Home for the Holidays

Hello, readers. It's December 20th, and this little blogger has gone whee, whee, whee, all the way home. The wonderful thing about home is that there's cookies. The sad thing is that there's no broadband. As such, posts may be scarce, but they will still be heartfelt.

For example, my heart longs sometimes for Dickens, and at the BBC, there's a game called the "Dickens Game," in which players can pick pockets and dodge urchins. I've not actually played the game myself, due to the dial-up situation, but in my imagination it's delightfully Dickensian.

The Wall Street Journal has a list of books on the evolution of Christmas and it's traditions. Topping their list, The Man Who Invented Christmas, which is about Dickens and the ways in which his life informed The Christmas Carol. Also, there's a book or two about the legend of Santa Claus and how a drunken holiday got tamed into a quiet family affair.

Goodnight from the slow lane, readers. I'm going to eat a cookie.

Have a happy weekend.

Holiday Gift Ideas

It's the holiday season, and this means that many, many websites will be bombarding you with gift suggestions on which you can spend all the money that you had previously been saving for frivolous things such as gas or food for the kids.

Here's a few:

Bookpassage breaks books into nine or so categories, including the somewhat indecisively constructed "Art, Architecture, Photogarphy, Fashion, & Travel" category.

Borders Wonderland of Perfect Gifts, which besides breaking gifts into a number of categories slightly less than infinity, also plays music while you browse.

Comic Books Resources is the place to go for people who like books with pictures. According to them, "Watchmen...is the best, ultimate, and most achingly brilliant gift one human could possibly bestow unto another during this most festive of seasons."

The Barnes and Noble Book Review, in a matter not entirely related, but somewhat so, has asked many famous writers, like Neil Gaiman and Jamie Lee Curtis, to name their three favorite books and write a sentence or two about them. It's possible they do this in other months besides December, but this still seems a pretty foolproof place from which to steal gift ideas. After all, if your young son loves Anne Rice, for example, you could get him a book from Anne Rice's favorites and if he didn't like it, you could say. "Well, it's what Anne Rice likes. Are you saying that your favorite writer Anne Rice doesn't know a good book when she sees one?"


Happy reading, readers. Remember that the very best gift you can give to a friend or loved one this season is a hug. Or possibly a time machine so that they can go to the future and get January's winning powerball numbers.