Books for Christmas! To my mind, easily the best gift, and one I enjoy choosing for people. It’s always interesting to see what people choose for me, too. So here’s a list of the books I gave people — and the books I got, just because it’s fun.

What I gave:

Girlfriend:
-Marvel, Planet Hulk, The Death of Spider-man, Spider-man: Who is Miles Morales?,  Spider-man: Scorpion. (Because Marvel.)

Sister:
-Malinda Lo, Adaptation and Inheritance. (She liked Ash and Huntress, but likes sci-fi more, plus LGBT author.)
-Kelley Armstrong, The Summoning. (She likes urban fantasy, and I enjoyed this one.)
-Dawn Cook, First Truth and The Decoy Princess. (She’s a fan of Kim Harrison, Dawn Cook’s other pen-name.)
-Kate Mosse, The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales. (We both rather like Kate Mosse.)
-Nicola Griffith, Hild. (LGBT author plus awesome epic medieval women.)
-Veronica Roth, Allegiant. (She asked.)

Mum:
-Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. (Loves all things space with a passion.)
-Reza Aslan, Zealot. (Was interested in this after my review.)
-James L. Watson, Double Helix. (We were talking about this a couple of days ago and she expressed interest, plus I want to read it too.)

Lozzi (oldest friend):
–A Guinea Pig Nativity. (Guinea pigs!)
-E.M. Bard, Test Your Cat: The Cat IQ Test. (I have a feeling her cats are not going to score very highly.)

Amy (ex-housemate, university friend):
-Jo Walton, Among Others. (Because I love this book and if you read it, you get to know me a lot better.)
-Blake Charlton, Spellbound. (I bought her the first book. Plus, dyslexic hero!)
-Garth Nix, A Confusion of Princes. (Garth Nix is a tradition with us.)

Lois (ex-housemate, university friend):
-Sharon Penman, Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning. (She asked, plus it’s Welsh history.)
–Jo Walton, Among Others. (See above.)

Ruth (ex-housemate, university friend):
-Jo Walton, Among Others. (See above.)
-A lot of other books, since I joined with other friends to get her an ereader!

Rachel (ex-housemate, university friend):
-Marvel, Young Avengers vol. 2. (I bought her volume one for her birthday, and Billy and Teddy are the most adorable. Also, LGBT, hero of colour, kickbutt ladies.)

You might have spotted that I feel especially responsible for nurturing my sister’s taste in books. The more she reads, the happier I am. I especially love it when I manage to pick out something she likes (I was the one who introduced her to Kim Harrison, a couple of Christmases ago!).

Oddly, nothing for Dad this year, book-wise. He got a light-up phaser and two Blake’s 7 boxsets, instead. (Everyone else got other stuff, not just books, I swear.)

What I got:

From my sister:
-Tim Spector, Identically Different. (Genetics!)
-Ursula Le Guin, Walking in Cornwall. (Ursula Le Guin poetry!)
-Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. (Genetics! Again!)
-Marvel, Avengers vs. X-Men. (Heeee.)

From my parents:
-Marvel, Captain America: Two Americas, Captain America: Road to Reborn, Captain America: Reborn, Steve Rogers: Super Soldier, Captain America: No Escape, Captain America: Prisoner of War, Captain America: The Trial of Captain America, and Captain Marvel: Down. (Uh. I like Captain America?)

From my partner:
-Marvel, Ultimate X-Men vols. 1-4. (I liked their appearances in Ultimate Spider-man.)

From LibraryThing Secret Santa (majkia):
-Chris Wooding, Retribution Falls.
-Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God.

Plus, with Amazon vouchers/money from Pete Thomas, my partner and my parents:
-Andy Clarke, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. (My mini-comic, reboot, might have given you all a clue about my interest in this.)
-Ann Aguire, Grimspace. (My sister got it in paperback, and I got interested too.)
-Faith Hunter, Skinwalker. (Again, Squirt got it. Plus, it sounds a little like SPN with more ladies.)
-Tina Connolly, Ironskin. (A steampunk Jane Eyre? Sign me up.)
-Alastair Moffat, The British: A Genetic Journey. (Genetics! Plus I think I’ve read other books by Alastair Moffat.)
-Sophie Robbins, A Hole in the World. (An adventure romp type of thing with a princess getting rescued from trolls by a girl called Bianca…)
-Tanya Huff, He Said Sidhe Said, The Silvered, Valour’s Choice and The Better Part of Valour. (Because Tanya Huff writes such fun stuff; I’m partway through He Said Sidhe Said already.)
-Susan Cooper, Ghost Hawk. (Susan. Cooper.)
-James L. Watson, Double Helix. (Sound familiar?)

…And I even got some presents that weren’t books, like my new fingerless gloves!