Inspired by Charlotte, here are the books I got for Christmas:

1. For research: The Thoreau You Don't Know and Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow. I've already started Thoreau and continue to find what others think of him to be as much, if not more so, interesting then he is himself. Mountain is the stories of those left behind while extreme climbers pursue their passion - and those left behind when those climbers die on their mountains. It is probably as close as I will get to understanding how George Mallory's wife coped in the wake of his loss.

2. For light reading: Soulless: The Parasol Protectorate #1 by Gail Carriger ("A novel of vampires, werewolves and parasols") and The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker ("Miss Percy Parker, an albino beauty who has come to study at Victorian London's Athens Academy, will learn not only to deal with the ghosts that she can see, but her own part in a puzzling prophecy that threatens the known world.") Please - how could you resist either one of these during a long grey winter day?

3. For some writerly consideration: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with DH Lawrence by Geoff Dyer. Even when you don't have full on writer's block, a lot of us suffer from writer's procrastination. It's sort of irresistible to read about someone else stuck in it.

4. A literary mystery I pined for: The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault. PW had me with this: "...two young lexicographers find clues to an old murder case hidden in the files at their dictionary company." Yep, I'm sold and eager to read.

5. Because it's Sara Zarr: Once Was Lost. The author alone is reason enough (and if you read her stuff you would know what I'm talking about).

6. For cooking: Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Cookbook. She's awesome and well, one does not eat words and finding decent recipes is a good thing. If you read as many eco books as I have lately (Booklist is trying to kill me) then you'd be all over the clean eating stuff too.

7. And not literary at all but must be mentioned - Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me on vinyl. Proof indeed that my husband loves me - and the fact that he wants to frame it and hang it on the wall is proof he gets me, which honestly I think is even more important.

This is probably the smallest amount of books i have ever gotten for Christmas but as I have a stack of titles for research staring me in the face not to mention all the stuff for Bookslut and the four books due to Booklist by January 26th, well, I'm not complaining. I wanted every one I got which is the best part though, and can't wait to read them.