So... Which books arrived at your Christmas Tree?

Well, now that we have talked about gift cards and hoped-for book gifts, which books did you actually get on Christmas? I received:

L'Engle: A Wrinkle in Time
Moore: The Stupidest Angel
LeGuin: The Tombs of Atuan
LeGuin: The Farthest Shore
McDevitt: Seeker
Anderson: The Broken Sword
Russell: A Thread of Grace
Gaiman: Fragile Things
Thomas: Alexander the Great in His World
Kidder: Mountains Beyond Mountains

Should keep me busy for at least another month! :) How about your list?

Sabarade

No books here, as I don't believe in owning books. :P

I think there's another thread, somewhere, about this...

These are the books that my husband and I got, so far:
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: a memoir by Bill Bryson
Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian by Lyn Lifshin
Too Soon to Say Goodbye by Art Buchwald
Sea of Thunder : Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941-1945 by Evan Thomas
Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille
My Father, My President by Doro Bush Koch
Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich by James J. Cramer
Welcome to JesusLand! by Chris Harper
Chuck Klosterman IV : A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman

I got a gift certificate to Bolens Books (an independant in Victoria, but big, big, big) and In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson; I'd been drooling over my mother-in-law's copy and she took the hint :o)

My kids got a box of 12 Magic Schoolbus books
Ramona and her Mother by Beverly Cleary
5 Jan Brett picturebooks with CDs
Dr. Seuss's ABC
Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee
Neighborhood Numbers by Baby Einstein
Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard
Stella Princess of the Sky by Marie-Louise Gay
A Salmon for Simon by Betty Waterton

Time for more stuffing! Merry Christmas Green Dragon patrons!

Just 3:

The Courage to Write
100 Ways to Improve Your Writing
Mastering the Art of Drawing

Just three, but three that have made me all kinds of happy;

Fool's Errand
The Golden Fool
Fool's Fate

Basically the whole of the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb I am filled with glee :D

No books. (heavy sigh)
I gave my sons, however, Flags of Our Fathers and Phantom, the newest Sword of Truth novel. I will probably end up reading both of them eventually!

None here, but I did receive money which I will use to purchase books. Any suggestions?

Only two this year, which was a bit of a surprise, and they're both science books, one academic and one more pop-sci: Reproductive Success by Tim Clutton-Brock, and In Search of the Golden Frog, by Marty Crump.

Oddly enough, my mom, who was a non-reader until a few years ago, got more books than I did... for maybe the first time ever.

Only one this year, but I'm not complaining. My aunt gave me a copy of Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, signed by Thich Nhat Hanh himself, no less! I love Religious Studies, especially Buddhism and Hinduism, so this was an especially cool presnt.

Hop in my boat, hobbitprincess. Let's pretend we each gave each other $20 Amazon gift certificates for books, and buy one for ourselves, and pretend it was a book gift. :)

Or you can just make an after-Christmas trip to the library? :P

Re: #12

The point of the thread is gift books, bookmasterjmv. :) The library, while wonderful, typically does not gift out the books it loans.

But it is a gift! You are being gifted a book for three weeks time period! :P

My property taxes say it's other than a gift. ;)

By the way, this is not Busifer. My intent here was to do a one time gentle teasing of Busifer by showing an out of control "Busifer" that she referred to in another thread - the comment made me laugh. I'll stop using the account, now, and send her the password in a private note, so she can change it and claim ownership. :)

Yes, you do pay the library taxes... but if you think about it, you're paying a whole hell of a lot less by going to the library then by buying every bestseller at $20.

And hehe about the account. Nice chatting with ya.

To each his own, bookmasterjmv. I love the physicality of books. I love owning them, and reading them where and when I please. I also enjoy borrowing them from the library. I see no reason why I can't continue to enjoy doing both things simultaneously. Owning and borrowing do not need to be mutually exclusive.

Just for the record, I rarely (if ever) pay full price for books. I always have some coupon, or discount from my book store memberships. (Or I wait until the best sellers hit the remainder shelf.) The vast majority of my books have come from library sales and used book stores.

Two, High Druid of Shannara: Straken and Armageddon's Children, both by Terry Brooks. Can't wait to read Armageddon's Children, finally connecting the Shannara and Word/Void series. Plus I have another ten or so on the way that are somewhat a Christmas gift to myself :)

Plus I have another ten or so on the way that are somewhat a Christmas gift to myself

Hee hee, I did this too. My family was all "don't you dare buy any books for yourself during all of december!", so I left my Amazon wishlist alone... and then when only two showed up under the tree, I absolutely went last night and ordered six or seven for myself.

OK... I guess I ought to 'fess up. Only the last four books were purchased "for" me (as opposed to "by" me) for Christmas. Most of my family/friends have no clue what I am reading these days (or worse, what I have already read and/or own), so it is difficult for them to buy me book gifts without help. Very surprisingly, my wife came up with the Gaiman Fragile Things title on her own. I didn't even know it existed yet!

:)

Bookmasterjmv -

I used to use the library more. I really TRIED to rein in my book allowance. I think for me I just like to reread books too much, and its easier for me to have them on hand.

There's also something reassuring to me to see so many old friends on my shelf in my house. I mean, I literally get a little warm glow when I see all of my McKinleys sitting next to my McKillips, and so on.

**edited to add touchstones**

Sabarade, you dawg! Tee hee. No need to 'fess anything. Five of the books on my list are the ones I bought for my husband, only two of which I plan to read myself.

I wouldn't have gotten the two I did, except I asked for them by title. I'm finally getting around to setting up an Amazon wishlist, so perhaps my family/friends will have a better idea what to get me.

I got all my books I ordered that my mom wrapped and gave to me LOL No surprises but at least I knew I'd like them. The books I unwrapped were:

Secrets by F.M. McPherson

Ill Wind and the rest of the Weather Warden books by Rachel Caine

Tinker by Wen Spencer

and The Dragon's Heart by Cailtlin McNubile (no touchstones yet, it was a Publish American book that I haven't yet put into my catalog).

Oh, and not sure if this counts as a gift, but Amazon sent me my $25.00 certificate for spending too much money with my credit card, so I'll be ordering more books tonight :-)

Sadly no books here, but I shall be looking into picking up The Hogfather and a few others as i did get cash!

Heheh, me too. I can never stop at getting the books I planned to get for others. Invariably, I found several for myself that I didn't mention above. The funny thing was, this year they were all YA books, past years they were usually adult fiction and natural history.

Okay - if we are going to be honest - when I went to Amazon about a week or so ago to purchase gifts for others, I ordered some books on Walt Disney that I wanted. So I guess those count too. :)

Between me and my wife, we now have:

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson -- I love his stuff, and since I often fantasized (and still do) about being a superhero, I can relate

The Breakfast Book -- it's our favorite meal, and we often have breakfast dishes for dinner

A paperback copy of Paris to the Moon -- this we'll give away, since we already have a hardcover copy, and it's signed

We also got some Visa giftcards that will most likely be used toward books.

Joy! My mom just handed over a Borders giftcard from one of her coworkers! It's not for much, but I can probably get at least two new books off the wishlist. Now the only question is which two?

w00t! Go you! I just got a Borders coupon for buy two get one free in my email.

http://f.chtah.com/i/9/276579820/coupon1226.htm

You have to be a member to use it, but membership is free.

Only two books this year:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester

I also received two gift certificates, (a $25 one for Chapters and a $30 one for my favourite local bookstore), so I've got to decide what to get. It's difficult, as there's nothing I'm particularly looking for right now. I'm at a rather quiet point when it comes to book-hunting; I've got everything I really want. Hmm.

I am suprised you do not have any Tanya Huff. xicanti,

I got Arabat and QI - so just the two, but I've got a rather large Amazon order to place this week - so many to choose from, so little time ;-)

I was very sad because I couldn't participate in this discussion having gotten no books for Christmas.

But my father just gave me a $50 gift card! Hooray!

Same here, but I can't stop talking anyway ;-)

I think most people I know think I already have too many books... as that ever could happen :-)
The obvious other reason is that the adults in our combined families don't buy christmas gifts for each other - it's reserved for the kids. My mom still buy gifts to me and my sister (we're 40 and 38, respectively) but nowadays it's almost always expensive kinds of chocolate/truffles/pralines...

OK, I got one book, but that was more of a novelty thing, as it is a picture book showing boxes for... ehh, don't know the word and don't seem to find it in any dictionary... but think of small boxes with sweets for kids, and cough pastilles.

Xicanti, I love The Meaning of Everything! Enjoy!

I'm out-of-town right now at my in-laws, and there is this really cool used book store here, tucked away in this little mountain town. I plan to go revisit it later today! :0)

#37... I like finding little out of the way shops, and that leads me to another question (I'll post it in a new thread...)

I got two $50 gift cards for Chapters, but I'm not planning to spend them immediately - I want them to last until my birthday in August. And I just bought pretty much all the books I wanted right now anyway (it was those pre-Christmas deals like $10 off if you spend $50.... I kept having to buy $50 worth of books.)

I only received a couple. Since I buy books all year for myself, I tend to lay off during Christmas. LOL.

Yay! I got Tibet : Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern !!!!!!

My kids are so thougthful.

LOL! Not really.

It's a book from an exhibition in Germany about Tibetan statuary that was smuggled out of Tibet when the Chinese rolled through. I'm doing some artwork to help a cousin who is a Tibetologist (?) (I think that's what they call themselves, lol.) The book is both a great reference, and a beautiful photograph book of all sorts of amazing artifacts.

I also got Red, White, and Drunk all Over which is a marvelous book about wine, for people of all appreciation levels. Written in a breezy, Bill Bryson type style, it's a lot of fun.

And finally, and monumentally, a collection of books by Edward Tufte, that I've barely scratched the surface of, containing, among others The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Being that this is a fantasy oriented book club, I doubt that gets many of you salivating, but....I'm excited.

So, as gifts, a great bunch, because none of them are books that I probably would have bought for myself, but all of them are books I enjoy. Perfect gifts.

Well, I do but then I already own some of his books... and I frequently lend them to co-workers (user experience designers/usability consultants, like me...) who need read them to better understand what they're doing ;-)
His books are VERY good. I have used some of his cases when doing speeches on information design.

Atomicmutant-I just happily bought a used copy of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information at a library book sale so I understand your enthusiasm! :-)

I got for X-mas two of the Fable trade paperbacks by Bill Willingham, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall and March of the Wooden Soldiers

Also, a Thai cookbook whose title escapes me at the moment and The South Carolina Encyclopedia, a mountain of a book at over 1000 pages of regional history. Signed even!

As a geographer and GIS consultant, I consider Tufte's Visual Display... a must-have reference. Not to mention that the map reproductions are very interesting even for non-professionals. A very considerate gift, IMHO.

It turns out I did get four books for Christmas. I just didn't know it before, as they hadn't arrived yet.

I received a 4-box Ballantine paperback edition of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - in the red slipcovers, circa 1973, from a friend who knew mine had been lost in a move.

What the friend who sent me these didn't realize at the time is - that they are from the same printing I had as a child (2nd September, 1973 printing), and also... had the same printing flaw on the cover of Return of the King - caused by some dirt or such on the printing head - as my copies had. Dirt on printing heads doesn't last long. This means the copy I received was were most likely printed within seconds or minutes of mine. I remember that stupid flaw...

I can't begin to tell you how amazing this is - to get a copy printed so close in time to the well-used ones I had. And the friend of course had no clue.

So I got some books for Christmas after all. :)

What a heartwarming story, JPB. I'm sure your friend appreciates knowing how happy and amazed you are.

:o)

There are several threads on this but I have to say it again, I did not get any books for Christmas. Hints obviously failed so I was blunt and stated I'd rather have book tokens than bubble bath, in future. I spent so long in bookshops looking for other people, my wishlist has become immense.

#45

That is a good story, and either a great coincidence, or your friend has been holding on to your original copies for a long time? ;-) I'm kidding... this is great news indeed, and makes a great present even more special.

re #45: that's a fantastic story! I love hearing about stuff like that. It's like a great case of book karma. The universe was making sure you had adequate replacements. (Or something).

#48

Naww... mine were kept in better shape. But... I honestly wondered if they were MINE.. for a moment. If they had been FOUND and this person somehow got them. It was weird, and wonderful.

#47

Hera! I'm so sorry you didn't get any books for Christmas! It's a bit mindblowing when the love of books & reading is so obvious, isn't it? Bubble bath? Argh!

#51

...a bath sounds rather nice right now. I'll bring a BOOK. :D

Okay, so you know I mentioned getting a $50 Borders gift card from my dad? Well last night, my husband and I are watching a movie on our laptop when all of a sudden, I hear a *munch munch clack munch* and I look down. My dog is EATING my gift card. It had been on my table, but the cat must have knocked it off, and Elvis got to it and decided tha tit was surely a tasty treat.

By the time I got to it, there was just a little corner of it left. It had *MOST* of the serial number with it. I took it, and the gift receipt my dad had (thankfully) given me, and luckily Border's accepted it.

I got:

1. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - a surprisingly good debut novel about a band of thieves
2. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson - I LOVED his book Elantris
3. Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey - I'm a completist and have the rest of the trilogy
and
4. Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy - Unbeknowst to myself, Mizkit from Livejournal (whose journal I read) and C.E. Murphy are one and the same! So, I decided to pick up her book and see what she's all about. I'll let you know what I think when I am done.

Yay!

dressagegrrl, you are one lucky dawg... um... one lucky dawg OWNER, even. ;o)

I went to Borders a couple of days ago to pick up our calendars for '07. (I always wait until the are 50% off.) While I was there *cough cough* my daughter picked out a book to give a good friend who is moving away, and I just happened to have that buy two get one free coupon, and I felt it was my duty... no, my obligation to use it. ;o) I came home with Jane Austen : A Life by Claire Tomalin and A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay. Too bad there are a few books ahead of them on my stack.

Hello! Receiving books for the holidays is a wonderful thing. I've received these two (among others), and they're wonderful:

Night Fall, Nelson DeMille
Next Man Up, John Feinstein

I found out this morning that I was supposed to get another book for Christmas, The world of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time (aka the big white book). My parents ordered it from amazon used, and either it never showed up, or it showed up, they put it somewhere and forgot where. Both of those have happened before. :)

Shame, too. I wanted that... and very nearly bought it for myself at Borders the other night.

I got two books The Lies of Locke Lamora and Dreamsongs. Havent had a chance to look at them properly yet as i have a bit of a backlog of books to read.

I'm halfway through The Lies of Locke Lamora and it's pretty good. I have to say though that I don't like the way Lynch jumps around in time. Although I think it's a good device sometimes, in this case it just hinders the flow of the novel. The story is compelling enough however that it moves along anyway.

I didn't get a lot of books, but they were all ones I wanted. And the last one, I didn't even pick out, my mom found it for me :)

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
Complete Metalsmith, Professional Edition by Tim McCreight
Practical Casting by Tim McCreight

Not that I want to start an argument or anything but never buying books sounds like a good way to not support your favorite authors. Also, I need some of my books for much more than three weeks - much good Complete Metalsmith would do me if I had to keep taking it back...

I didnt get a single book for christmas this year!
Normally i get a giftcard from my grandparents for chapters and about 5 or 6 books from my parents, this year my mom said my bookshelf was too full!

at least i recently got a nice healthy paycheck so i plan to buy a couple books tomorrow.

My sister loves me. She got me a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Nobles. So I proceeded to buy myself some new books and added to my ever expanding book pile.

I bought:
Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore
Mystic Warrior by Tracy Hickman
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Dragon's Touchstone by Irene Radford
the sequel to that series by Irene Radford, part of the Dragon Nimbus Histories. I cant recall the title right now.
finally I found the unabridged audio book version of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Woo Hoo! I scored quite well this year. In addition to gift cards for B&N and Books-A-Million, I also received as gifts:

The Perfect Fake Barbara Parker
The Romanov Prophecy: A Novel Steve Berry
The Third Secret Steve Berry
Contest Matthew Reilly
Bones of Coral (A Thorn Mystery) James W. Hall
Mercury: Planet Novel #4 (The Grand Tour) Ben Bova
The Gun Seller Hugh Laurie
The Bartender's Black Book Stephen Kittredge Cunningham
A Cold Heart (Alex Delaware) Jonathan Kellerman
Therapy (Alex Delaware) Jonathan Kellerman
Amazonia James Rollins
Ice Hunt James Rollins
Excavation James Rollins
Deep Fathom James Rollins
The Last Templar Raymond Khoury
Book Deal Les Standiford
Raw Deal Les Standiford
Miami Noir (Akashic Noir) 2006 Dec 31, 2006 4
Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs Ken Jennings
Lisey's Story Stephen King
Cross James Patterson

Of course, it helps that I passed out a list over over 100 titles on my wish list to friends and family! Seems to have done the trick! ;-)

#62 FinsRandL, isn't Ken Jennings the guy who won all those Jeopardy Championships?

Clamairy: Tis indeed. I guess he wasn't satisfied with merely his 15 minutes of fame. Since I'm the resident trivia buff in our circle, my Sister thought I would enjoy reading about his trials and tribulations on his way to winning a million bucks!

I'd love to get my hands on The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie. You'll have to let us know what you thought about it after you've finished.

Re #41 - Atomicmutant

The same day you posted about The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, I had to go online at Amazon and order some books for work. One of them pulled that title up as a "If you like that, you may like ..." title. To talk like my daughters, I was, like, whoah!, and then I was, like, I've gotta remember to tell AM. :D

And so I'm like, wow. And so, did you, like, get it? 'Cause if you like, like that, you, like, might like it. So, totally, I get where you're coming from. The book is phat, yo.

OK, it's an awsome book, but I like Visual explanations more, partly because of the time tables... I LOVE time tables and maps showing undergound/tube/U-Bahn systems; the showing of metadata galore!

#45 It turns out I did get four books for Christmas. I just didn't know it before, as they hadn't arrived yet.

Amazing and heartwarming - couldn't happen to a nicer guy, JPB!

I didn't get any books this year, only because my family knows not to buy me books unless i give them author & title, heee heeee! I got money which WILL be used to inflate my TBR pile. This thread helps with leads, heee heeeeee!

One of my fav. xmas pressies this year was Thomas Hardy's biography by his second wife(well actually him but published after death in his wife's name) I was very chuffed! From my best friend-who always knows what to buy me!

I did get another book but I have put it aside(whilst I finish the other 3 books I'm reading) and have no idea what the title it is! Especially as I didn't ask for it and don't recognise the author! But my uncle always buys me books I would never normally read and I always enjoy them. So I'm looking forward to reading it.

#70 - Ah! Thomas Hardy! I am jealous. Have you started reading it yet? Let us know if it's worth the time. If it's mainly autobiographical, I wonder how honest he was. He is one of my favorite authors of that time period. :o)