Soon — Very Soon

I’m on the home stretch of Christmas preparations.  Knitting projects whittled down to a final few.  Presents wrapped, boxed and shipped – mostly.  Christmas cards mailed (yes I still send some real cards).  Cookies are made and boxed to distribute.  The tree is up and decorated.  Just a few last minute decorations and gifts to sort out.

So it’s beginning to look like ~~~ Ho Ho Ho ~~~ holiday reading time Soon — very soon I keep telling myself.

Here’s my pile of carefully chosen Christmas books, standing at the ready next to my reading chair.

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Every December an envelope bearing a stamp from the North Pole would arrive for J.R.R. Tolkien’s children. Inside would be a letter in a strange, spidery handwriting and a hand-colored drawing.  This book contains all the letters J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his children in the guise of Father Christmas from the first to his eldest son in 1920 right through to the last one he wrote to his only daughter in 1943. Each letter purports to be an account of various adventures that happen to Father Christmas and elves.  I’ve briefly dipped into this lovely book.  It’s filled with reproductions of the actual hand calligraphy and drawings Tolkien created –and I couldn’t resist —  this beautiful book  had to belong in my Christmas book collection.  Here’s just a sample.

 

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This is the first in a mystery series featuring the Armenian dective Gregor Demarkian.  I’ve never read any of these so grabbed this for $2 at the big book sale.  Here’s the summary:

The Hannaford who made the family fortune called himself a tycoon. The newspapers called him a robber baron. Since the days of Robert Hannaford I, the family has infested Philadelphia society like a disease. The current Hannafords are a clan of embezzlers, gamblers, and fantasy novelists. This Christmas, they have money in their bank accounts, crime in their blood, and murder on their minds.

Gregor Demarkian is their reluctant guest. A former FBI agent who quit the agency after his wife’s death, he is invited by the Hannaford patriarch to come for dinner at the family mansion. Demarkain arrives just in time to find his host bludgeoned to death in his study and his investigation will lead him to the Hannafords, a family of cold-blooded killers.

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This book came into our young adult section at the bookstore.  It’s part of a series called “Dear America” which tell historical events through fictional characters.

In April of 1917, Simone Spencer’s world changes. Her beloved brother Will goes off to war, and Simone seeks a way to help. The passionate daughter of a feisty French mother and a rebellious upper-class father, Simone is not cut out for the society life she is meant to lead.

So, when General Pershing calls for French-speaking American girls to operate the switchboards on the Western Front, Simone becomes one of the first to sign up and keeps a diary of her life as a brave “Hello Girl” whose courage helped lead the Allies to victory.

I borrowed this little book and after reading it will determine if it’s worthy of purchase for my collection.

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This looks like fun.  From the back: It’s three days until Christmas and Junior Bender, Hollywood’s fast-talking fixer for the felonious, is up to his ears in shopping mall Santas, Russian mobsters, desperate holiday shoppers, and (’tis the season) murder.
Junior Bender, divorced father of one and burglar extraordinaire, finds himself stuck inside the Edgerton Mall, and not just as a last-minute shopper (though he is that too). Edgerton isn’t exactly the epicenter of holiday cheer, despite its two Santas, canned Christmas music, chintzy bows, and festive lights. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem.
The murderous Russian mobster who owns the place has decided it takes a thief to catch a thief and hires Junior—under threat—to solve the shoplifting problem for him. But Junior’s surveillance operation doesn’t go well: as Christmas Eve approaches, two people are dead and it’s obvious that shoplifting is the least of the mall’s problems. To prevent further deaths, possibly including his own, Junior must confront his dread of Christmas—both present and past.

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I’m on the looooong library wait list for this treat from the late P.D. James.   Trust me, I can hardly wait, and will drop all the others when my turn comes.

Here’s the blurb from the library catalog:

Four previously unpublished stories from one of the great mystery writers of our time—swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature a young Adam Dalgliesh) that together, to borrow the author’s own word, add up to a delightful “entertainment.”
The newly appointed Sgt. Dalgliesh is drawn into a case that is “pure Agatha Christie.” . . . A “pedantic, respectable, censorious” clerk’s secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a murder . . . A best-selling crime novelist describes the crime she herself was involved in fifty years earlier . . . Dalgliesh’s godfather implores him to reinvestigate a notorious murder that might ease the godfather’s mind about an inheritance, but which will reveal a truth that even the supremely upstanding Adam Dalgliesh will keep to himself. Each of these stories is as playful as it is ingeniously plotted, the author’s sly humor as evident as her hallmark narrative elegance and shrewd understanding of some of the most complex—not to say the most damning—aspects of human nature. A treat for P. D. James’s legions of fans and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit.

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For now I have a few more Christmas preparations, there are some fun events to attend, and not forgetting our annual dinner downtown combined with visiting the holiday window light displays.

But soon I’ll be in my happy place, Christmas tea mug in hand, carols softly playing and reading ~~ there’s even more rain predicted in a few days.   We need more rain and, as I’m sure you’ll agree — it’s the perfect reading weather.

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