Books We Got for Christmas 2020

What a year huh?! I think reading has been a bit of solace for both of us through all of 2020's turbulence and we did some serious damage to our bookshelves. Christmas couldn't have come sooner for a good stockpile replenish and we got some excellent books that we can't wait to check out.

I missed the boat on reading Flynn's Gone Girl and Sharp Objects before watching their respective adaptations, and even though Dark Places is by no means new I wanted to read something of Flynn's that I hadn't already watched. I am worried it will be scary and I won't want to read it when I'm alone without Scott (the only time I ever read) but I'm excited about it nonetheless. 

Meg finally got me to watch the movie adaptation of this book this year because she knows how much I enjoy Nora Ephron and I was pregnant etc. The movie was so cute and funny but also painful to watch and I know the book will be likely all of that too but better. The story is semi-autobiographical from when Ephron's husband cheated while she was pregnant. I haven't read anything by Ephron in a long time, and I've never read any of her fiction so I'm really excited.

This is the second novel by the author that wrote The Time Traveler's Wife, an old favourite for me. I'm a bit concerned because  I didn't look up the premise before adding it to my list and it's a HORROR book. So that's two scary books for Christmas this year. I am committed still to reading it but... pray for me. 

I actually saw this book on one of Obama's top books lists from a recent year and thought it sounded so interesting. It's about a single American mother living in poverty who works as a housekeeper to provide for her kids. 

I have a crush on Jen Atkin and her husband - if you don't know who she is, she's a popular celebrity hairdresser and now close friend of the Kardashians, Chrissy Tiegan, etc. I have 0 interest in hair or how to become a famous hairdresser but I wanted to read this because she wrote it herself and the celebrity addict in me will stop at no costs for juicy gossip.

I already had the first book from this trilogy but my mom and dad gave me the other two for Christmas this year. I think I'll bite into these three books after the one I'm currently reading because I love a good Hilderbrand series during the holidays and Ontario is in lockdown now so there's especially nothing to do. Hilderbrand always writes really addictive chick-lit ish novels but I often find they have some deeper, thought-provoking plot lines as well. 

I hate to call these coffee table books because I actually read them and obsess over the photos many times over, but this is a beautiful coffee table book by a designer I really like. I've already read the entire thing cover to cover (it's not text heavy, mostly pictures) and am excited to add it to my collection. **the word collection feels gross to say and even grosser to read back but you know what I mean.

I remember a lot of people going crazy over this book when it first came out. It's a non-fiction piece that looks at the sex lives of three women of different backgrounds in the United States. In 2020 I've been way more into fiction and have been looking for some good non-fiction to keep me on my alternating reading schedule. 

My favourite professor leant me East of Eden one summer while I was dogsitting for her and it became one of my favourite fiction books ever. I love John Steinbeck's simple writing style and have been wanting to check out more of his work. There's also something very comforting to me about reading a big work of fiction, especially in a pandemic. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation was another book I saw super hyped up over the last few years. I used to think it was a memoir, but only recently learned it's fiction. The title kind of speaks for itself ... how could I resist during a year of constant quarantine?? 

I have been begging Ben to download this movie for me for months ... I saw some people I follow on Letterboxd rate it highly and have been really interested ever since. I've also never read any Tom Wolfe so was excited to try some of non-fiction that isn't The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Ben's mom also enjoys Wolfe, and I trust her judgement. I will definitely watch the movie after I read, and might even watch the miniseries on Disney + eventually.  

As I mentioned, I love reading giant works of fiction. I love having reading projects or goals, and during quarantine I remember listening to a podcast where the host was going on about reading War and Peace. I decided to give another Russian author a go when I saw Crime and Punishment was super cheap at Indigo (only $6). I put it on my list and my parents picked it up for me!

This was a total impulse addition to my Christmas list. I was browsing around Indigo and saw it for $15 ... I'm a sucker for a Pulitzer Winner, especially when it's fiction. 

Technically this was a birthday gift, but that's only four days before Christmas so I'm including it on this list! I listen to The Watch podcast twice a week (television and general pop culture pod) and they decided to do a Summer of Dove series where they discussed the book and miniseries adaptation. This book is almost a thousand pages so I'll probably have to plan out when I start it so I can keep up with this blog. Still, Larry McMurtry is someone I've never read and am excited to. He wrote the short story that Brokeback Mountain was based on, and he also wrote the novel Terms of Endearment (a movie I love). 

This was a book Belletrist did for one of their monthly reads. I also heard Juliet Litman (Ringer podcast host) mention it and so I figured I'd give it a try!