All I Got For Christmas Was....

In the weeks that led up to Christmas, Danya at A Tapestry of Words asked us each week to list items that were on our Christmas Wish Lists. I didn't keep up with that as well as I planned this year, but I am going to let you know what all I got from Santa (and his helpers) this year. Christmas won't be officially over at my house for another nine days--my blogworld Secret Santa sent me a "Twelve Days of Christmas" gift pack that I still have nine days worth of presents to open. But, I'm covering that with separate posts, so here's all my other Literary Christmas Loot for 2011.

1. Make Death Love Me by Ruth Rendell. My boss surprised me with a first edition, hard-back, dust-jacketed copy of this early book by Rendell. Woo Hoo!

From Santa's Helper #1 (also known as the Hubby):
2. Murder Within Murder by Frances & Richard Lockridge. A snazzy hardback copy of this vintage mystery. I love the imprint of the various weapons on the cover.



3. A Key to Death by the Lockridges. Two vintage mysteries by this awesome husband/wife writing team. (The hubby scored major points this year!)



4. Words for Murder Perhaps by Edward Candy. An academic mystery! I love those.

5. Star Trek & Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant by Jason T Eberl & Kevin S Decker (eds). This, I think, is the only way to do philosophy--mixed with Star Trek.

6. The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. A new Sherlock Holmes mystery (it's amazing how many stories have been "discovered" since Dr. Watson laid down his pen).

7. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. I love Barnes. Couldn't wait to get my hands on this one.

8. 11/22/63 by Stephen King. My first King novel ever. But who could resist a time-travel book to save JFK?

From Santa's Helpers #2 & #3 (Mom & Dad)
A five-book pack of Phryne Fisher novels by Kerry Greenwood! Love me some Phryne Fisher!
Urn Burial
Death at Victoria Dock
Raisins & Almonds
Away with the Fairies
Murder on a Midsummer Night

For a grand total of 13 books for Christmas! And...if that's not enough...my mother-in-law is currently in Florida visiting her sister. Who apparently lives in a town with an awesome used bookstore. And they went yesterday, armed with a partial list of my TBO Wishlist (To Be Owned). And Mom H is bringing me home 40-plus books. Yes. 40...plus. My Literary Christmas Cup runneth over.

All I Want for Christmas.... (6)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

Life has gotten a bit hectic...so I've managed to miss a few weeks. But here is my choice for week number six. I'm going for my first ever Stephen King book. Yes. Really. I want 11/22/63 to appear under my tree on Christmas Day. Please, Santa?

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force. Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

All I Want for Christmas... (3)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

My choice this week was apparently a little hard for Santa to find last year (at least in hard copy--which is what I want, no e-books for me). So we're going put it on the list again and see if Santa's magic can find a copy for this Christmas....I have long wanted to get my hands on Fergus Hume's 1893 mystery story The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. It's been on my list of gotta-haves almost as long as I've liked mysteries (and that's a long time!). Here's the synopsis: On the twenty-seventh day of July at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street St. Kilda and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered.

All I Want for Christmas... (2)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

Next up on my list for Santa is The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective in literary history. For the first time since the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a new Holmes story has been sanctioned by his estate, whetting the appetites of fans everywhere. London, 1890. 221B Baker St. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap - a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.

Almost unwillingly, Holmes and Watson find themselves being drawn ever deeper into an international conspiracy connected to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston, the gaslit streets of London, opium dens and much, much more. And as they dig, they begin to hear the whispered phrase-the House of Silk-a mysterious entity that connects the highest levels of government to the deepest depths of criminality. Holmes begins to fear that he has uncovered a conspiracy that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of society.

The Arthur Conan Doyle Estate chose the celebrated, #1 New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz to write The House of Silk because of his proven ability to tell a transfixing story and for his passion for all things Holmes.

I love Sherlock Holmes. I can't wait to read this newest adventure.

All I Want for Christmas... (1)

Wow. Is it time to think about Christmas already? My mom officially asked me for our Christmas lists today...so I guess it is. And that being the case...


All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

To start things off, I would really like Santa to stick a copy of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes under my tree this year. I've been a fan of Barnes for quite some time and I certainly want the chance to read his most recent work--and Man Booker Prize Winner! Here's the synopsis:

This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

All I Want for Christmas Is.... (10)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

My choice this week is The Puzzle of the Silver Persian by Stuart Palmer. (In case you haven't noticed, my wishlist tends to run to mysteries....). Synopsis from the Rue Morgue Press site: Hildegarde Withers, the angular schoolteacher with a talent for solving homicides, thought she was off on a vacation when she set sail for England aboard the S.S. American Diplomat. But she’s no sooner found her sea legs than her fellow passengers start getting murdered, and the killings continue after the ship has docked in London. Hildy offers her services to a singularly unimpressed Chief Inspector Cannon of Scotland Yard, but his well-bred young sergeant, John Secker, is more than willing to listen to her. She accepts an invitation to visit the Cornwall home of a fellow passenger, the Honorable Emily Pendavid, who lives in the oldest inhabited castle in England along with her nephew and a handsome silver Persian cat, and it’s there that the pieces finally fall into place for Hildy. First published in 1934, it’s the fifth case for everybody’s favorite meddlesome schoolmarm.

All I Want for Christmas Is.... (7)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.



This week's choice: The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer...one of the last Heyer mysteries needed to complete my reading of her work.

Synopsis (from Amazon): Sir Arthur Billington-Smith is not a nice person: he is arrogant, opinionated, and abusive. His verbal abuse makes life a constant misery for his hapless wife, Fay. One truly awful weekend when Fay is trying to host a house party, Arthur's son and heir, Geoffrey, brings home Lola de Silva, a Mexican cabaret dancer who is wonderfully obtuse, vastly colorful, and totally unsuitable as a future Lady Billington-Smith. Arthur is absolutely incensed and takes his rage out on everyone. Therefore, when he is found stabbed to death in his study later in the day, all those in the house become suspects.

All I Want for Christmas Is.... (6)

All I Want for Christmas Is.... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And Danya would love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get, so make your post and link up at Danya's site.

My choice this week may be a little hard for Santa to find (at least in hard copy--which is what I want, no e-books for me). But, after all, he's Santa so he's got plenty of magic at his disposal, right? I have long wanted to get my hands on Fergus Hume's 1893 mystery story The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. It's been on my list of gotta-haves almost as long as I've liked mysteries (and that's a long time!). Here's the synopsis: On the twenty-seventh day of July at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street St. Kilda and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered.

All I Want for Christmas Is.... (5)

All I Want for Christmas Is... is a feature/meme sponsored by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. It is where we choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto our wishlists. And she'd love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get! So if you want to make your own blog post about it, please link up at Danya's site.





Here's mine: Any of the Phryne Fisher mystery series by Kerry Greenwood. This is an absolutely marvelous series set in 1920s Australia. And I think of Phryne Fisher as the the grownup's Nancy Drew. I've read most of the series, but own none and would love to start collecting them. I am currently reading Death by Water--The nice men at P&O are worried. A succession of shipboard jewelery thefts from the first-class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruises. Especially when it is likely that a passenger is the thief. Phryne, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, cupid's bow lips, and sense of the ends justifying the means, is just the person to mingle seamlessly with the upper classes and take on a case on the high seas--or at least on the S. S. Hinemoa--on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. She is carrying the Great Queen of Sapphires, the Maharani, as bait. There are shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous swains, mickey finns, jazz musicians, blackmail and attempted murder, all before the thieves find out--as have countless love-smitten men before them--that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is concerned, resistance is futile.