Christmas Book Loot

Last Christmas I didn't receive one thing book related and I thought it was quite funny really.  I spend most of my days with my books and evidently people thought I probably didn't want anything more to do with them.  I could tell they are not in that addicted book state that most people who might be reading this are.

I made a joke of it to a few people and this year I ended up with books.  I earned a book voucher from my favourite indie store in Hobart. When I was in the USA my brother in Tennessee and sister in California made sure I knew where the bookstores were. We visited several.  Then along came Christmas.  In the interest of convenience my brother's family in combination with my mother sent me an exceedingly generous gift card to Amazon.  That will keep my Kindle turning over for sometime to come and is greatly appreciated because if I want something specific I should be able to easily download it on the spot.

However my favourites will always be the real deal that one holds in their hand and it is those that I am sharing here today.  If anyone has any of these I hope you let me know what you think of them. If you aren't familiar with them I hope you enjoy their beauty.  There are a couple of others but I will share them another day in their own right.  I did also acquire some more vintage Penguins for the collection but as they are early ones they are in the orange and white banded copies so won't post them up until I read them all.... ahem....

Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion

These two women have been lifelong friends and travelled the world visiting 

second hand bookshops in many countries.  This is their story. I have dipped into it

and I love them already so can't wait to get into this one. 

For The Love of Books

This is a great one for dipping in and out of.  It is a compilation as it states on the cover,
of 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books they love the most. It appears that most, if not all
of those who contributed are American writers.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Australian author Richard Flanagan is being described by
everyone as a genius of a book. When I saw Tim Winton, author of Cloudstreet
at a book event recently he stopped talking about his own newly released book
to comment on this one. The following statement is from the Guardian Book Review of it online:"The Narrow Road to the Deep North is dedicated to Flanagan's father, prisoner san byaku san ju go (335), the Japanese number given to him as a PoW, one of Weary Dunlop's thousand on the death railway."
(Thanks to Kate for such a lovely Christmas present)

This is another book that strikes my fancy.  It is an interesting
course of drawing which I am somewhat compromised in doing so thought
it would be fun to have a go. I picked this up with a voucher.

Paper Bliss
I got this one with a voucher from the Sale table at my local store, Fuller's.
It is such a beautiful book with great ideas of all the ways to use
paper to make not only notebooks but also cards, decorate letters and even how
to make your own decorative paper. Fun to look through and who knows, I might get
very creative during a cold winter's day in the future.

This is another book about books.  I love these kinds of books and will have fun dipping into

it as the calendar year goes by and what a great time to receive such a book with it now being the first of January. 

This one may have some quips and quotes that pop up  here again and again.

As we just watched the fireworks on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (on TV), 2013 is well and truly behind us.  All the best for 2014. Let the good times roll.