Holiday Books and Movies, Winter Fun (Quilting)

Last year, I didn't do much holiday reading, but this year I made a list and have been checking it frequently and really enjoying the change of pace.

The Christmas Guest, by Peter Swanson - this turned out to be a pretty good murder mystery by the author of Eight Perfect Murders, which I really enjoyed a few years ago. GoodReads describes the book thusly:

An American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family's Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village's grim history.

As with Eight Perfect Murders, this is a very clever story--not your typical whodunit and so twisted it defied belief, but I went along for the ride. It wasn't until the very end that the title morphed for me--very short story-esque

Speaking of short stories, I'm also reading a collection by Maeve Binchy (This Year It Will Be Different), which is perfect--each story is bite-sized and interesting, some more edgy than others, but the schmaltz is not thick and gooey. I'm about halfway through and reading one story a day. Kind of like an Advent calendar.

Open to other suggestions--I am not much into the Hallmark romance stories (I abandoned Christmas in London before I threw it across the room) but love things like Rosamunde Pilcher's Winter Solstice and Fanny Flagg's Redbird Christmas.

In other news...

I have also been indulging in some holiday movies. So far, we have logged re-watches of The Santa Clause, Elf, and Home Alone 1 and 2. All just fantastic. While You Were Sleeping is on the list, and I am considering finally watching Die Hard!

We also went to see Gladiator II, which was really good! I checked the historical accuracy meter, and it did reasonably well.  They filmed (well CGI'd) something that has fired my imagination for years. Namely, filling the Colosseum with water and then having ships (well, the crews) battle each other. Of course, in this universe, there were sharks added--I thought sharks needed salt water to survive, but what do I know? Anyway, it was great fun. Made me sad that I have never seen the original Gladiator. Must fix that. Now I want to rewatch the HBO Rome series.

And I saw Wicked. A bit long, and it was only part 1 of the stage version, but great fun and now the songs are stuck in my head.

I am super excited to see The Return, about Odysseus finally making it back to Ithaca after the Trojan War and finding the place in an uproar.

Quilting

It was 11 years in the making, but I finally finished my king-sized quilt. Actually, my husband (Jeff) and I pieced it 11 years ago, and then started quilting it. It is not easy to quilt that big a quilt--very heavy and cumbersome. We did basic quilting--stitch in the ditch, and there were lots and lots of ditches. We got about half done, and then it sat unfinished for about 5 years when I got the bug to finish it. I finished the quilting, but then it sat for another 5 years until last month when I finally bought the binding material and sat down and finished it. 

Jeff made the beautiful chest at the end of the quilt shortly after we finished piecing the quilt, using leftover blocks to decorate the top of the chest. 

Undaunted by my track record on the king quilt, I am embarking on another quilting project. This time I will be making a throw quilt, just 61" by 76", or 15 12-inch blocks arranged in a 3x5 layout. I am making blocks from the Underground Railroad Sampler, which is a very cool book that provides some historical context and speculation about each of the blocks featured. I have the reproduction-era fabric (4 cream backgrounds, 3 reds, 3 greens, 3 blues and a black) and have been practicing some of the trickier blocks with leftover scrap material from the finished king quilt.

Best wishes for a happy and safe holiday season filled with good books, good movies, good projects, and good times.

A Christmas Party (Envious Casca) - Georgette Heyer

I first read Envious Casca, a 1941 contemporary closed-room murder mystery, in 2010. I just finished a reread, not because I loved the book but because the GoodReads TrueBookTalk group was reading it this December and joining in for a reread would 1) enable me to participate with a group I enjoy but have been woefully absent from this year, 2) enable me to rack up another Back to the Classics book for the 2022 challenge, which I have been woefully neglectful of this year, and 3) enable me to inch closer to completing my GoodReads goal of 55 books in 2022.

Envious Casca is also published under the title A Christmas Party, which I think is a better title--more appealing and less esoteric, and I am always looking for good, non-schmaltzy holiday books for December reading.

The setting is pure Agatha Christie--a collection of people, some related, some not, but most are ill-tempered and chock full of motives for murdering the poor rich guy who ends up murdered in a locked room. I was about one-quarter into the book and not remembering it at all before I had a pretty good idea of who did the murder but not how. Even by the time I reached the end and the various clues starting falling into place I didn't recall exactly how the murder was done, which is always a plus. 

This is a great book for book lovers as...spoiler alert...a book does play a major role in the solving of the mystery.

It's not the best mystery out there, nor the best Christmas-themed book around, and I think Georgette Heyer was much better at Regency Romances than Christie-esque murder mysteries, but it was a fun 3-star read.

I hereby designate Envious Casca (aka A Christmas Party) by Georgette Heyer as my Wild Card book for the 2022 Back to the Classics Challenge. That puts me at only five for the year, but I am working on Winds of War by Herman Wouk and might finish it by December 31 at midnight! Wish me luck. I also have a bird puzzle to finish (with only white pieces left), a book on weaving to study so that I can start using the tabletop loom I got for Christmas, and zillion other odds and ends that need to be done before we ring in the New Year.

Happy New Year, friends, and stay warm/cool and safe, and happy reading!

Wrapping up Holiday Reading

First, Happy Solstice everyone--I am thrilled that we've turned the corner and the days will start getting longer again. I crave the sun.

I can hardly believe I haven't posted since December 1, but work has been crazy busy, prepping for Christmas takes time, and what's left goes into reading to keep me sane.

Here's what I read for the holidays this year:

The Twelve Clues of Christmas, by Rhys Bowen - my friend Rae gave it 4 stars on Goodreads and she is very sparing with her stars. It was a fun bit of English Christmas set in the 1930s and featuring an impoverished young lady, 32nd in the line of succession. Nothing deep or meaningful, but I liked the premise, a serial murderer who planned the murders around the Twelve Days of Christmas song.

The Nutcracker, by E.T.A. Hoffmann - read with the Goodreads True Book Talk group. This was my second encounter with the story that provided the inspiration for Tchaikovsky's incomparable ballet (I listened to Christopher Plummer read a version of this years ago), but I still think the ballet is better than the story. The best thing about the book, and I'm not disparaging it, were the illustrations by Maurice Sendak. I would love to see a production of the ballet that uses his set design. The introduction that he wrote about his work on the production was quite good.

Winter Solstice, by Elin Hilderbrand - the fourth in the Winter Street series about the Quinn family, set on Nantucket, Boston, and New York. I love this series and am sorry that this is the last book--I enjoy the food, the clothes, the traditions, the restaurants. I find myself looking up places for the next time I go to NYC, and now Nantucket is on my bucket list of places to visit...though not in summer, I think! Hilderbrand has scads of summer novels, but they don't appeal to me. I like the winter setting. When is Hallmark going to adapt these? They would be perfect.

The Holly-Tree Inn, by Charles Dickens - the complete 1855 Christmas number of Dickens' periodical Household Words. This is the first Dickens’ Christmas number that I have read that had multiple authors, and the editor provided an excellent introduction as well as terrific notes and good biographical notes on the various authors. The stories themselves were mostly grim, with the exception of Dickens’ The Boots, but the whole was very satisfying. This is a terrific addition to my Dickens collection and well worth reading--short but not all the Christmasy, actually.

The Ghost of Christmas Past, by Rhy Bowen - I stumbled upon this title in someone's blog (sorry, I don't remember where) and it appealed to me. Another easy mystery, this time featuring Molly Murphy, and set in NYC in 1906. I love novels set in NYC, and easy is good right now! Just started it today.

Happy Holidays...Happy Reading!

Wrapping Up Xmas Reading

I had a fun December reading a variety of holiday-themed books.

I finished up Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop, an anthology of stories set in the NYC bookshop, and edited by bookshop owner Otto Penzler. I ended up giving it 3 stars on GoodReads--anthologies are tough because they are usually a mixed bag, with some good stories, some so-so stories, and one that I found simply unreadable. Tastes vary, but overall I enjoyed the book.  Lots of the stories involved rare or unpublished manuscripts by popular authors, nefarious agents, and criminals disguised as Santa. The creepiest by far, but also the most creative, was "The 74th Tale" by Jonathan Santlofer--it involves a down-and-outer who reads Poe and takes the stories to heart.

I ended up not finishing A Very French Christmas - another anthology, and one I was sure I would love but the stories were fairly ho-hum. Not magical, not heart-warming, but rather dull. I gave up when I hit a patch of anti-Semitic authors (the bios of the authors at the back proved helpful) and their rants did nothing to put me in the Christmas spirit. I'm really hoping that these aren't actually considered the best and most beloved French Christmas stories.

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg was superb.

I'm enjoying listening to the Winter series by Elin Hilderbrand. I really liked Winter Street, the first book, and then went right into Winter Stroll, book 2. I'm picking up book 3, Winter Storms, from the library the afternoon. It's about the extended Quinn family who live on Nantucket and own a B&B on the island. Setting is marvelous and characters/plot are interesting. If Hallmark doesn't make this into a series, then I am seriously underestimating them!

'Tis the season for reading--hope you are enjoying the seasonal fare!

Redbird Christmas

I have really come to enjoy reading a set of holiday books in December to get me in the Christmas spirit and provide a nice change of pace.

After rereading Fannie Flagg's marvelous Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe this summer, I searched for other books she had written and discovered A Redbird Christmas, which I promptly put on my December must-read list.

I ended up listening to the author read her work and found it to be an utterly delightful experience. Flagg has a lovely soft southern drawl that is perfect for the small town Alabama setting. The story itself was sweet, touching, and unexpected. I felt a few times that Flagg had written herself into a corner and was impressed with how she wriggled out and salvaged her plot.

Here's the Amazon synopsis:

Oswald T. Campbell, aged fifty-two, down-and-out in a Chicago winter, is given only months to live unless he moves South. He finds himself in the small town of Lost River, Alabama, where the residents are friendly if feud-prone and eccentric to a fault. One of them, Roy, keeps a red cardinal, a once wounded bird called Jack. Patsy, a sad, sweet little kid with a crippled leg, from the trailer park up in the woods, takes to dropping by the store - and falls in love with Jack. Flagg takes us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through the lives and hearts of an engaging crew of misfits, fixers and ordinary good-hearted folk, set against the vivid natural backdrop of a mellow Alabama winter, along the riverside where birds and fish abound. Her enchanting story culminates at Christmastide with surprises and a magical 'redbird' moment.

I loved the characters--especially sisters Frances and Mildred, but also Betty Kitchen, Oswald's landlady in Lost River, and lovely, sad Roy, who owns the local store. As a bird-watcher, I especially liked the cardinal (aka redbird) Jack, whose plight is central to the plot and theme of friendships that defy all odds. And, of course, I loved that Oswald was able to find purpose in his life once he started learning about the world around him, including all those birds of Alabama.

Definitely a life-affirming, warm, wonderful story for the holidays.

Holiday Reading...2017

I'm eagerly anticipating December and indulging in holiday reading again.

So far, I am committed to the following:

A Very French Christmas - an anthology of stories and authors, some modern, some classic

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop - another anthology, this time all the stories are set in the same NYC bookshop; this one is a read-along with the GoodReads Tuesday Read-Along group.

A Redbird Christmas, by Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which I recently reread and fell in love with all over again.

Winter Street, by Elin Hilderbrand - looks light and fun

I'm also considering A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories, by Louisa May Alcott or an anthology of Little House Christmas chapters. I've been reading The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder and so am eager to reread some of the stories again.

I would like to get some non-Christmas holiday reading in there as well, so I'm definitely looking for suggestions from other faiths that celebrate winter holidays.

Holiday Reads

I just finished two pretty fun Christmas books--both are short story collections and they couldn't have been more different.

First up, Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories, by L. M. Montgomery.  I'm an Anne of Green Gables fan from childhood and by far the best stories in this collection were the two extracted from the series.

The first is from AoGG, when Matthew gives Anne a dress with puffed sleeves--it's the first pretty dress that Anne has ever gotten, and she is thrilled, thankful, and blown away by Matthew's love for her.

The other Anne story was from Windy Poplars, when Katherine Brook comes to Green Gables with Anne over the Christmas holiday.  I always loved that part of the story and it was a joy to reread.

The rest of the stories in the collection were ones that the editor, Rea Wilmshurst, culled from various magazines, circa 1905.  They are fairly conventional stories in which either one of the following happens:
1) A poor family is struggling to have a Christmas for their children and a rich benefactor showers Christmas goodies on them at the last minute.
2)  A fractured family or arguing friends are reunited due to a mistake of some sort that makes them celebrate Christmas together and mend broken fences.

My favorite was one in which a country woman feeds a train car full of various people out of her voluminous hamper when the train is stranded over night on Christmas Eve due to a snowstorm.  The spirit of giving and friendship shines through this one, without it being overly saccharine.

This was a quick book to read, a bit too sweet for my taste, but pure heaven to spend some quality time with Anne again.

The second collection of stories was The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories, a set of four stories, by P.D. James.  This is my first time reading James and I can finally appreciate her for the fabulous mystery writer she was.  All four were all well-crafted, tight, and interesting.  The first was a classic country house murder, the second an unreliable narrator, and the third and fourth featured Adam Dalgleish.

The setting was Christmas, but that was really the only thing Christmasy about these stories--no change of heart, no uplifting sentiments, just murder most foul...but very entertaining!

I'm keeping track of my Christmas reading, year to year, here.