Top Ten Books To Read During The Holidays

10. Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto

9. Yoon and the Christmas Mitten

8. The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy by Jane Thayer

7. Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree

6. A New, Improved Santa

5. Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo

4. Robert Sabuda's popup book, The Night Before Christmas

3. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

2. The Polar Express

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

I could have made this a Top 50 Books to Read During the Holidays!
 I also love A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote,
A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas,
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, and
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen.
For more wonderful children's picture book holiday choices,
see the lists I made in 2009.

And here's a bonus book trailer for

a new edition of A Christmas Carol,
published by HarperCollins Children's Books.

Each week The Broke and the Bookish will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our blogger's answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!

Literary Blog Hop: Is There Such a Creature as Literary Nonfiction??

Welcome to
this week's Literary Blog Hop
hosted by The Blue Bookcase!


This week's question is:

Is there such a thing as literary nonfiction?
If so, how do you define it?
Examples?

Yes. Definitely yes. Absolutely yes.
Yes, I believe in literary nonfiction.

For my definition, I will offer the definition
I gave on the very first Literary Blog Hop
for literary writing:

"...thoughtful writing that surprises me,
that leads me places I'd no idea that I needed to go,
with amazing characters and intriguing plots
and beautifully written passages."

I would simply add for literary nonfiction:
"...that is based on true events."

Some of my favorite literary works are literary nonfiction.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
The Last Shot by Darcy Frey
Working by Studs Terkel
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

What do you think? What are your favorites?


P.S. And, please, if you have read any wonderful literary books
published in 2010, I urge you to nominate your favorites
for The Independent Literary Awards. The awards
include categories of Literary Fiction and Literary Non-Fiction.
Nominations close December 15.

Gratitude Giveaway! Win a Trip to Paris! Or a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

Thank You, Followers!

I have two prizes in the Gratitude Giveaway!

Entering is easy!

Just:

 (1) follow me and

(2) leave a comment, stating which prize(s) you'd like to win,

and providing an email address where you can be reached.

What are the Prizes?

Prize Package 1...

A Trip to Paris!

Well, a trip to Paris...via books, anyway.

I went to Paris last summer.

It was fantastic.

Now I want to share that experience with you.

I will send you the five books below

and you can take your own virtual trip to Paris!

(I'm sorry, but this is only open to bloggers in the US.)

Prize Package 2...
Win an Amazon Gift Card!

(This is open to bloggers anywhere Amazon can ship.)

 

You can enter one or both of these giveaways!
Good luck!

Bonus Entries:

Follow me at Twitter

and leave a comment. +1

Befriend me at Goodreads

and leave a comment. +1

Gratitude Giveaways is scheduled to begin on November 17th at 12:01 am EST

and end on November 28 at 11:59 pm EST.

The giveaways will start one week before Thanksgiving and run until the Sunday after.

All participating blogs will be linked up through a Gratitude Giveaways linky.

Top Ten Villains and Criminals and Other Sorts of Bad Guys

10. The Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood


9. IT in Wrinkle in Time


8. Old Age in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont



7. Lack of Imagination in Fancy Nancy

6. Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula in I, Claudius

5. John Ames Boughton in Gilead and Home

4. Prejudice and Injustice in Martin's Big Words

3. Bedtime in Dinosaur vs. Bedtime

2. Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers


1. The Grinch in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!

Future Top Ten Tuesdays:

November 16- Top Ten Villains, Criminals, Degenerates

November 23- Top Ten Books To Read During The Holidays

November 30- Top Ten Characters I Wish I Could BFF's with!

December 7- Coziest Places to Read/Favorite Places to Read

December 14- Top Ten Books I'm Anticipating For 2011.

December 21- Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings

December 28- Top Ten Books I've Read in 2010--a look back into your favorite reads of 2010!

January 4:- Top Ten Books I Resolve To Read in 2011--books you've put off reading but will vow to get to in 2010!

Independent Literary Awards...Nominate Your Favorites Now!

You are a reader or you wouldn't be here at my blog.  I bet you've read some fantastic books this year, right?

Why not nominate your favorites for an award then?!

What are the Independent Literary Awards?

From the website, here is a little about the award:

The Independent Literary Awards are book awards given by literary bloggers. All judges and panelists for theses awards are completely independent and do not receive compensation for reviews nor their work on the award board. The Independent Literary Awards is currently in its inaugural year and will be presenting the winners for the 2010 calendar year in February of 2011.

What genres may receive awards?

The genres that will be represented and receiving awards for 2010 are:

·         Literary Fiction

·        Non-Fiction

·        Mystery

·        Speculative Fiction 

·         GLBTQ 

What, then, are the rules for making nominations?

■ You must be a literary blogger; and a link to your blog must be provided so we can verify this. (You may not be the author, publisher, or publicist of the book you are nominating).

■ Books nominated must have a 2010 release date.

■ You may nominate a book that has already been listed (the books with the most nominations will be what we add to the Long List).

■ You may nominate books in more than one genre, but only one per genre.

■ Nominations close December 15, 2010.

I'm happy to be serving as a panelist on the Non-Fiction Panel of the Indie Literary Awards!

Serving as Non-Fiction Panelists are:

• Debbie @ Readerbuzz

• Shauna @ the Evergreen Junior High Library

• Florinda @ The 3R’s Blog 

• Betty @ Reflections with Coffee

• Mary @ A Novel Idea 

And serving as Judge for the Non-Fiction Panel is Kim @ Sophisticated Dorkiness 

I am anxious to read some great non-fiction titles over my winter holidays, so please, please, please head over to the links above and nominate some great books. Please share this information on your blog so that other great titles will be nominated. Please tweet about it and Facebook about it. Spread the word, literary bloggers!

Enchanté! from The Literary Blog Hop

 Let me introduce myself.

Bonjour! Enchanté! Bienvenidos!

I am Debnance at Readerbuzz.

I love to read.

I especially love children's books,

travel memoirs,

 literary fiction, 

creative nonfiction,

and books about happiness.

 I'd love to visit your blog. 

If you like, follow me and leave a comment

and I will hop over and follow you.

I also invite you to:

Befriend me at Goodreads.

Follow me at Twitter.

 Befriend me at Facebook. 

I'm happy to be joining in the Literary Blog Hop again this week. It's a hop sponsored by The Blue Bookcase and it's designed for participants who read primarily literary works. Each week a prompt is provided to encourage discussion among literary bloggers.

This week's prompt is from...oh my goodness!....
This week's prompt is from...ME! 

From The Blue Bookcase:

This week's question comes from Debbie Nance at Readerbuzz:

What is the most difficult literary work
you've ever read?

What made it so difficult?

My response:

I'm going to say the most difficult literary work

I've ever read was

The Three Musketeers.

I'm picking TTM as difficult because

I knew nothing about swords,

or French history

and this book has lots of fighting

and French history.

Luckily, I read this book on my Kindle,

with a built-in dictionary!

Quite lovely to easily

look up words I didn't know.

And it also helped that I read this book

with my online bookgroup...lots of support.

Plus, I read it while I was in France!

How cool is that?!

What was your most

difficult literary read?

Green Books Campaign: Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Here's the truth.  I'm not that Green these days.  A faint tinge, perhaps, around the edge.

I used to be Green. Here's an old picture of me. See?

I want to be more Green. And I want to live in a world with lots of Green people.

And, so, We Need More Green Picture Books. Like Stuff!

Stuff! doesn't look that Green at first glance. More Blue, really. But take another look. It's a lovely story of a mouse that has too much. He finally is convinced to sell off some of his things. The mouse is astounded to find that having less stuff can be refreshing.

I loved this book. The children at school that I read it with loved this book.

Thank you to Marshall Cavendish for providing me with a copy of this wonderful book. I'll now stay true to the spirit of Greenness by passing this on to my primary school library  (as, please note, I do with every suitable children's picture book I receive for review) where it can be passed on again and again and again.

On Wed., Nov. 10, at 1 p.m., 200 bloggers will simultaneously publish reviews of 200 books printed on environmentally-friendly paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using greener methods, Eco-Libris aims to raise consumer awareness about considering the environment when making book purchases. This year’s participation of both bloggers and books has doubled from the event’s inception last year.

The 200 books to be reviewed are in a variety of subjects including cooking, poetry, travel, green living, and history, and come from 56 publishers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. that are participating in the Green Books Campaign. This diversified group of publishers includes both small and large presses who all print books on recycled and/or FSC-certified paper.

Eiffel Tower in Purple, Orange, and Green

(Nearly) Ten Most Unfortunate Character Names

A few unfortunate character names come to mind.

(1)  I always felt sorry for poor Ashley Wilkes

 in Gone with the Wind. 

Wimpy.

And stuck with a girl name to boot.

(2)  Okay, I know this is just me,

but it is really, really hard to keep people straight

when reading a book set in Japan.

I get the names confused.

Too many vowel sounds.

(3)  Men in romance novels. 

Bold, one-syllable names that sound

like those of an action hero or

a curse word. Blaze, for example.

And Rock. Ridiculous. 

(4)  Old-fashioned names in classic stories. 

Walter, for example, is Mr. Bridge's first name

in the classic book,

Mr. Bridge by Evan S. Connell.

Walter Bridge sounds silly now, doesn't it?

(5)  Bilbo Baggins.  Please. 

(6)  Every Debbie I've ever read about

is a bubble-headed dimwit.

Or worse.

Surely we could have a story about a beautiful and clever

college professor named Debbie?  For once.

Well, that's all I could come up with today. I'm off to see what you thought of....

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!

Sunday Salon: War and P...oetry (and Happiness)

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

I don't think we who have not been in military combat have much notion of what a war is like. Private Peaceful is a very powerful story. We in America seem to have the belief that Vietnam was a uniquely horrific war experience, that other wars were somehow "purer" wars. I don't think a person could read this book and continue to think so.

I grew up in the sixties, a time of hope and optimism about the world. I had expected that by this century people would have developed ways to solve conflict without resorting to sending young people to kill other young people.

I wonder if the stories of war, however brilliantly written, are not always much less horrific than actual combat....

And for anyone who enjoyed Private Peaceful and wants to read more, I suggest The Things They Carried.

Carry a Poem

How often do you go out to your mailbox and find a package has arrived from Kathmandu, Nepal?!

That happened to me this week. Inside the package was the delightful sliver of a book, Carry a Poem. Thousands of free copies of this book were given away in Edinburgh, Scotland during the Carry a Book Project, to “get you reading poetry.” I received it in a bookring through BookCrossing. The book consists of about twenty stories of people and the poems they love. Many of my favorites are here: “Warning” (perhaps better recognized by its opening line: “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple”), an e. e. cummings (“i carry your heart with me”), and even the poem I’d considered adding to the card file accompanying the book, “Sunlight in the Garden”.

I decided to go with a beloved poem, “Orange”. I include it here:

The Orange by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled and shared it with Robert and Dave —

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I’m glad I exist.

I plan to do a Carry a Poem Project of my own at school in the spring.

Hector and the Search for Happiness by François Lelord

I participated this week in the first ever Literary Blog Hop. I visited many blogs.

At almost every blog, bloggers took on the task of defining the word «literary».

Most bloggers were in agreement ; I saw lots of «thoughtful» and many «beautifully written».

Some bloggers felt literary must be, by definition, difficult.

I say no and Hector and the Search for Happiness is a good example.

Hector is a delightfully simple read, but it is nevertheless quite literary. Thoughtful. Wildly clever. Certainly beautifully written.

I must say that I obtained great happiness from reading this book. Definitely simple, however, if that puts you off it.