The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimba, the Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week, take a look ahead, and showcase our new treasures — I mean books!
My Week
We’re celebrating our second day of Christmas today. It’s become traditional to spend Christmas Day with just the three of us and my mom and stepdad, and spend the 26th at my sister’s with all of her family, the five of us, and a third family our age — close friends whom we’ve adopted as family. We have a second Christmas dinner, open yet more presents, and play games: Things, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, and the family favorite, a fast-and-furious card game called Pounce.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were more relaxed than usual. I was in bed before midnight for the first time in three decades, and we got to sleep in until 8:30, instead of being dragged, bleary-eyed, from our beds at oh-dark-hundred by an excited Robin. While I miss seeing the magic of Christmas through a child’s eyes, I appreciate the mellower pace this year… and the Christmas Day joy and delight remained as strong as ever.
I hope you are having a wonderful holiday, too, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, or some other holiday.
Last Week on the Blog
- Sun. 12/18/16: Sunday Post – 12/18/16
- Tues. 12/20/16: Ten Books I’d Love to Find Under The Tree (2016 edition)
- Sat. 12/24/16: Happy Hanukkah!
- Sun. 12/25/16: Merry Christmas!
Upcoming on the Blog
- Mon. 12/26/16: Day-After-Sunday Post (12/26/16)
- Tues. 12/27/16: My Top Ten Best Books Of 2016 – tentative
- Wed. 12/28/16: TBD
- Thur. 12/29/16: TBD
- Fri. 12/30/16: TBD
- Sat. 12/31/16: No News & Notes this week!
- Sun. 1/01/17: Happy New Year!
Challenges
You can still sign up for The Backlist Reader Challenge! If you’re looking for a year-long challenge to read books from your TBR pile or list, this is the one! It will be a chance to get to some of those older titles you’ve been wanting to read. You can check out all the rules by clicking on the image above.
COYER Blackout began December 17. It’s hosted by Berls of Fantasy is More Fun, Michelle of Because Reading, and Stormi of Books, Movies, Reviews, Oh My! The rules are strict: only ebooks you owned or had requested prior to Dec. 17, that cost $0.99 or less. (ARCs count, and you can read the details by clicking on the image above.) I’m setting a goal of 12 books by March 3, but I might increase it later on. (This is my official sign-up post.) So far, I’ve read 1 book that counts toward COYER: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle (ARC.)
What I’m Reading/Watching
Reading: I finished up All the Weyrs of Pern (Anne McCaffrey; Kindle purchase), then plowed through Island of Glass (Nora Roberts; purchased.) After that, I turned to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Circle of Quiet, a review copy from Open Road Media: a book I loved in my 20s and 30s, but hadn’t re-read in about 20 years. I also re-read The Liar (Nora Roberts; public library), and enjoyed it just as much the second time around.
I need to get back to Tempest (Valdemar anthology; ARC) and Lady Claire Is All That (Maya Rodale; ARC), and there are several other review books looming on my schedule. But of course, my new Christmas gifts are tempting, too!
Listening to: a lot of Christmas music! Classical and traditional choirs, mostly — John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers, the Vienna Boys Choir, the Kings College Choir, the Robert Shaw Chorale, and the like, plus some great soloists like Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade.
Watching: A Christmas Carol (the George C. Scott version), and A Child’s Christmas in Wales — my favorite Christmas movie of all time. And Christmas night, we watched The Hundred-Foot Journey, which is gorgeous and charming. I highly recommend it. I’ve also seen bits and pieces of several of the British mystery series my mom has been watching: The Murdoch Mysteries, Inspector Gently, and Dalziel and Pascoe. (The Murdoch Mysteries takes place in Canada, but it feels more British than American. I’ve added it to my Netflix list.)
New Additions to the Hoard
Cover links take you to Goodreads.
For Review or Review Consideration
Nothing this week!
Gifts
The first four were on my Top Ten Tuesday wishlist last week. 🙂 Book Scavenger is a signed edition, a surprise gift from Robin, who knows how much I enjoyed the book, and The Inkeeper of Ivy Hill is from my mom, who read and enjoyed it. The two Cathy Ace Kindle books were on my personal wishlist.
Purchased for Kindle
Rita @ View From My Books
Thanks for a fun, newsy post to read this lazy day-after morning!
Your traditions sound like so much fun ☺ glad you had a wonderful time. You received a treasure trove of authors you read, so that was great for you. I hope to read the Guardians trilogy by Roberts. Its blurb appeals to me.
Enjoy the rest of your vacation.
Rita @ View From My Books recently posted…Peace, and See You Soon
Lark_Bookwyrm
The Guardians trilogy was fun. I didn’t love it quite as much as the Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy, but I did really enjoy it. It’s definitely got a major fantasy componenet to it. 🙂
Ronyell (a.k.a Rabbitearsblog)
Oooh! Two Christmases! I would love to have two Christmases myself!
Here’s my Sunday Post!
Ronyell @ Rabbit Ears Book Blog and join in this week’s Book Photo Sundays!
Ronyell (a.k.a Rabbitearsblog) recently posted…Bout of Books #18 Read-a-thon Sign Up!
Lark_Bookwyrm
We went light on the gifts in the second one — mostly we gave charitable donations in each others’ honor, except for the “kids” (who are middle school through college age.)
Charlie
What a lovely tradition! Two Christmases! It is good to sleep in. I hope you enjoyed your holidays!
Lark_Bookwyrm
I did enjoy them, and I hope you did the same!
Melissa
Two Christmases…and the first being super mellow sounds fantastic! We did all our visiting on Christmas Eve, had a mellow Christmas and then just went out for lunch and desert for my birthday on the 26th. Super relaxing this year!
Melissa recently posted…Top Ten Book Covers of 2016
Lark_Bookwyrm
Sounds lovely!
Lark
Your Christmas sounds like it’s been a nice one. I’m glad! My family played Scattergories and a version of Apples to Apples that my nephew came up with called Peppermints to Peppermints this Christmas, too. 😀
Oh, and I finally got a chance to read that RaeAnne Thayne romance, Snowfall on Haven Point, that you recommended and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So thanks!
Lark recently posted…My Top 10 Fiction Reads of 2016:
Lark_Bookwyrm
It was funny; we hardly played any games at all this time. OTOH, there was much (friendly) political discussion and a lot of talk about books, especially among the lovers of YA and adult fantasy (which is about half of us.)
Your nephew’s game sounds like fun. And I’m glad you enjoyed the RaeAnne Thayne book!
Benish
This was a fun post, I see Nora Roberts in there. Thank you for sharing 🙂 Happy holidays btw!
Lark_Bookwyrm
I really like Nora Roberts, particularly the books that have a touch of magic or fantasy in them, and some of her romantic suspense books. Happy holidays!