Tag: Christmas

What I got and what I gave

Posted December 25, 2013 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

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!

Photo of my hand with my new hippo fingerless gloves on.

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Nothing says I love you like a book

Posted November 22, 2013 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

No matter what the occasion, I try to buy people a book. It means some adaptation, and buying books I don’t normally buy — paranormal romance for my sister, certain types of non-fiction for my dad, violent crime fiction for one of my ex-housemates — but I do like to think about it, to pick out something that just fits. (I have one major failure: my best friend since childhood, Laura. Craft books, yes, but anything you could settle down and read… she doesn’t have the time/patience for it unless she’s on holiday, and then her taste is for chick lit type stuff. Hm, an idea strikes…) Luckily, a lot of people around me share my taste: Amy, my partner, my mum, to a great extent my sister.

So yeah, you know I love you when I come home from the charity shop glowing with glee and a stack of books carefully picked out just to suit your taste. My former housemates should be pretty familiar with this situation.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a couple of my happily united book couple successes — and then, if you like, you can comment with a book and some facts about someone, and see whether I can think of something.

For Dad: You Are Not So Smart, by David McRaney. Because whether he likes it or not, some of it is very relevant to things he believes about himself. Granted, he probably didn’t see it that way, but he did carry the book around with him from Christmas to the New Year. He’s a non-fiction reader, gave up on fiction a long time ago, but his knowledge tends to be widespread and general, so I always try to aim for something like this, rather than something super-technical.

For Mum: The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay. The Fionavar Tapestry and Tigana came first, I think, but it was Lions that had her texting me at three in the morning from Italy or Spain or whatever fancy conference she was at. (This is reciprocal more than any other book-giving relationship I have: she introduced me to Isaac Asimov, Robin Hobb and Dorothy L. Sayers, among others.)

For Squirt (my sister): The most memorable occasion was when I handed over her first Alastair Reynolds book, Century Rain. She’s been a fan ever since, and it actually kickstarted her into doing a lot more reading. I think her trust for my taste began at that moment. We actually went to a reading/signing by Alastair Reynolds, and her knees were practically knocking with nerves — my fierce little sister’s knees were knocking!

For the girlfriend: Occasionally I try and break her heart with stuff like Civil War: Iron Man, but mostly I’m nice and push books like The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern) and A Face Like Glass (Frances Hardinge) her way. One of our oldest literary successes was The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper). There was also Robin McKinley’s Sunshine and Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry, and more recently Jo Walton’s work — you can see we share very similar taste in books. On the other hand, Cherie Priest’s Bloodshot and Hellbent bored her to death, where I love love love loved them, so it’s not all perfect.

For Amy (former housemate): The biggest hit was Garth Nix’s work. It’s now become a yearly Christmas tradition: a Garth Nix book or series, every year. He’ll need to write more, soon, or I’m doomed. Given that Amy’s dyslexic, Spellwright by Blake Charlton could’ve gone either way, but she ended up liking it.

For Ruth (former housemate): This was a lucky one. She mentioned being interested in the Tudors and particularly Lady Jane Grey. I found Alison Weir’s Innocent Traitor a couple of days later in a charity shop.

For Lynn E. O’Connacht: I can’t actually remember anything specific here, but we’ve traded books fairly frequently, starting with her sending me King Arthur’s Death (trans. Brian Stone), which contains the alliterative and stanzaic Morte Arthure poems. Anna Elliott’s Twilight of Avalon is another Lynn sent me.

So… yeah. If I love you, expect a book this Christmas (if I can get you anything at all, which is a different matter).

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