Happy New Year - 2014

Happy New Year to all! Wishing everyone a health and happy 2014. Hopefully for me it will be a better January than last year when my dad died. I am looking forward to a couple of great trips, one on my bucket list. And many many books to enjoy. I am not familiar with Brad Paisley but saw this quote on another blog and thought is was perfect.

Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas to all and good bye to 2013. Enjoy the holiday.

Snow Ice and Winter

Snowing today. Icy yesterday. Winter has arrived!! Last night was my book club's annual Christmas Potluck Dinner and Yankee Swap. What a mouthful! We always eat very well. And have a lot fun especially was we swap our grab bag gifts. Last night there were some pretty interesting gift ideas. There was a white wine cooler rod

which we all decided looked rather phallic! A planter of rosemary with ceramic herb labels in the shape of aloe leaves. A couple of scarves- always a hit. My two Banned book mugs were not a hit. First the one who "got" them doesn't drink coffee or tea and then the one who ended up with them didn't really need mugs. Who doesn't need more mugs? Oh well. Maybe next year I will figure out a popular gift- one that everyone wants! There was very little book discussion- in fact I actually missed it. I won't comment on the fact that it wasn't really well lead etc. We were all having too much fun. Which reinforces the fact that we don't do well with a book in December and the person hosting should not be the one leading the discussion!! Oh well. Our next book has been selected by none other than me!! Breaking one of our cardinal rules (you must read the book before recommending it)

A friend of mine suggested it to me this summer and she has yet to fail me….hope this isn't a first!

Bernadette and Charlie

Our next book is Where'd You Go Bernadette? I read this about 6 months ago so I will need to do a little review before next Monday's meeting. It is also our annual Potluck and Yankee Swap which is always fun. I finished Life After Life this afternoon. It was a very slow start and read for me. But once the main character Ursula grew up I found it more interesting. It took me awhile to get used to the idea of reincarnation as the tool to move the story along. Interesting twist on historical fiction. I was asked to sit on a committee for a one town one read project. Our town has a fabulous children's librarian who has lots of energy and tons of ideas. She suggested Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was originally published in 1964.

as the book will be 50 years old next year! It will be fun with lots of hard work to pull this off.