My family has long celebrated Christmas on Black Friday. Sometimes, Thanksgiving is the only holiday when we can get together. We were sorry to cancel this year’s gathering (WAY too much travel for Covid), but decided to use Zoom for our Secret Santa gift exchange. I collected requests. Only one person took the “Surprise me” option. About half actually named a book, and the rest indicated author or genre. EVERYONE gave me their requests promptly, and only one book failed to arrive on time! Success!
| GIFT BOOKS |
| The 7.5 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton |
| The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury |
| John Dies at the End, This Book is Full of Spiders & What the Hell Did I Just Read? by D Wong |
| Casino Royale by Ian Flemming |
| To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini |
| Democracy in Exile by Daniel Bessner |
| Max’s Words by Kate Banks |
| The Crayons Christmas by Drew Daywait |
| Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel |
| Spying on the South by Tony Horowitz |
| About Face by David Hackworth |
| Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson |
| Nothing to See Here by Keith Wilson |
| Serpentine by Philip Pullman, book |
| The Everything Kids’ Baseball Book, 11th edition |
| The Science of Hitting by Ted Williams |
| Houseplants and Hot Sauce by Sally Nixon |
| Blacktop Wasteland by S Cosby |
| Magdalena: River of Dreams by Wade Davis |
| All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny |
| Legendborn by Tracy Deonn |
| Art Quilt Collage by Deborah Boschert |
| ALSO MENTIONED – books and authors |
| The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey |
| Domenica de Rosa |
| James Baldwin |
| Collected poems Countee Cullen |
| Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici |
| Into the Wild (Warriors Book 1) by Erin Hunter |
| The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey |
| Collage Quilter by Emily Taylor |
| Into the Silence by Wade Davis |
AMG Reading Journal 