Get any good books for Christmas?

I got October 1970 by Louis Hamelin which I'm really enjoying. Also got The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, We Are Water by Wally Lamb, Accusation by Catherine Bush, Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker, and Fall of Giants by Ken Follet.

I got I am an Islander by Patrick Ledwell, an Island comedian and writer for CBC comedy shows. Quick but fun read. Now I'm reading my second Christmas present,Chris Hadfield's An astronaut's Guide to life on Earth. What an amazing man - I am so impressed!

Jim Harrison's Brown Dog and also Songs of Unreason (poems), and Lynn Coady's Hell Going.

Also Duck, Duck, Goose, by wild game cook Hank Shaw, to round things out.

I think people are scared to get me books of Christmas so I usual get none to very few. This year they did pretty well. I got The Luminaries which I had wanted from my father in law and my kids picked out The Hobbit Companion and a DK pockets book Butterflies and Moths.

Christmas was followed by a Christmas family holiday down the road to Victoria where I promptly purchased myself no less that 15 books at Russell Books, the BC Museum Shop and Chapters.

My family knows that a GC is the best way to go unless I head them a specific list a few weeks before Christmas. I did use a GC to order a copy of Under the Dome.

>4 fmgee:: Jealous! I visited Russell Books once and managed to fill an overnight bag with my purchases. Such a wonderful store! (Although it's probably a good thing I live across the continent from it...)

My haul:

The Far Side of the Dollar, by Ross Macdonald
Doctor Who: The Vault: Treasures from the First 50 Years, by Marcus Hearn
Ten Lords a-Leaping, by C.C. Benison
In the Woods, by Tana French
The Likeness, by Tana French
The Lonely Sea, by Alistair MacLean
Breakheart Pass, by Alistair MacLean
DK Eyewitness Travel: Ireland

I am also having a copy of Making History replaced with another book on my to-read list because I've already read that one (but don't own it). Fortunately I had plenty of suggestions for my parents ;)

I"m off to the mall today to spend my gift cards on books!

Since I retired at the end of November, I found myself with a lot of gift cards and was able to purchase 18 books! With the help of my son, I carried home three bags full of:

I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvia Simmons
Paikin and the Premiers by Steve Paikin
Old Enough to Fight: Canada's Boy Soldiers in the First World War by Dan Black
The Longer I'm Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006- by Paul Wells
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
The Emperor of Paris by C.S. Richardson
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Who I'm Not by Ted Staunton
Studio St.-Ex by Ania Szado
Identical by Scott Turow
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
Minister Without Portfolio by Michael Winter
Astronaut's Guide to LIfe on Earth by Chris Hadfield
Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
How Rob Ford Happened
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
and Road's End by Mary Lawson

Believe it or not, I still have 38 books on my wish list!

Holy moly! What a haul! And congratulations on your retirement :)

No doubt a niche book, but I am really pleased with:

A Great Lakes Wetland Flora: a complete guide to the wetland and aquatic plants of the midwest by Steve W Chadde

I took an aquatic macrophytes class eons ago, but even then the descriptive vocabulary was daunting. This guide looks far more accessible--and fun! (For those of us so inclined!) The key guides one to pages on families, where common species are pictured. If I really need to chase down more rare species, I suppose I can always dust off that daunting old textbook by Edward Voss, now available as Michigan Flora: Gymnosperms and Monocots (e.g., pines and grasses), Michigan Flora: Dicots (flowering plants), and Michigan Flora: Part 3 (more flowering plants)--or Field Manual of Michigan Flora, which Voss co-authored with Anton A. Reznicek. (I think the latter lacks diagrams, so is particularly forbidding.)

(Chadde's guide is directed to readers in Great Lakes states, but he used Canadian as well as US resources. I can't think of any species that one would find on the north shore, and not the south--unless, perhaps, a recent invader, that has not yet realized its full range.)

wow -- what a great haul, lynnb. and yes - congratulations on your retirement!! :)

i was very excited with the books i received for christmas, so i hope they will be wonderful reads!!

* this is the story of a happy marriage by ann patchett
* the ghost bride by yangsze choo
* a light that never goes out the enduring saga of the smiths by tony fletcher
* winter sport: poems & summer sport: poems by priscilla uppal
* ghosts by césar aira
* the orenda by joseph boyden
* the origin of the brunists by robert coover

happy new year everyone, and happy reading too!

I got Astronaut's Guide also, it was really good, so I have been watching YouTube videos of the space station which are also great. I also got Welcome to the Broadcast by Don Newman. I haven't read it yet but I can still hear him saying that line :)

Anybody want to start an "Aim to be a Zero" group?

This doesn't qualify as a "good" book, but I got Amazing Things Will Happen by C.C. Chapman. Much better, I got a Chapter's card with which I bought The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow which I got for my next book club.