Happy Holidays!

[Solaris]

Just wanted to wish all you guys a wonderful Holiday, and Happy Reading!!! Hope you found some great books under your tree.

Speaking of which, I got some really cool book gifts, including a complete set of hardback Walter Farley books (The Black Stallion writer) from my parents, and we got the latest version of the Buffy RPG guide from Dawn and Perry Holley. :D Rock.

[Jay]

Definitely second the Happy Holiday wishes to all!

[miles_smily]

I will third that. Happy holidays!!!!

[Puma]

I gave books but didn't receive any *sad*.

Happy holidays everyone

[Gordon Smith]

I received a copy of Beowulf for Christmas! Seamus Heaney translated this particular edition.

[Deathstroke]

Merry Christmas right back at you Solaris.

My books haul this year was two books on baseball, a book on Amazing but true sports stories, and The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam (about the best coach in the NFL, Bill Belichick).

[Solaris]

Thanks 'stroke. Here's another unusual gift I got, tho' it's not a book: Meg found the soundtrack to "Ladyhawk" on vinyl for me, and Perry had it on CD (since I don't have a record player any more they did a CD copy for me). :)

We got Finn a copy of "The Polar Express," since he loves the movie so much. He promptly sat down with the book and turned the pages while watching the movie (his insistence, as soon as we got home from the book store). Hee.

[Deathstroke]

Thanks 'stroke. Here's another unusual gift I got, tho' it's not a book: Meg found the soundtrack to "Ladyhawk" on vinyl for me, and Perry had it on CD (since I don't have a record player any more they did a CD copy for me). :)

We got Finn a copy of "The Polar Express," since he loves the movie so much. He promptly sat down with the book and turned the pages while watching the movie (his insistence, as soon as we got home from the book store). Hee.

Very cool story Solaris.

Oh, the gift card my sister gave me for Barnes and Noble turned into a nice little boon for me.

I went to order Vince Flynn's Consent to Kill online. Barnes and Noble is/was having a 50% off sale. The book was around 25 bucks regularly, down to 12 something. Add in shipping it brought it up to $17.61, minus my $10 gift card, total cost to me $7.61! Less than the cost of the paperback if I waited until next year for it to come out.

Yay Me!

[CaptMagellan]

I received a copy of Beowulf for Christmas! Seamus Heaney translated this particular edition.

And an excellent edition it is. I love Heaney's translation and having the Anglo-Saxon and English pages facing each other is way cool.

[Roquefort Raider]

Books make great gifts, and as the guy who has to fill the trunk with all the kids' presents when we start on the 6-hour drive back from the grandparents, I absolutely love their compact size! (Can you tell I had to fight with too many LEGO sets that felt bigger than our little car)?

I gave my godson the next installment in the French version of "A song of ice and fire", which has been split in multiple books (with roughly three books in French per English original). I hope he'll like it so we can talk about it, and that his dad will pick them up! We used to read all the same books as kids.

My one and only nephew received two Harry Potter novels, which is pretty good since he's only 7 and reads them by himself.

My sons received european comic-book albums from different series: Valerian (SF), Michel Vaillant (car racing) and Thorgal (viking adventure). Pretty good stuff. I reciprocated with the Chester Brown biography of Louis Riel, which I gave to my mom.

My sister gave me a book titled "Pas si fous, ces Français", an amusing look at the culture clash between the French and us North Americans. One of the interesting points made in it is that the French culture allows violent debate as a matter of course with no repercussion on friendly relations, while we North-Americans (while quite happy with friendly insults and ribbing) can take greater offence when things heat up. I certainly know that I lost a few friends over the issue of Quebec separation... and disagreement over the very notion of public disagreement gave the world the Liberty Fries.

I also got "Playing guitar for dummies" from my mother-in-law. Mother-in-laws never pass an opportunity to call us dummies.

And that was that for this christmas.

[Gordon Smith]

And an excellent edition it is. I love Heaney's translation and having the Anglo-Saxon and English pages facing each other is way cool.

I think this was a superb translation.

[Bright-Raven]

I basically bought myself ELDEST, Dennis Danvers' THE FOURTH WORLD, and Julie Kemmer's CARPE DEMON: ADVENTURES OF A DEMON-HUNTING SOCCER MOM. Also bought myself the BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE mini and the first two issues of BATMAN & THE MONSTERMEN.

Gave the parents some mystery novels that I don't remember the names of right at the moment, but the dad's already gone through one of them.

When I will actually get around to reading any of this, I have no freakin' idea.

[berk]

The only actual book I received myself was Robert Stone's latest, 'Bay of Souls', which I probably wouldn't have read otherwise. I like his stuff, but I'm beginning to find it a little repetetive. I'm sure this'll be a good read, though. I did get a bunch of gift certificates, which I'll be using up over the next few months.

I gave my sister a copy of Ronald Wright's 'A Short History of Progress' which I recommend to everyone. And I gave a friend of mine Richard Dawkins's 'The Selfish Gene' since we'd been talking about it and he expressed an interest in reading it.