The holiday season is over, which always makes me feel like life should settle down and get back to normal, but with the several-page-long to-do list and extra work coming up in the next couple weeks, I don't think that'll actually happen. At least I don't have to plan stuff anymore, or arrange people. Normally that's one of my favorite things to do, but a wedding, Christmas, and New Year's parties crammed into two weeks is a little much for my feeble brain, especially when my body is hampered with whatever wasting disease is currently infecting me. Fortunately it has given me the excuse to sit around and read quite a bit, though as usual not nearly enough.

I've found in the past few years that birthdays and Christmasses are not quite as exciting as they used to be, for several reasons, but mainly because I used to get great stacks of lovely new books from all and sundry. For me that's part of those holidays, but for some reason it hasn't been happening as much lately. I suppose people don't know what I'd like or haven't read, or simply that it would be too unimaginative a gift. In response, I think, I've started giving everyone else books in hopes that they will reciprocate. I love to get books--nearly the best gift ever! Even if it's something I've read or already own, it's still special to receive as something chosen because a friend liked it and thought I would too. Also my taste in books is so eclectic that I rarely come across something I really don't like, which is why it's fun to see what other people like and think I'd like, things I probably wouldn't have chosen myself but enjoy nonetheless.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I didn't receive many books this year (only one, in fact--John Mortimer's Summer Lease, because my mother-in-law decided I needed yet another Italy book), but I did receive a gift card from Borders, also from my mother-in-law. So Odious and I spent the day after Christmas happily wandering around Borders, gathering up armfuls of random titles. Between the gift card and the bargain books, I walked out with a whole bag of books and only $18 debited from my checking account!

New acquisitions include:
Sunshine, Robin McKinley
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Connie Willis
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Close Range, Annie Proulx
Her Infinite Variety, Pamela Rafael Berkman
The Seeing Eye, C.S. Lewis
also a new journal which I do not need.

The next day my very dear friend Kelly came up to Santa Fe for the weekend, and we browsed through Books and More Books, an excellent little used bookstore down the street from our house, where I picked up
Evelina, Fanny Burney
Gracious Living in a New World, Alexandra Stoddard
Herbs and Spices
Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus
Nothing to Declare, Mary Morris
The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Marianna Mayer
First Person Rural, Noel Perrin

And the book buying continued when we took Kelly back to Albuquerque on Sunday, as none of us could resist a quick stop at Barnes & Noble. However, we only had time for a few, so I won't list those, although one was a pretty cool book on soapmaking.

Note to self New blog to keep an eye on: The Book Nook