
We don’t venture out on this “amateur night” but prefer to stay home, put on our most comfortable lounge-around-the-house clothes, watch a movie and enjoy some wine we saved just for the occasion.
Back in the day, we thought nothing of dressing up and going out for New Years Eve, but we always regretted it the next day. We finally realized we never actually enjoyed ourselves. Now we light a fire and have a Quiet New Years Eve.
Once the television is turned off, I will do this – only instead of coffee it will be some tea I got for Christmas or perhaps another glass of wine.
Hope this New Years Eve finds you home, warm and safe.
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Christmas Isn’t Over People!
It can be difficult to maintain the Christmas mood…in San Francisco there’s no snow, temps are mild and like everywhere else in the USA, Christmas seems to stop the day after. The radio music stopped at midnight, some trees, already taken down, lie sadly abandoned at the curb and the after Christmas sales scream from every corner.We are people who leave our tree up until the Epiphany (January 6) and are dispirited by the abrupt ending of Christmas on December 26th. So I have my little collection of Christmas CD’s to keep the Yuletide spirits going.
I own CD’s of typical Christmas music, you know Bing, Nutcracker and such. But at night, while reading, I prefer early music — Renaissance and Medieval. While I’m not especially religious, I also enjoy what is considered music of the sacred choral genre.
These are my three favorites, all English (natch). If you’re tired of the same old Christmas music, make yourself a hot drink of choice, grab a book and relax to some very different Christmas music.
Song of Songs, by Stile Antico While not exactly Christmas music, this early music voice-only ensemble from the UK is astounding. The term ‘stile antico’, literally means ‘old style’. It was coined during the seventeenth century to describe the style of Renaissance church composition and choral singing. It is also called polyphonic (many-voiced) music. I find it soothing and lovely. Take a listen at their website HERE Click on the music player button upper right.
Christmas Music from Medieval and Renaissance Europe, by The Sixteen: This collection ranges from the 14th to the 16th Century and will transport you far away from the trite music of today’s modern Christmas (Taylor Swift — really?). This choral group — The Sixteen (named such because the group consists of four treble, four alto, four tenor and four bass choralists) provides beautiful harmonies. The Coventry Carol will give you goosebumps. See more about them HERE
Christmas Carols from Kings College: Kings College, Cambridge (founded in 1441 by King Henry VI !!) is known for its Christmas Eve service, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which is broadcast every year in the UK by the BBC. The service includes carols and readings from the Bible. The opening carol is always ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, and there is always a new, specially commissioned carol. I watched it once, but it does go on. This CD is just the carols sung by the world famous choir. Here’s a video of a 2011 concert in the beautiful candle lit chapel.
There you have it — my favorite music and a way to carry on Christmas till you’re ready to welcome the New Year.
To all my thousandsreaders, I’ll be back in the New Year with plenty of new books to share. Merry Christmas – ’tis the season and it’s still here.
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Christmas Eye Candy
Christmas Eve
In addition to collecting Christmas books, I gather holiday magazines as a small treat for myself. The best ones get saved and packed away with the holiday decorations and brought out again each year.
Downtown there’s a wonderful international news agent — Fog City News which offers magazines, as well as chocolates from all over the world (I know — brilliant right?). Anyway if I’m in their neighborhood, I’ll stop by to browse and inevitably purchase a lovely magazine or two — but at Christmas time I go just a little nuts. I’m especially partial to the British ones, because the English just know how to do Christmas right — other than mincemeat* and plum pudding (shudder).
Anything with a cottage theme, french bocantes (antiques) or Scandinavian red and white decor is up for consideration. I even buy the holiday issue of Martha Stewart – God bless her everyone.
The one exception to my foreign magazine no-subscribe rule is English Home (above) which I get for myself and then (at a discounted rate) I get English Garden for a friend every year…and we trade the issues throughout the year. A small tradition that delights us both.
As I’ve aged and perhaps grown a little wiser (or is that wider?), these magazines no longer make me feel inadequate – with their images of perfect holidays: why doesn’t my table look that pretty? or wow look, I could painstakingly hand-glue tiny seashell wreaths! Now they are simply a treat – eye candy – a way to peek into different Christmas rooms, lavish meals and cultures around the world. A way to travel during the holidays without waiting in long security lines or getting stuck at O-Hare.
I hope this Christmas Eve finds you where you want to be, warm and cozy — enjoying your very own perfect Christmas.
* My friend Sarah, originally from England, actually makes really yummy little mincemeat pies – nothing like the mincemeat pies I was forced to politely choke down in Scotland (again shudder). But then again, the Scots national dish is Haggis.
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A Tale of Two Covers
Two Days Until ChristmasChristmas Stories – Everyman’s Pocket Classics
I picked this up years ago at the library book sale – attracted by the pretty cover and because I’m fond of the Everyman’s editions, so handsomely done and always with sewn-in ribbon bookmarks (I’m such a sucker for those). These small volumes always have this quote on their frontpiece:
Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side.
They really “get” bibliophiles and our most needs to always have a book by our side.
Christmas Stories is a treasury of short fiction by great writers of the past two centuries—including Dickens and Tolstoy to John Updike and Alice Munro. As a literary subject, Christmas has inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fanciful flights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression is represented in this wonderfully engaging anthology.
Admittedly, until this year I had only read a the first few stories – all Christmas classics, O’Henry, Dickens and Willa Cather’s delightful The Burglar’s Christmas (I never miss a chance to re-read that one) but last night I delved into the back of this collection and read two short stories that left me really quite depressed. One by Richard Ford about a dispirited dysfunctional family on a ski vacation and then Alice Munro uses two workers to deliver a character study as they dismember turkeys at a slaughterhouse Ugh. I had to make a cup of sleepytime tea just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
So, I’m putting this charming looking book on trial, and will read a few more to determine its fate as a coveted member of my Christmas Books Collection.
A Literary Christmas – An Anthology from The British LibraryFrom the fly leaf: A Literary Christmas is a seasonal compendium that collects poems, short stories, and prose by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’s Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, the selections featured here are representative of times old and new. Readers will enjoy a convivial Christmas Day with Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Nancy Mitford; venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Charles Dickens’s ever-popular Mr. Pickwick; and warm up by the fire with the seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde.
This awful cover is proof that I shouldn’t be lured by a pretty one (see above) — this is a joyful collection of stories, poems, carols, essays and illustrations. The editors cleverly organized the book in such categories as “Before Christmas”, “Snow and Ice” and “Christmas Fare”.
Look, here’s Samuel Pepys Christmas Day diary entry from 1662 and a treatise on a doctor-prescribed diet just before Christmas by P.G. Wodehouse. An except from Cider with Rosie (an English coming of age classic) and Washington Irving’s description of a grand Christmas dinner. Something for everyone in this lovely book.
Here’s a sample of some of the illustrations within (click to enlarge):
So the sage advice of don’t judge a book by its cover stands true.
BUSTED Uh Oh –both volumes include Trollope Christmas stories –despite my claims from this post. However, we shall speak no further on this subject.
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A (very special) Christmas Crime Story
Three Days Until Christmas
Mystery in White by J. Jefferson FarjeonGet yourself a cup of tea, this is a long story. Back in my college days, I spent several consecutive semesters living and working in the highlands of Scotland (that’s a whole other story). At a local church rummage sale, I came across a beat up old paperback — I think it cost me 10P. This snowy Christmas-time mystery got me through several icy evenings in my digs on the top floor of a frigid stone landowner’s manor, which lacked any sort of central heating. I cuddled under my eiderdown with a hot water bottle (and yes it was a real eiderdown) and read several evenings away. I was due to go home soon, homesick and looking forward to celebrating the holidays with my loved ones.
I lugged that poor paperback back to the states, and would re-read it with my other Christmas books until it had to be rubber banded together to prevent the pages from falling out. During one of my moves, the rubber band broke, random pages went missing and I lost the back cover. Then several years ago in a fit of “this is ridiculous” I tossed it in the recycling bin – the poor thing wasn’t even fit for my donation box. I sometimes remembered this 1930’s classic crime story that kept me mesmerized when I could barely feel my fingers while reading.
So what to my wondering eye should appear but the new British Library Crime Classics reprint series and there it was – my book! Mystery in White – A Christmas Crime Story – all gussied up and sporting a fabulous new cover. I was on Amazon and hitting checkout before I could even take a breath. Originally published in 1937, Mystery in White apparently went out of print and is now republished as part of this new series. (Check out the series for the retro covers alone.) The author is not as well known as many others of the Golden Age yet he was popular in his day. From the book cover:
On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several of the passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea – but no one is at home.
Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.
I’m only halfway through my new edition, I keep stopping to marvel at its new incarnation, but I remember this is a surprisingly unusual crime story. While the language is typical of the 1930’s Golden Age and despite its classic situation (strangers-stranded-in-a-blizzard) Mr. Farjeon gives us mysticism, unexpected plot twists, a hapless police inspector who arrives too late to solve the crimes, a dose of romance and chuckle-worthy Noel Coward humor. Some of the situations strain credibility – how do they see the stranded car at night without flashlights? and why does no one seem wet or cold after thrashing about outside in the blizzard? But you’ll soon forget those little reality fails because this is a clever mystery with a snowy Christmas setting that’s sure to keep you warm and happy.
I found an image of the original hardback edition. My paperback had the same cover.
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Not a book – but Love Actually
Four Days Until ChristmasFor my countdown to Christmas I’m going to add my favorite holiday film. OK you precise people, I admit it’s not a book, but every year, I bring out my cherished DVD to watch it yet again. (My husband just groans, rolls his eyes and goes to the den.)
In case you’ve been living in Kazakhstan, and are unaware of this film, let me explain. Love Actually follows the lives of eight very different couples all immersed with love in various forms. These loosely interrelated tales are set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
Love Actually has a superb cast, including Bill Nighy as an aging rock star, Emma Thompson as a heartbroken wife, Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister (I know!), Laura Linney, a lonely woman with a secret crush, and Liam Neeson as a sad widower raising his young step-son (oh Liam, I could so cheer you up) .
The romantic entanglements range from comic — to charming — to heartbreaking; a couple fall in love while working in the porn film industry as stand-ins, another couple are unable to communicate given language barriers, and a married couple face an extramarital enticement. And with Hugh Grant as Prime Minister there’s plenty of giggles. Oh, and as a an added bonus, the soundtrack is delightful.
Try and see the film in its original uncut for TV form (cable or Netflix) but if not, Love Actually will undoubtedly come around as a holiday TV movie, so don’t miss it. I dare you not to choke up during the final montage of airport scenes set to the Beach Boys music.
Trailer HERE
What is your favorite holiday film?
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Christmas with Alcott and Trollope
Five Days Until Christmas
The newest additions to my Christmas library – purchased for myself at The Booksmith, one of my favorite San Francisco independent bookstores. This store has intriguing events, one of which I have yet to attend — their six times a year $25 open bar & book swap (tempting, oh so tempting – Melinda you in?).
I know quite a shock, me buying more books — but let’s change the subject…shall we?
I don’t own either of these story collections (see? I needed these) and while I know I’ll enjoy Louise May Alcott, I’ve always had trouble reading Trollope. Maybe this small volume will get me over the Trollope hurdle and onto his other works. My grandfather’s book collection includes Barchester Towers and it’s such a lovely edition I would so like to get past the first chapter. Maybe now I will. (Can we say rationalization?)
These are sublime little volumes — beautifully designed—with foil-stamped jackets, decorative endpapers, and vintage nameplates.
They’re part of Penguin’s Christmas Classics series, they’ll publish only a few each year…here’s this year’s list.
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Christmas at Thompson Hall: And Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope
- A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories by Louisa May Alcott
- The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol
- The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann
I’m proud I limited myself to only two from the list. I came very close to also owning the Nutcracker, but I pulled my errant hand back just in time.
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Dickens, of course
6 Days Until ChristmasA Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire by Charles Dickens
From the frontpiece:
Published in its entirety for the first time since 1852, this shining collection of Christmas tales was originally selected by Charles Dickens for his periodical “Household Words”. Each story varies in theme and tone, with scenes of romance, theft, justice, and heart-warming family reunions set alongside haunting tales and chilling ghost stories, while topics addressed range from the meaning of Christmas to disability and race. Contributing authors include Elizabeth Gaskell, Edmund Saul Dixon, Edmund Oliver, and of course Dickens himself, making this a brilliant example of Victorian storytelling and an insightful reflection on the holiday season during the 19th century.
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Dickens was editor of Household Words – a very popular Victorian periodical, with sales at the time in the six figures (wow!). Dickens often commissioned his favorite authors to impersonate an event and write short story installments from different perspectives. In these stories (published as a 1852 Christmas supplement issue) Dickens had each of the authors take on an imaginary role in an extended Victorian family and its servants. Utilizing these various voices from very different classes, the tales are presented in the age old tradition of round-robin style before a roaring fire – sometimes the characters even address one another (which I found delightful).
I will say this is no Hallmark card and these tales are often quite un-Christmasy — from an accidental murder, to ghosts and the mistreatment of a maid. But this being Dickens – there is always uplift and hope within each tale and the storyline, despite being written by different authors, compels the reader to the next narrator.
Because this is the Victorian period (and the often pedantic Dickens), the writing can be a rough road for a modern reader. As in this example from the beginning of Dickens first story entry:
He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire…
I promise you’ll eventually get in the cadence of the writing but it does take some concentration and perseverance. It is well worth the effort. This is a wonderful view into the Victorian era – where life was hard but hope and charity were steadfast.
