Mrs. Merl
Practically Family
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I love the show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives!" Guy is great! I want to get that book too! How fun!
tuppence said:I'm doing the whole Harry Potter series at the moment. Currently on the fifth book
Wally_Hood said:May I pose a question here, that may not quite fit in? Do any of the FL readers have Christmas books they go back to every year? There are lot of favorite movies for Christmas, but are there some books that you like to re-read come Christmas?...When the kids were little, at some point I would go to the Gospel of Matthew and read them the events surrounding the visit of the Magi, and speculate on what that must have been like.
Any recommendations?
RebeccaDoll said:I'm currently reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. A very beat-up old copy too!
http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780912882307[/URL]
I always read Truman Capote's A CHRISTMAS MEMORY; a strange man for sure...but a great writer. ISBN 66-21461
Then there's Dylan Thomas' A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES. Short, sweet, complex and simple....and one to read aloud, if you can manage a decent Welsh accENT....I use a slim volume with lovely woodcuts by Fritz Eichenberg:
http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780811213080
Last--but for me, certainly not least!--comes a book I have been reading every year just about all my life; it was given to me on my 5th birthday (December 22, 1958)....and still bears my pencilled scrawl against each story, giving a date on which to read each, from least favorite (December 1st) to most favorite (December 24th): It was collected in 1948, and therefore comes under the "Fedora Lounge Golden Age" rubric, I guess: TOLD UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE (An Umbrella Book). The selections were made by the Literature Committee of the Association for Childhood Education...and, if you read the introduction and afterword--which I highly recommend you do--you'll see what a serious undertaking this was, and how imbued with the post-war ethos the book is. It is, in my opinion, an entirely admirable and successful effort, as good today as when it was made, 61 years ago.
http://www.amazon.com/CHRISTMAS-Collection-Christmas-Stories-Legends/dp/B000VBNQUE
SPECIAL ADDENDUM:
If, by any chance, there are any German speakers reading this...there are two German books I also turn to on a yearly basis:
SAGENHAFTE WEIHNACHT: Wintergeschichten und Weihnachtsbräuche aus langst vergangenen Zeiten,[/I] selected by Gudrun Bull: DTV. Like it says: mostly a collection of 19th century short stories or Christmas excerpts from larger works. Many of these are quite forgotten....almost all are charming and very well worth reading. ISBN 3-423-20846-5
DER WEIHNACHTSBAUM: Geschichte, Gedichte, Geschichten, selected by Aleke Thuja, Verlag Bert Schlender. A slim volume which traces the history of the Christmas tree in the land which gave it to all the rest of us, well-illustrated with period engravings. Some of the stories are joyous; some are quite tragic--and, at least to me, one is immensely distasteful, although well in line with the intention of the book--a description of the attempts to have--and to destroy--some semblance of a "traditional Christmas" in an early 1970s, Year-Zero, German commune. But that's just the LAST story....
http://www.amazon.de/Weihnachtsbaum-Geschichte-Gedichte-Geschichten/dp/3880510202
Hope this list will have at least something to please you.
"Skeet"
Second helping due out soon... Right now, when I'm not tearing MHI apart to figure out how to build Abomination I'm feeding the lists from the first DD&D book and the website into my route-planning software to plan some "Foodie Roadtrips". Mmm, eating my way from Civil War site to site across the Deep South... too bad the extent of my relatives' minds are "California, Hawaii, Indiana, Florida" when it comes to travel.Mrs. Merl said:I love the show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives!" Guy is great! I want to get that book too! How fun!