Holiday Swap fun!

-
I adore this time of year, but one of my favorite new traditions is the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. Last year, I didn't know my giver or receiver. This year, I didn't know the person I shopped for, so I was thrilled to get a package in the mail from Beth at Bookworm Meets Bookworm, a book blogger I communicate with frequently through Twitter and our blogs!
Here's what I found inside my gorgeously wrapped package:

  • homemade cocoa mix
  • a sweet and beautiful handmade card
  • a GORGEOUS, homemade bookmark in my favorite color of blue
  • The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which is on two of my TBR lists: Orange Prize shortlist and New Yorker 20 Under 40 (plus it's one of Beth's all-time favorite books!)
I can't wait to dig into The History of Love, and I hope it will be one of my first 2011 reads. Thanks, Beth!

Comments

  1. ZibileeDecember 16, 2010 at 10:08 AM

    What a nice package! I hope that you enjoy A History of Love as I have heard very good things about it!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Melissa (Avid Reader)December 16, 2010 at 2:57 PM

    What a haul! I can't wait to hear what you think of The History of Love. It's one of my favorites!

    ReplyDelete
  3. ErinDecember 16, 2010 at 6:12 PM

    Lovely gifts! You have everything you need for a nice afternoon: hot cocoa, a good book, and a lovely bookmark with which to mark your page when you need a cocoa refill! I loved History of Love and hope you do too :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. BethDecember 16, 2010 at 9:34 PM

    So glad you like it! I thought cocoa would be nice since I figured cookies might go stale?! Ha. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the novel. Stay warm! Happy Holidays! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. AmusedDecember 17, 2010 at 4:45 PM

    What a great package of goodies! I loved History of Love and hope you do too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness)December 19, 2010 at 1:43 PM

    Fun! I just did one swap this year, a holiday card swap, but that was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy the book!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the fir
Read more