For thirteen of the fourteen years since I started this blog, I have made a short post about the books (and sometimes music) I received as gifts for Christmas. In addition to being fun, it also serves as a teaser for the reviews to be written in the upcoming year. As usual, I try to link the reviews to these posts as I write them.
Here are the past editions:
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This year was a bit of chill Christmas season. We all ended up with colds, unfortunately, and we got a lot of rain from Christmas Eve until New Years Day. Some years are like that.
Anyway, I did get some cool books.
1. 1. Silk Parachute by John McPhee
I have enjoyed reading McPhee for years, both his geology books and his general essays. This collection, from my wife, is one of those general collections about a variety of topics. I am looking forward to it.
2. 2. The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce
Ah yes, “Bitter Bierce” as he was known back in the day. Many of us read a short story in high school, usually “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Bierce was a Civil War veteran, and this colored everything he wrote. Along with Mark Twain and Washington Irving, arguably the best American short story writer of the 19th Century. Another one from my wife.
3. 3. Rumpole by John Mortimer
This is the rare case where the TV show came first, then the book. John Mortimer wrote the screenplays for a British television show, “Rumpole of the Bailey,” back in the 70s, then adapted the plots for a series of short stories. As a barrister, Mortimer was writing from experience, and the shows became a bit of a cult classic, although they are less known here in the United States. As classics of legal fiction, I am eager to read these. Another one from my wife.
4. 4. The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson
This one is from my wife’s brother and his wife, and like many of the books they have given me over the years, it is one I have never heard of. They generally have good taste, so I’ll see how this one is. It is non-fiction, and about a first century writing that didn’t make the cut for the New Testament.
5. 5. Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope
Regular blog readers know that I am a huge fan of Anthony Trollope. Along with George Eliot, I consider him the best of the Victorian British authors. While Trollope’s novels - particularly the two series - are fairly well known, his short stories are more obscure. This book brings together five Christmas-themed stories. I had no idea this existed, but my wife ran across it somewhere. I am curious how these stories compare to those of Charles Dickens.
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