A Week in Which I Finish a Year of Living Danishly and (Finally!) Ballet Shoes

Wrapping Up the Cybils I have been a very bad blogger lately but I promise to do better after I get this first round of the Cybils sorted out on January 1. And, as anyone knows who has ever worked in an elementary school, the month of December is madness. Every day is a new special event, be it Grinch Day or the holiday musical or Polar Express Day or the holiday parties. Outside the school has been crazy, too, what with our town's church alliance's Christmas Walk-a-Mile and helping my daughter-in-law with her crafts at the farmer's markets and getting ready for my dad's ninetieth birthday celebration in January. We are super-duper excited this year for Christmas because my Chicago son and his wife will be coming for the holiday for the very first time to have Christmas with my husband and me and our local son and his wife and their 13-month old baby girl.  Bear with me and I will get back to books soon.... What I Read This Week The Library of Unrequited Love is a short novella about a librarian who has given it all up for her library. It's a silly little story, a cautionary tale, perhaps, but a little story that no one who is a librarian should miss....You will be able to identify. One Man's Christmas is a collection of old columns with a Christmas theme by Houston Chronicle columnist Leon Hale. I chose it because it's a book club theme but who wouldn't enjoy reading about the hard times our parents and grandparents experienced in their childhood Christmases? The Year of Living Danishly is a memoir of Helen Russell's move to Denmark for a year. Russell used the year to take a close look at why Danish people report themselves to be the happiest people in the world. I am happy to have learned more about happiness from this book. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but, sadly, I did not become a fan of Ballet Shoes. I am disappointed to say that it took me three weeks to finally get to the end of this little book, and I just don't feel the love. It's the story of three girls who are adopted by an eccentric fossil collector. The girls all are given unusual (for the time) opportunities to develop their talents, and they struggle to help their guardian provide for them financially. Maybe it is so beloved because all three girls do seize-the-day, and that was a rare thing during the thirties when this book was written. What I Hope to Read Next Week What are you reading today? What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon. The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news and recap the past week. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that we found in our mailboxes last week.   It is now being hosted here. Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews in which you can share the books you've acquired. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is now being hosted at The Book Date.