Get any good books for the holidays?

I got The Frank Book by Jim Woodring - really incredible, strange comic strips. Highly recommended. Also I got the new Monty Python autobiography ("The Pythons") - really good, and it prints loads of old Terry Gilliam cartoons and rare photos (including a frankly frightening photo of Eric Idle as a baby).

i bought myself joan didion's where i was from.

I committed a totally bad Christmas etiquette sin by giving my Dad "Backroom Boys" by Francis Spufford on Christmas Day, reading the first two chapters on Boxing Day and immediately asking to borrow it back! (He said yes.)

You should have read it before giving it to him!

B-b-but - the SPINE THING!

I got Down And Out In Paris And London and a memoirs type thing by Heller which I'm sure will sit neglected on my bookshelf for many a year, with the best intentions, mind.

down and out is AWESOME! depressing mind you, but awesome.

Ethan Mordden's One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970s.

Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia by Tom Bissell

and I bought myself the new translation of Don Quixote and (per NA)Donald Antrim's The Verificationist

West Ham - the Dream Team. Ahh, better days.

An anthology of Jan Morris too. My favourite travel-writing manwoman.

Oh I also got an anthology of Black British writing (fiction and non) which looks very interesting and will probably not be read for months.

My stepmom (who has a bookstore) got me a Julio Cortazar book (that I requested) and my girlfriend a new of wine essays by some guy (who is a wine essayist).

Harold Bloom's Genius. Ego Trip Book of Racism. Lemony Snicket's Unauthorized Autobiography.
What weird books they are.

Jordan,
Which one did she buy? "Hopscotch" I hope!

Tico,

What is the name of the anthology that you received at Christmas?

Stack of Greek mythology books of all shapes and sizes, about a dozen bookstore vouchers, and a copy of 'Stalingrad' by Beevor for myself, as I'm ashamed to admit that I never got around to reading that when it first came out. Oh, and the 'Uncyclopedia', which isn't as good as Schott's, frankly, but still mildly entertaining.

Well, I did well for the holidays, when it comes to books. Thank goodness for the great idea of wish lists!

Out – Natsuo Kirino
The "Rabbit" series – John Updike
Living to Tell the Tale – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Blank Slate – Steven Pinker
Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices – Andrew Dalby
Tolkien and the Great War – John Garth
The Road to Home – Vartan Gregorian
Krakatoa – Simon Winchester
The Known World – Edward P. Jones
The Stones of Summer – Down Mossman
Benjamin Franklin – Walter Isaacson
Faceless Killers, etc. – Henning Mankel
Being Dead – Jim Crace
Only Yesterday – Frederick Lewis Allen
Rocket City – Cathryn Alpert
Mile Zero – Thomas Sanchez
Fried Butter – Abe Opincar
The Franchiser – Stanley Elkin
Feeding a Yen – Calvin Trillin
Timoleon Vieta Come Home – Dan Rhodes
The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
Untangling My Chopsticks – Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Gentlemen of Space – Ira Sher
The Book of Salt – Monique Truong
Brick Lane – Monica Ali
Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum – Edward T. O’Donnell
The Nero Wolfe Cookbook

(I, um, kind of milked the whole "woe is me, I'm sick and need some new books to read" line. I guess I did well with the guilt-trip.)

Ms Windows, what did you think of Faceless Killers? I only ask as we're doing it for a book club. It did nothing for me (Kurt Wallender is a blend of every TV cop rolled into one). Talk about overdo the descriptions of the countryside. Yeah, it's cold and bleak mate, I get it.

Tell me something about it that is intelligent and witty and that I can pass off as my own.

*laughing* Well, um, I haven't read it yet, Mikey G. But I think I have several others in the series and have put off reading them until I'd read the first in the bunch, 'cause I tend to be obsessive that way.

Sorry that I can't help with the intelligent and witty (though maybe you could go with the bleakness of the frigid country side and use that to look at how hard-boiled the "hero" is - and maybe how cold the murder(ers) is/are? That seems like a line that could be decently dragged into something wise sounding. Oh, and there's that statistic about how in the hotter climates one tends to kill others, but in the colder climates one tends to kill one's self ... though I'd think that serial killers would have more time to do the whole mutilation thing if the weather was condusive to keep the corpse from decaying. [Er, I can't believe that I thought of that!]).

Anyway, here's a website that might help you out: (but, on second thought, it looks like there isn't a lot there, except for stuff about the publishing - maybe you could derail the conversation with talking about translation issues and publication order and publishing houses?).

Gor bless the wish list. I am definitely setting up a detailed one this year for my birthday (March 13th, people, let's get on the case!) so that I don't end up with the same kind of dismal book-free showing that I had at Christmas. Not one book did I receive as a gift. Not one! Not even a diary.

Ugh, how horrid! I can't imagine a holiday passing with nary a book in the gift pile. I am so sorry to hear that.

I love my wish list - but when it ran to over 30 pages, well, I ended-up taking the whole thing down and putting it into a spreadsheet, else it took forever to find anything - and then I'd send off copies of that. Actually, I like books that I've not asked for and not known about even better than those on a wish list - that's a perfect surprise for me.

Bluh, I hardly gave away anything else than books this Christmas.

I didn't get a single book in return!
Oh well, I'm not big on owning books; I'm a serious libraryphile instead (incidentally, that's my dream job-location)

Passing Open Windows, do you give classes in that kind of guilt-tripping? I'd like to sign up :)

*snarfing* Sure, bibliophile - maybe I need to start seminars on the topic. "Laura's 10-Steps to a New, Book-Laden You".