A Few Of My Favorite Things

Hi there,

Enjoying your holiday season so far? We’re getting down to the wire, and if you’re like me, you have those “extras” left on your list.  Or maybe you want to add gift toppers to your gift cards. I have some favorites I rely on.

Here are some last minute, low cost, suggestions:  

My first favorite gift is The Body Shop Body Butter. These are 8oz -20oz tubs of smooth, hydrating goodness. I lean toward Shea since I have dry skin.  But they have a huge assortment of different flavors, ranging from Mango and Pomegranate to Brazil nut and Almond. Around the holidays, they offer additional scents, like Peppermint and Cocoa. They’re normally $20/tub. Now they’re 50% off. Great for bus drivers, teachers, bloggers (what?), and gift toppers for sis, or mom, or neighbor.

I tried the Chocomania scent the other day (an early gift from hubby), and smelled so yummy. A warning: be careful when you wear this in public …Children followed me around Target without knowing why…

My next favorite gift to give is William Sonoma Hot Chocolate with…wait for it….Chocolate Marshmallows!  Tie in a couple of snowman mugs and you’re a hero. Very tasty, cozy gift.  Makes a wonderful hostess gift if you’re invited to a party (fyi, I am still free on December 21st).

Along the same cozy theme, I love to give cozy socks, sometimes referred to as ‘butter’ socks. Sold in most clothes stores, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Bed & Bath, these warm, comfy foot-gloves tell your receiver that you’re thinking of them on those especially frigid nights.

For your Kindle or Nook readers, can’t go wrong with an Amazon gift card. I got one for my birthday last year and I gleefully bought a whole bunch of ebooks. Best. Gift. Ever.

For your die-hard paper book lovers (and I do have a warm spot for the hardcovers, with those gorgeous spines. Is there a better house decoration, I ask you?), how about a book or two with a snazzy book mark saying, “Readers do it quietly”?

The Bronze Horseman trilogy is my gift of choice for my reader-friends this year. Don’t you wish you were on my list?

A wristlet is another great gift for the woman-friend on my list. When she’s looking to carry her phone, some money, and a license to a bar, and doesn’t want to shlep the heavy over-the-shoulder bag while getting her drink on, this is the perfect item for her.

That’s all I have for now.

What are your suggestions? I’d love to hear them.

Top Ten Tuesday

The folks at The Broke and The Bookish have a weekly Tuesday Top 10 list and this week, I decided to participate. Today’s topic is Books I would recommend to…

Here is my list of top ten books I read this year that I would recommend to a girlfriend:

       

   

       

     

    

    

    

    

    

      

     

     

    

       1.  The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simons (1st book in the trilogy).  Meet Tatiana and Alexander, two young, beautiful people who fall in love amid impossible circumstances in WWII Russia. 

      2. Tatiana & Alexander (2nd book).  Forget sleep.

      3. The Summer Garden (Final installment). Closure! This is the most beautiful love story I’ve read all year…in a few years, in fact, with the exception of…

      4. Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. I voted for this book as best fiction of the year on Goodreads. If you haven’t read it yet, give yourself an early holiday gift: nestle on the couch for the weekend, and lose yourself in her story. You’re welcome.

      5. Slammed by Colleen Hoover. This is a new adult love story, but I couldn’t put it down.

      6. Hopeless by Colleen Hoover. Yep, she did it again.

      7. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Taking place during 1930’s New York, an expertly told love triangle. This was written so beautifully, I found myself re-reading passages just to enjoy them again.

      8. Tell The Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. This is about a fourteen-year-old’s relationship with her late uncle’s partner. I loved this.

     9. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper. Very funny story about love, marriage, divorce and family.

     10. Love Anthony by Lisa Genova. About an accidental friendship where a lonely woman helps a grieving mother understand her autistic son. I’d recommend anything by Ms. Genova. If you haven’t read Still Alice or Left Neglected by now, walk away from your laptop and go get them.

What books would you recommend?

My Latest Obsession

Oh hello.

What day is it?

Wednesday? I must have lost track of time. I started a trilogy two weeks ago, and I’m just now coming up for air. Briefly. I need to find out how this story will end.

I am referring to Paullina Simons’ epic love story of Alexander and Tatiana, beginning with the gripping The Bronze Horseman, followed by the equally compelling second book, Tatiana and Alexander. I flew through twelve hundred pages like it was a novella…in days – forsaking sleep, and a dinner or two, and now I am knee deep in the final installment, The Summer Garden.

As you might already know, I’m not really a book reviewer, per se. There are so many awesome review bloggers out there who take care of that. Once in a while, however, there comes a story that gets so deep under my skin, and absorbed into my thoughts, I feel compelled to mention it.

My last favorite novel was Me Before You by JoJo Moyes, which I inhaled with fervor, before the birth of my blog. I talked the hell out of it to everyone I knew, and was responsible for many book clubs in my neighborhood reading, and discussing, and loving this most unusual, wonderfully told love story.

Now, I’m obsessed with the Bronze Horseman and sequels, a recommendation from a friend (this same friend who got me waxing and spray tanning- she’s a keeper). The last time I was consumed by a trilogy (also recommended by this friend), Christian Grey was teaching an impressionable Anastasia Steele the intricacies of BSDM.

Like most of the female reading community, I was intrigued by 50 Shades of Grey, and though there was controversy about the writing being less than stellar, the subject matter was enthralling, and don’t deny you felt the same way. Hell, I lost my mother for two weeks last year.

We all learned something from Ms. James, who amid the controversy, laughed her way around the globe, meeting fans and depositing truckloads of money into her English bank account. And husbands worldwide were counting their blessings.

But I digress.

Paullina Simons’ epic love story between Alexander Belov, a Red Army soldier, and seventeen-year-old Tatiana Metanova, who meet on the day Hitler invades Russia, is so beautifully developed and captivating, I could do little else until I found out if they would be together, if Tatiana would survive the devastating blockade and starvation of her city, Leningrad, where she lived in close quarters with her family, including her sister, who met and “fell in love”  with Alexander first.

Though frustrating at times, with the back-and-forth of Alexander and Tatiana’s innocent, secret meetings, and her private struggle with her loyalties to her sister, while the family  struggles against starvation, a winter with no heat, and constant bombings, the writing, the expressions of love between these two characters moved me, sometimes to tears.

My kindle comes with me everywhere. I’m that girl–nose to the screen, reading at the ice rink until my son’s game starts, or on line at the bank, or in the car at school, waiting for pick-up. My favorite time is at the end of the day, nestled in my bed, only turning the light out when  my eyes have crossed. And then, in my dreams, I imagine various scenarios of where the plot will take me, all of the different possibilities of what can happen next and in the morning, over coffee, instead of finding out who was killed or raped or got divorced, I might snag a few precious minutes for more.

This love story filled my heart to bursting, shattered it into a million pieces, and filled it again.

Others may feel differently. Others may have read love stories that moved them more. I just found out a friend wasn’t really enthralled by Alexander, or Tatiana, or their story. She’s perfectly entitled to her opinion (even though she’s wrong).

That’s the beauty of writing,  and why I do it too. I want to move a reader, to get into her head, and make her want to forego doing anything else just to find out what happens to my characters.

I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, I learn by reading.

Is there anything better than a great book?

I can’t stay…got to get back. They’re waiting for me.