The Book Vipers discussion

What books do you have on your Christmas lists?

Do you mean to be read during Christmas or hoping to get as presents? Or give or buy for yourself?

If it's the first, I am planning on reading a book I found some time ago that has both A Christmas Carol and The Chimes by Dickens. I don't think it can be read at any other time of the year and I already missed it last year. I haven't read anything by him yet, but I doubt he will become my favourite author anyway, not really my type. I don't like to start anything too long so I would have a chance to mark it as read before the end of the year. :-)

If it's the latter, I have been eyeing on a new edition of the Sherlock Holmes short stories. It's a new translation and it has some extras, too, so I'd like to have it even though I do have them in English and read most of them as a child. So I just might get it as a Christmas present for myself, last year I "got" Jeeves stories. If not, I might consider a book about Herod as one, I found it on sale some time ago... I don't have anything else that I would "really" want for myself.

What Paul means is what books do we want him to get us as Christmas presents as we've all been good this year.

It was hoping to get as presents, but I like the sound of Jason's idea

I have too many books as it is and not even this year's nominees looked that interesting, so I am fine with not getting any books. There might be one in one series that looks interesting (Traveler of the Century) but I can read it later.

Ready Player One
Anna and the French Kiss
Lola and the Boy Next Door
Isla and the Happily Ever After
31 Almanac road
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
+ All of the Harry Potter series in norwegian xD

among some at least;p

The Martian
Longbourn
Austenland
Coq Rouge

Noone buys me books for Christmas (sad face), but I'm hoping to obtain the following:
Alice Hoffman: The Museum of Extraordinary Things

The Girl on the Train

Mog's Christmas (though I'll pretend that's for the boy)

and a few Neil Gaiman books.

I am also tempted by The Girl in the Spider's Web, although I have heard mixed reviews.

wooohooo Christmas has arrived early for me, just had an email telling me I am a goodreads winner, got a copy of Ghetto Klown on the way. :)

Congratulations Jason

Fab. Jason.

Just ordered one of these for my daughter...

http://uk.kano.me/?utm_source=fb&...

Has a book with it too, looks like fun.

I would like to have this: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Lovers-Jou...

And a couple of these as a present: http://www.amazon.com/Bookworm-Journa...

But I don't really need the first and the kids to whom I am thinking of the second, can't even read yet and especially not English for a few years.

I've just ordered one of those bookworm Journals for my youngest. Thanks for the link Tytti

Fabulous Tytti

I did think you might be interested, Jason. It would have been nice to have something like that as a child.

I also ended up buying those Sherlock Holmes stories for myself... There are probably 25 stories that I haven't previously read, some of them I have seen though (Jeremy Brett playing Holmes).

Now I have to decide will I read them all from the beginning or just the "new" ones. That would mean reading 36 stories and about 834 pages before I get to them... But I can't start reading them before 2016, otherwise it would mess my GR stats. Maybe I'll read them all, so I can be sure that I didn't miss any when I was 9 years old.

Those bookworm journals sound brilliant. I want one ... for myself.

Tytti wrote: "Do you mean to be read during Christmas or hoping to get as presents? Or give or buy for yourself?

If it's the first, I am planning on reading a book I found some time ago that has both A Christma..."

A Christmas Carol is a Christmas ritual in our house. I have been reading it to my children every year. As we follow the more European tradition of giving presents in the evenning of the 24th Dec. it helped to while away the time beautifully. Now they are teenagers, they read part of it to us and they still love it. It is one of the most enchanting beautiful books ever.

Tytti wrote: "I did think you might be interested, Jason. It would have been nice to have something like that as a child."

Agree. It might have been a diary I could have actually be bothered to keep up with.

I have given out very strong hints to Father Christmas that I would really like to find under the Christmas Tree:

The Coroner' Lunch by Colin Cotteril (lots of recommendation for this series)
A brief HIstory of Seven Killings, by Marlon James
The Rickshaw Boy by She Lao
All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque

Tytti is right though. Don't really NEED any more as there are quite a few on my shelves waiting to be read. However, I can never get over the excitment of getting new books for christmas, never mind how old I get.

Gisela wrote: "As we follow the more European tradition of giving presents in the evenning of the 24th Dec. it helped to while away the time beautifully."

Finns go to a sauna on Christmas Eve. There is always a peak at the electricity consumption because most people only have electric saunas. I can't remember was it once so cold on Christmas that they asked people not have it all at the same time because the system was already operating in a full capacity... or was it some other time and just ordinary Saturday.

A sauna. How lovely. I do love a sauna.

Pat wrote: "A sauna. How lovely. I do love a sauna."

Though considering that you are British(?), I have to wonder have you ever been in a proper one. They are usually few and far between abroad. Usually foreign ones are too cold, you can't throw water on the rocks and there are all kinds of weird rules that you have to follow. Or in some places people are even wearing normal clothes and shoes and using smartphones in them!

I've been in one in our old gym where you could throw water on coals and it was the temperature of the sun

Why does everyone keep calling them coals? I see so often that. :D They are rocks, coals wouldn't like water. And 80 degrees is a good temperature. The temperature actually goes down a bit with the water and steam but it feels hotter on the skin.

Perhaps that's just what we call them here.

Well, there is a big difference between coals and rocks (or stones), so it wouldn't really make sense. You can maybe warm the sauna using coal, like you can do with wood, but throwing water on them would cool them down immediately and maybe make smoke, not steam.

I think it's just the word we use here rather than being actual coals.

It's because over here in the UK we love a bit of smog, especially in our Saunas. Feels lovely to line your lungs with a layer of coal dust.

I went in a private one years ago. I threw water on something and it got hotter. The hotter the better I found. Hated the plunge into cold water though. No clothes allowed. As we are British we could wear a swimming costume. You wild foreigners. Nudity, whatever next? Haha.

I laughed at that Jason.

Charlotte wrote: "I laughed at that Jason."

Laughed and coughed I hope.

With my soot-filled lungs. Of course.

On my list is the two books from the Discworld series that I am missing and the The Compleat Discworld Atlas

Dear Santa,

Pretty Girls

The Walking Dead, Book One

A Game of Thrones

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Love, Amy

Jason wrote: "I've just ordered one of those bookworm Journals for my youngest. Thanks for the link Tytti"

Has "your youngest" enjoyed the Bookworm Journal, Jason? I actually sent email to one of our publishing houses, just to ask if it were possible to have something like that published here, too. I don't really think anything will come out of it but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Jeez Tytti! we did it for the first month and then we seem to forget about it completely. I have no idea where it is. will hunt it out this week. thanks for the reminder. She does read loads so isn't missing out. :-)

Whilst we remembered to do it she loved it and it was good fun. Hope you manage to get hold of one.

I don't actually need one, children that age would need too much help from their parents to understand the journals in English and I don't want to do that to my friends. The only one in Finnish is both boring and too small for any serious reader, so I would like to do one that offers something more, and for different age groups, too, with some recommendations. There are a few books I would have liked to have read as a kid or teenager. I think I would have enjoyed them more.

And yeah, that can be a bit of a chore to fill it but kids may thank you later.

It was really good, you read a book and then had to do a task on it. answer questions or draw a picture of a character or write your own story with the character.

Yeah, I've seen some pictures online. Not something I would have liked to do as a child, though, but I have understood that I was maybe a bit "special"... I would have just preferred to write something about the book.

Schools here have a similar thing going on nowadays, kids read a book from a list divided by genres and like, one or two from each, and do something from a list of tasks. After they have done maybe 8-10 a year, they get a diploma.

My eldest is in year 8 and her English teacher has tasked her with reading 30 books this year from a range of genres. first book has been done. She has been grumbling about it non-stop so far. haha

30 in a year! We didn't have to read that many in all 12 years in school combined.

In my area for that diploma one has to read 6 books in years 1-6, 8 in years 7-9 and 15 in total in a secondary school that lasts about 2.5-3 years usually. I am not even sure it's mandatory in most schools, more likely teachers just encourage to do it.

she's got to do 3 classics, a biography, historical fiction, and 4 non fiction books. others will be easier to fill.

I was a fast reader and read more than many others when I was that age but even I would have struggled with that assignment. It would have taken all the fun out of reading.

we'll try I best not to make it a chore for her. gonna be tough though.

So does she get to choose the books herself or is there a list or something to choose from? And who decides if something is a classic or not? I often like to read longer books but I probably wouldn't if I had to read that many in a certain time.

She can pick them herself but genres and numbers of books per genre has been set. I think it is pretty flexible on what you pick. 1st classic she is going for is lord of the flies. nice and short.

I was a bookworm and prob easily read that many. I wouldn't have thought it a chore, but a pleasure. However, some of my friends would have been put of reading for life if "told" what to do. As well as all the other stuff they have to do nowadays. 12 may have been more realistic. One a month, catch up in hols if fall behind because of work.
Anyway, we may be off topic now. No idea for Xmas. It's too far away to predict what I will have read by then

they don't HAVE to read the 30 books, it is the challenge they have been set. Some kids are refusing to do it. My daughter loves reading, she just loves Sims 4 more.