For a bit of irony this Christmas, today's guest blogger is M. J. Rose --- author of THE MEMORIST --- who grew up Jewish the remaining 364 days of the year. Here, she reminisces about a very special present she received from her father, and describes what she's given him in return, albeit decades later.


I'm Jewish but we celebrated Christmas growing up. My dad was in the toy business, and to a man in the toy business, December 25th is a holy day no matter who you pray to the rest of the year.

Imagine: it's Christmas and your dad is the EVP at one of the top three toy companies in New York City. Imagine the sight under the tree. Nah . . . double that. Practically all of FAO Schwarz was under our tree (the tree, by the way, was five feet tall, plastic, pink and decorated with pink and silver ornaments.)

We had a rule in our house: no matter what time my sister and I woke up on December 25th, we couldn't wake up our parents until 6 a.m. And then, painfully, excruciatingly, agonizingly, we had to wait until my mother made coffee and my sister and I each drank down a full glass of orange juice before we could start opening presents.

And then it was a wild free for all.

When the dust and the ribbons and the wrappings settled, no matter how many Barbies and Barbie clothes and doll houses and stuffed animals and games there were under that fashion tree, my favorite presents were the books.

To this day I still have almost all those books and none of the toys, and my favorite is ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME. Every year on December 25, at some point during the day, I pull it out and read it again.

Of all the characters, in all the books I had, I related to Eloise the most. She lived in the Plaza Hotel on 59th and Fifth --- only twelve blocks away from where we lived. I got into same kinds of trouble she got into. She had a turtle. I had a turtle. My school uniform was a carbon copy of what she wore. My hair was just like hers: stringy and messy. And she was always with her nanny, never her parents, because they were always away. While my mom was there, my father wasn't around as much as I wished he was.

Part of that toy business job required him to travel constantly, and I missed him so very much so very often. Somehow, because of that, there was a special bond between us, and every year at Christmas he gave me something special --- something just from him to me.

This is one of the reasons ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME is such a special book to me.

On the first page, the illustrious Hilary Knight drew Eloise holding up a giant-sized wrapped gift with an overly large gift card tied to it. On the card are spaces for the giver of the book to fill in the appropriate inscriptions.

My copy says: To Melisse With Love From Daddy.

This November my tenth novel, THE MEMORIST, was published. The dedication page says, For My Father.

And under it I've written: To Daddy With Love from Melisse.

We don't have the pink tree anymore, but this year I'll be giving my father that book and I hope it means as much to him as my copy of ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME still means to me.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, M. J. Rose, The Memorist

Today's guest blogger is Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs novels, including AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE. Here, she describes a very special tradition she shares with her friends each holiday season, and reminisces on the very first book she ever owned.

"We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open. " -- Harry Edwards


As a book lover, whenever it's time to give a gift, I turn to books, and I'm just as delighted when I see the tell-tale shape of a book gift --- wrapped with my name on it. But, I have felt most joy in giving books to children. One of my friends, writer and teacher, Barbara Abercrombie, organizes a party at her house in early December each year, and it's a very special party: each guest is asked to bring a book for a child who might not otherwise ever receive a book as a gift. One table is set aside for gift wrap, with ribbons and everything you might want to decorate a gift for a child, and at the same time Barbara's kitchen table groans with yummy holiday fare for the partygoers.

The invitation offers pointers as to age-appropriate reading, and guests label their gifts accordingly. It is such a joyous task to choose a book or two for a child you've never met, imagining their eyes as they open THE TALE OF MISS TIGGYWINKLE, or perhaps cracking open the latest Harry Potter. How enchanting to visit again the favorites of one's own childhood, those perennials that stand the test of time and fashion and can still capture the imagination of a child; or to be excited by new authors and innovative illustrators.

I remember, when I was a child, my aunt bought me an illustrated ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. It was the first book I ever owned (we were instead enthusiastic patrons of our local library, and I'd had my library card from age two). How I loved that book. I would open the pages as if unearthing buried treasure, and as I touched each color plate, my fingers tingled with excitement. I had a lair to which I always escaped to read, behind the door at the top of the stairs leading from the dining room down into the kitchen. I'd spend ages cocooned there with my library books, but it was also the place where ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS lived, held safe in the original wrapping paper. I think of the wonderful sense of belonging I felt upon taking ownership of my first book, and find it heartwarming to rekindle that feeling when I choose a book to send to a child I will never know, but am connected to through the gift of story.


Tomorrow, M. J. Rose recalls the lavish Christmases of her childhood, and the one special present that stood out amongst the rest.

Labels: An Incomplete Revenge, holiday-blogs-2008, Jacqueline Winspear

Adriana Trigiani's upcoming book, VERY VALENTINE (to be released this February), may be named for a different holiday, but she still knows how to jump right into the Christmas spirit. Here, she recalls fond memories of her grandparents, and how she shares them with her young daughter through the pages of a favorite book.


Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm a huge fan of old movies. I especially love the movies of the 1930s --- probably because I heard so many stories about them from my grandmother, who was dating my grandfather then. Every Saturday night, he would drive her from her farm in Delabole, Pennsylvania over to Easton, to see "the show". When I was a girl in the 1970s and 80s in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I checked a large book about the movie stars of the 1930s out of the library: it was called THEY HAD FACES THEN, written by John Springer and Jack Hamilton. I would check the book out every week, take it home, and pore over it. I knew of financial struggle and want, so the Great Depression held a sort of allure for me --- a time of suffering gave way to stories on film about runaway heiresses and cards sharps. And there, in THEY HAD FACES THEN, the stories behind the stars and their movies were written with spunk and insight.

This Christmas, I received an early gift from my good friend, the great actor/entertainer Mario Cantone. I had spoken of the book so often that he went on a hunt to find it for me. He gave it to me this week, so I might have it before the Christmas rush. My husband put up the tree, and my daughter and I decorated it, and as we snuggled on the couch, I opened the book and showed her pictures of Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell and working actresses like Virginia Grey. The best books to receive are ones that you long for --- that somehow, along the way got lost --- and then a good friend, thinking of you, finds it in a stack somewhere and remembers you. THEY HAD FACES THEN is that book for me; it conjures my grandmothers, my childhood, and the innocence of a time gone by. For me, it's the perfect Christmas present from a perfect friend.


Tomorrow, Jacqueline Winspear ruminates on the wondrous experience of giving a book to a child.

Labels: Adriana Trigiani, holiday-blogs-2008, Very Valentine

Today's guest blogger Joni Rendon, co-author of NOVEL DESTINATIONS, comes clean about her lack of skill in the kitchen, and shares how she's tackling this challenge with the help of Mark Bittman's HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING.


I'm sure my in-laws meant well when they gifted me with Mark Bittman's HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING a few years back. Coming on the heels of one too many culinary meltdowns, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, they were the hapless victims on the receiving end of my well-meaning, but ultimately disastrous, demonstrations of kitchen prowess. There was the Shrimp Bercy that congealed into a Papier-mâché-like substance (a victim of too much corn starch), the 20-alarm seafood enchiladas (the result of that all-too-important distinction between one "canned" jalapeno and one "can of" jalapenos), and the key lime pie that never firmed up and quivered unappetizingly on our plates until my husband was brave enough to tackle the pale green mass. (Would anyone like another slice. . . errr, dollop?)

Ruining a few dinners among family was one thing, but the prospect of entertaining friends became fraught with stress. Each dinner party invitation received sent my stomach churning with fear on when we'd have to reciprocate. Who could compete with my friend Nancy's Fourth of July flag sheet cake with buttercream frosting and raspberries lovingly nestled into place to form stripes? Or my husband's boss's slow-roasted shoulder of pork with apricot honey glaze? Quickly, I learned that the best way to cook a no-fail meal was to order it in and get rid of the evidence. As guests would arrive, I'd strategically be removing the piping hot creation out of my stove, to a chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs" and "doesn't that look delicious?" But even that didn't always go smoothly (let's just say my dog Penelope --- eyebrows intact --- now knows not to linger near the stove). But over time, the guilt wore on me. I felt bad about deceiving my friends, who'd wholeheartedly pooh-pooh my "woe is me, I can't cook" angst by waxing poetic about some great meal I'd supposedly prepared.

Enter Mark Bittman, whose step-by-step instructions on everything from cookware and ingredients (evaporated milk is NOT the same thing as condensed milk, even though the can looks similar --- hmmm, this could explain the failure of that key lime pie) to explicitly worded recipes that leave nothing to the imagination. I mean, how can you resist a man who goes so far as to warn you, in the case of the pan-seared steak, that "clouds of smoke will instantly appear; do not turn down the heat"?

These days, I've progressed on to the Barefoot Contessa recipes, because she's one of the few U.S. chefs we get on the Food Network in England where I live now, and having the visual aid really helps. (Though I'm sure Ina never had to do battle with a temperamental British convection oven or perform complex mathematical equations in her head to convert measurements to the metric system.) Soon, I'll be putting months of preparation to the test by hosting my book group's annual Christmas gathering --- want to come over for dinner?


Tomorrow, Adriana Trigiani reflects on perfect presents, perfect friends, and the perfect way to celebrate the holidays with loved ones.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, Joni Rendon, Novel Destinations

It isn't always easy to find the perfect Christmas present for a loved one. Today's guest blogger, Shannon McKenna Schmidt --- co-author of the literary travel guide NOVEL DESTINATIONS --- reveals her secret to holiday gift giving, which sometimes benefits her just as much as the recipient.


I have a bad habit. When buying books to give as holiday gifts, I sometimes keep myself in mind --- like the time I bought 1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE for my husband. After all, we're traveling to the same places, right? I'm doing part of our trip planning, so it's only fair I get to "borrow" it to see what Patricia Schultz recommends. Plus I work from home, so I can peruse it while he's at the office.

Last Christmas I gave my sister Deanna Raybourn's SILENT IN THE GRAVE, the first book in a series set in Victorian England featuring amateur sleuth Lady Julia Grey. I had already read an advance copy of SILENT IN THE GRAVE, and I bought my sister a fresh, new edition. I thought she would love the book --- the characters, the setting, the mystery, the hint of romance --- and luckily she did.

But there was a second part to the present: a gift certificate to a local bookstore. I made her promise that with it she would buy SILENT IN THE SANCTUARY, the second book in the series, which was being published the following month. She did indeed get SILENT IN THE SANCTUARY and, as I had hoped, graciously and unsuspectingly asked if I wanted to borrow it when she was done. (It's still on my shelf. I should probably give it back.)

With the holiday shopping season now in full swing, I have to figure out what I. . .I mean they. . .want for Christmas this year.


Join us tomorrow, as Joni Rendon shares some of her misadventures in the kitchen.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, Novel Destinations, Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Mark Sullivan, author of the upcoming novel TRIPLE CROSS (to be released in April), reminisces about a particularly memorable Christmas that perhaps laid the groundwork for him to become the kind of writer he is today.


My mother taught me to read when I was four and we didn't have a television until I was nine, so books were right up there with toys, skis and hockey sticks at Christmas when I was growing up.

I loved mystery and adventure books especially, and when I was a kid on December 25th, I got installments of the Freddy the Detective series about a pig who solved barnyard crimes, The Hardy Boys of course, Tom Swift, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, and usually, from my father's mother, a classic tale of adventure like ROBINSON CRUSOE, KIDNAPPED, or TREASURE ISLAND or KIM. These last were usually condensed and rewritten so a child of the sixties could follow the plot.

After I'd gotten my fill of the toys and games and had the chance to bomb down the side yard on my new skis or sled, I'd grab one of my book presents, sit by the fire, smell the goose my mother was cooking, open the book cover and slip away for a few hours into the new world I'd been given.

On Christmas afternoon, I met the white whale for the first time. I met Professor Moriarty for the first time on a Christmas afternoon as well. And Jack Hawkins and Long John Silver. And Friday. And Jim, Huck and Tom. And the complete story of Jesus's birth according to the gospel of St. Luke; was there ever a better tale?

The greatness of all those books aside, as I near my fiftieth Christmas, one year and two books stick out in my memory.

I was thirteen and sick as a dog. I'd gotten the flu a few days before and spent most of the holiday curled up in a blanket on a sofa between the Christmas tree and the fireplace while my brother and sister went outside to sled with the neighborhood kids.

My grandmother Sullivan had given me a collection of short stories by Joseph Conrad. My mother had given me THE DAY OF THE JACKAL by Frederick Forsyth, which had dominated the bestseller list that year.

I cracked the Conrad book first and was surprised to find it was the real stuff --- not a dumb-down version --- and I initially struggled with the language of "The Duel (A Military Tale)".

But soon, I was swept away into 18th-century France and the tale of two Hussar infantry officers, D'Hubert and Feraud, who clash with sabers as young lieutenants while a deaf gardener and a young maid watch in horror.

The first duel between them ends up with Feraud slashed up and near death. D'Hubert gets him a surgeon and he lives. Feraud recovers, and over the course of decades the duel continues in shades of psychological suspense and overt acts of non-lethal violence until they are both older, scarred men and generals. At the end, despite their supposed obsessive hatred of the other, the duelists have become so firmly intertwined in the meaning of each other's lives that they can't imagine living without the other. Indeed, they've each given the other the most "alive" parts of their existence.

It was great stuff. Up until that point, it was the best short story I'd ever read, and I fell asleep for a while pretty happy and amazed that a writer could tell such an epic story in so little space.

I woke up around noon, ate some soup, and felt sorry for myself because I couldn't be outside with the other kids who'd built a jump on a side hill and were chucking themselves off it, getting ruined but having a pretty darn good time at it.

Then I met the Jackal.

After reading Forsyth's novel for two pages I forgot all about sledding, chucking myself off jumps and ruining myself. I'd never read anything like it. The language was precise, straightforward and easy for a thirteen year old to understand, but it seemed to carry an intense amount of weight and pressure as Forsyth described the hiring of an assassin to kill French President Charles DeGaulle.

From that point forward, I felt like I was right there, hovering in the air around the Jackal as he set about preparing for the assassination. In the novel, the reader never really learns much about the killer in terms of his history. But the way Forsyth describes the Jackal --- his actions, his tics, his cold ruthlessness --- had me believing he was right there in front of me, moving through France, gathering what he would need to kill DeGaulle.

My mother called me to Christmas dinner about the time the Jackal gets his gun. I tried to sneak the book to the table, but my old man was having none of that. He snatched it away and set it on the hutch. Growing up, Christmas dinner was an affair of heavy rituals in my house. You were expected to show up in a white shirt and tie. My mother made goose, yams, and string beans with almonds. My parents shared a bottle of wine. We prayed before eating. You were expected to have thought about the gospel and the sermon and be ready to voice your thoughts after the main meal was eaten.

My shirt collar was digging into my neck. I could barely stomach the chicken broth, and wanted nothing more than to head back to the couch, when my father asked me what Christmas meant to me in light of the morning sermon at Mass.

I didn't know what to say at first, but then blurted out, "I don't know about the sermon. But this year, Christmas to me means being sick and reading about these two guys dueling their whole lives with swords and pistols, and then this other guy, the Jackal, getting hired to kill Charles DeGaulle and he gets this really cool, break-down gun made for him. And he's like this amazing shot."

My father, who is very hard of hearing, looked at me like I was some kind of imbecile. "What the hell does that have to do with Jesus's birth?" he snapped.

"I dunno," I said. "Because of Jesus's birth I get to read really good books?"

My father, who'd had a couple of glasses of red wine by then, started to redden himself, and looked ready to launch into a tirade of some sort. Then my mother held up her hands at my dad.

"He's running a fever," she said. Then she looked at me. "You want to go back to your book and your blankets?"

"It's Christmas Dinner!" my father cried in outrage. "We haven't even had pie and ice cream."

"He can't keep toast down!" she yelled back at him. Then she nodded to me. "Go on, I'll bring you something in a while."

I grabbed THE DAY OF THE JACKAL and headed back into the living room, tearing off my clip-on tie and opening my collar. The Christmas tree was glowing. The fire needed a log or two.

But all I cared about was the Jackal. I read all that evening while Christmas carols blasted from the stereo speakers so my father could hear them and while my brother and sister fought over how much candy they were supposed to have in their stockings. I didn't care.

I was in Paris, meeting this French cop who everyone thinks is kind of an imbecile, watching as he begins to suspect that someone's going to try to assassinate DeGaulle and then hovering right over his shoulder as he sets out to foil the Jackal.

The suspense was excruciating and relentless. I finished the book by flashlight under the covers in my bed around two in the morning, and fell asleep in awe of all that I'd been through in the last fourteen hours: duels, killings, an assassination averted.

I woke up the next day around noon, feeling better, hungry, and I stumbled to the kitchen table and asked my mom for breakfast. While she was cooking me some soft-boiled eggs, she looked over and asked me, "Where's your book?"

"I finished it last night," I said, perking up. "You should read it. It's like the best book I've ever read. And I read the best short story I ever read yesterday too."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, and then felt something come over me. "I'd like to write books and stories like that someday."

Looking back thirty-seven years, I realize I got a gift that Christmas far larger than two books that helped me through a bout of the flu. Through that story by Conrad and that novel by Forsyth I was given a glimpse of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In retrospect that glimpse was the greatest Christmas present I've ever received.


Tomorrow, Shannon McKenna Schmidt shares a sneaky tip for buying presents for loved ones.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, Mark Sullivan, Triple Cross

Brad Meltzer, author of THE BOOK OF LIES, shows us how sometimes the little things make all the difference in the world, as he describes a very special present given to him after a momentous event.

The best book present I ever got was the one my Mom gave me after my first novel was published. It was an old leather journal, with one of those cool old-book-tie thingies on it. And it had just the right amount of spacing on the lined pages inside. Perfect for any nut who cares about such things.

But the best part was the tiny note she put inside. The note she wrote just for me.


Tomorrow, Mark Sullivan recalls his first introduction to the likes of the Hardy Boys, Robinson Crusoe, Professor Moriarty and Long John Silver.

Labels: Brad Meltzer, holiday-blogs-2008, The Book of Lies

Sometimes life doesn't quite work out the way we plan. However, today's guest blogger, Carolyn Jourdan --- author of HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE --- proves that isn't necessarily always a bad thing.


When I was 17 years old, I was given a book for Christmas that --- before I'd finished the first page --- I knew was going to change the direction of my life in a big way. I was a senior in high school, and the book was ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL by James Herriot.

The intensely funny, self-deprecating comedy and radiant kindness in that book affected me so deeply I spent the next 30 years struggling to learn to write (and live) in the hope that one day, somehow, I'd be able to render the wacky misadventures of my physician-father and his patients.

What I experienced while reading ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL was the healing power of laughter and community and the blessing of learning to be comfortable with who, what, and where you are.

Then, like most young people, I got caught up in chasing after "success." By most standards I achieved it. I was a high-powered, high-tech environmental lawyer for the U.S. Senate, living a life like a character out of a TV show. In fact, I was the basis of a well-known character on a famous TV show about Washington.

But then, my mother had a heart attack and my father asked me to come back home to the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee "just for a couple of days" and cover for her on her job as the receptionist in his medical office. She'd been his jack-of-all-trades sidekick for 36 years and, because he treated so many of his patients for free, he couldn't afford to hire anyone to replace her. How could I say no?

The "couple of days" stretched into weeks, months, and then years.

Overnight I went from a glamorous life as a respected professional to an old maid daughter living in her parents' basement, trapped in a flunky job. I never did get back to Washington.

My transition was not graceful. But when I finally relaxed, I realized that although my job was a humble one (to say the least) and I had no talent for it, I was filling a space that needed to be filled. And in fact, I was living out that Herriot book I'd been given for a Christmas present and loved so long ago.

It wasn't a bad life.

By the grace of God, a deeply disrupted career path, and an unbelievable amount of effort I eventually managed to write that book I'd hoped to write one day and it came out in the hardback just in time to give to my father for Father's Day, thus completing a long circle.

Books are important. With the books we give and the books we receive, we can change each other's thinking and even change each other's lives in ways we could never imagine when we've stuffed ourselves with Christmas dinner, settled into a comfy chair, and cracked open the cover of an interesting-looking new book.


Tomorrow, Brad Meltzer describes a touching present given to him by his mother just after he published his first book.

Labels: Carolyn Jourdan, Heart in the Right Place, holiday-blogs-2008

Life lessons abound in any great book, and Garth Stein --- author of THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN --- shares a poignant one his young son learned through the pages of a collection of sports photography.


It's been a crazy December for us. My son, who plays on a U-11 soccer team (there's some terminology that will separate the soccer folks from the non-soccer folks), was on a juggernaut with his team, the Mount Baker/Lakewood Tidal Wave. They're kind of a rag-tag bunch --- more Bad News Bears than New York Yankees --- and yet they have a huge amount of spirit. And they manifest well.

So in the City Championship double-elimination tournament, they won their first three games with guts and determination. And suddenly found themselves in a sea of big fish. They were among the elite. They were one of 6 remaining teams out of 26 that started.

And then they lost. And they lost again and were out of the tournament, on a cold, snowy Sunday in Seattle, with the dark clouds hanging low over the field.

I found myself in a strange situation. How do I explain to my son that this experience is about learning how to lose as well as how to win? But more, how do I explain that it's about learning how to deal with the elements: how to take a bad call. Yes, the young referee of our match whistled a penalty kick in a game tied at 1-1 with fewer than three minutes to play, and our guys --- smaller and less physical players who had been banged around all day --- found themselves losing because of a phantom penalty that even the other team didn't see.

Well, I said to my boy, we play them as they come. We are here because we put ourselves here, and we have to stand up to that. We haven't manifested well today; tomorrow, we will manifest better.

He was disappointed, yes. There were tears, of course, slackened only by a stop at Dick's Drive-In for a vanilla shake and some famous Dick's fries.

But there was also a renaissance.

After the game, when we had all unraveled from our Extreme Winter Wear and settled down in our cozy house, safe from the looming storm, I went up to look for my son and make sure his spirits were not damaged beyond repair. And I found him in his room, on his bed, paging through a book my sister-in-law and nephew had given him for Christmas two years ago, called: 90 MINUTES: The Greatest Moments from the World Cup.

It's a beautiful book of photographs from World Cup soccer matches. The 90 minutes of the title refers to the length of a match. There are few words --- only the captions of photographs. But it is a powerful book.

"You okay?" I asked. "You're not too bummed out about today?"

"I'm okay," he said. And he turned another page to see another fantastic photo.

Perhaps he imagined himself in that book. Perhaps he just loved the energy of it. I don't know. But there he was, seeing himself on the field with a different outcome. Knowing that a hero's journey is not without difficulty and disappointment, but ultimately is about embracing the path traveled.

I've given many books for Christmas; I've received many books. All of them have their stories and are significant. But this day --- today --- 90 MINUTES is the most important book my son has ever received. Perhaps, one day, he will give a book to someone that will be as special as this one is to him.

Happy Book-Giving Season to everyone!


Tomorrow, Carolyn Jourdan discusses how --- despite her life's ups and downs --- she came to embody the ideals represented in one of favorite books.

Labels: Garth Stein, holiday-blogs-2008, The Art of Racing in the Rain

Today's guest blogger, Susan Meissner --- author of THE SHAPE OF MERCY --- recalls the touching gift she was given by her parents one Christmas to encourage the budding writer in her, and gives us a taste of some of her earliest "masterpieces."


When I was eight, and just beginning to grasp that I had restless urge to write that would define me for the rest of my days, I began writing poems in a little red notebook given me by my second-grade teacher. I still have that particular notebook. It is filled with gems like:

Christmas Day
Christmas Day is fun and gay
Christmas Day is a time to pray
Christmas Day is so much fun
Christmas is for everyone

And this one, sure to be a classic someday:

The Sweet Tree
I sat on a log
With my dog
I saw a tree in the sky
So high!
With so many cookies and pies
At first I couldn't believe my eyes!
I looked at the goodies, and my eyes grew to see all the things
I saw sugar-coated bird wings
I climbed the tree way up to the top
I threw some down for my dog, down it went. Plop!
Then I went home.

Just gives you goose bumps, doesn't it? Well, that my Christmas --- we're talking 1969 --- my parents gave me a book of poems; no doubt to encourage the blossoming poet that I was struggling to become. POEMS FOR LITTLE EARS by Kate Cox Goddard became a fast favorite. I loved that book. I loved the illustrations. I loved the perfect meter of each rhyme, each line. I loved Kate Cox Goddard. I wanted to be Kate Cox Goddard. Consider this, perhaps my favorite in the whole book:

Song
When I'm happy inside
I've a bird in my heart
It flutters and beats with its wings
When I'm happy inside
The small bird in my heart
Opens my mouth --- and it sings!

At some point in my childhood I realized poetry was not truly my first love. I waltzed away from it in my teens, dived into community journalism in my younger adult years but truly found my writing voice when I began writing novels. Forty Christmases have come and gone since POEMS FOR LITTLE EARS was first given to me but it still seems like an old, good friend. I knew right where to find it so that I could write this blog post. I knew the hue of its turquoise-blue spine, its shape and size. Flipping through it just now, I couldn't help but smile as I read "Needles and Pins," "The Looking-Glass Child" and "The Tinkling Gate," remembering the little girl that was me when I read them for the first time.

I guess it's no surprise that poems about everyday things would resonate so long and so well inside me. Written rhymes are like music to the eyes.

There are other books I've kept over the years that first came to me under a Christmas tree, but this one has been with me the longest. I don't have such "little ears" anymore, but I still love to see music with my eyes.


Tomorrow, Garth Stein shares the perfect book that managed to put a positive spin on his son's bad day.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, Susan Meissner, The Shape of Mercy

While books often make the perfect gift, sometimes we just aren't so lucky when it comes to the titles we're given. Today's guest blogger, Adrienne Barbeau --- author of VAMPYRES OF HOLLYWOOD --- shares a couple of downers she's received over the years, and reminisces about the touching present she received after a particularly tough year.

I started this piece with the sentence "I love getting books for Christmas" and realized immediately I couldn't go any further because that isn't the truth. I don't love getting books for Christmas.

If I get a book for Christmas, I have an obligation to read it. I know the friend who gave it to me is just waiting for me to say how much I loved it. And she's probably given it to me because she loved it, so she knows what it's all about and she's going to ask specific questions and she'll know in a flash if I'm faking my answers. So I've got to read it. And I've found, over the years, there are a lot of books that my friends love, that I don't have any interest in. Like the year I got the book on fly fishing. And the year someone gave me a bestseller that was so depressing, I wanted to crawl in a hole when I finished.

I can read two pages of a book and know if I'm going to love it or not. If I'm not, I put it back on the shelf. If I get a book for Christmas, I can't do that. So what I'd really rather have is a gift certificate to my favorite bookstore. That's the best gift I can imagine (well, other than a trip to anywhere outside the continental U.S.).

And that's the gift my mother gave me every Christmas for the last ten years of her life.

Every November, I'd stop shopping at my local bookstore, except to check out the new titles from my favorite authors, because I knew, come December 25th, I'd have a gift certificate to buy all the books I wanted.

My mom died in May of 2001. That year my sister gave me a gift certificate for my local bookstore. It was the best gift I've ever received.


Tomorrow, Susan Meissner shares with us a childhood favorite read that she still, to this day, considers to be an old and dear friend.

Labels: Adrienne Barbeau, holiday-blogs-2008, Vampyres of Hollywood

Today's guest blogger, Clyde Forde, is the author of several books, including the nautical thriller, PRECIOUS CARGO. Here, he traces his particular style of writing back to a gift he received many years ago, which sparked his interest on the subjects of mythology and folklore, which play a major role in his work.


My gift's long, rectangular shape, less than an inch thick, made the guessing easy. The book came wrapped in gift paper with an African mud cloth motif and an inscription from my ex-wife that read, "Toward a deeper understanding of the human story and our personal journey in its unfolding." I unwrapped it, thumbed through it, and set it on my shelf amidst medical and psychological texts, where THE POWER OF MYTH (Bantam, 1988), the edited transcripts of interviews of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers, remained unopened for several years. There's a belief in many traditional cultures that the most recondite knowledge requires no special protection. For it is received only by those ready for it, so remains well hidden in plain sight. A chance encounter with the audiotapes of these interviews led me back to this Christmas present, which then led me on to an even deeper study of mythology.

Eight years after the receipt of this present, I received another gift --- a call from a well-known New York editor asking me if I'd like to write a book about African mythology; a subject she recognized that no authors, including Campbell, had addressed beyond the level of folktales worthy of children. This editor had no idea of the many years I had now invested in the study of the mythology; she simply thought that based on my other nonfiction writing, I might do a credible job with the topic. The fruit of that call was the publication of the nonfiction book I am most proud of, THE HERO WITH AN AFRICAN FACE: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa (Bantam, 1999).

Still, this was not the end of the gift giving of that original present, for it was not long after the publication of HERO that a fellow working in my local co-op said to me, "You've studied and written about some of the oldest stories known to man. You understand the power and structure of story. You ought to write your own stories now." Then, my life-partner challenged me to make the leap from nonfiction to fiction. The first fruit of that leap was THE LONG MILE (Midnight Ink, 2005), a suspense novel set in New York City, which was a transliteration of a traditional African myth, in which the original myth figured in the transliterated story. The critical success of THE LONG MILE and the honor it brought with it of winning the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award led to the inception of a west coast series of nautical suspense, the latest of which PRECIOUS CARGO (Vanguard, 2008) was just released this September. I tell people that mythology is the key to a Clyde Ford novel. If you understand the power and dynamics of mythology, than you can certainly see beyond the pages of my books into my characters, setting, and plot. What I haven't said, prior to this writing, is that the key to my writing is also directly traceable to the gift of a book I received at Christmas two decades ago.


Tomorrow, Adrienne Barbeau reveals why she actually doesn't like receiving books as presents, and shares what she prefers instead.

Labels: Clyde Ford, holiday-blogs-2008, Precious Cargo

That old saying "One man's rags are another man's riches" is certainly true for today's guest blogger, Karen Robards. Here, she recalls the sympathy her brothers would feel for her every Christmas when they were children as they opened their presents, clueless to the fact that she was given exactly what she wanted.


When I think back on childhood Christmases, two images immediately come to mind: my three pesky little brothers, and the most wonderful stack of gifts in the world, waiting just for me.

To begin with, as the oldest child with a brother who is five years younger and then twin brothers who are seven years younger, I was never alone on Christmas morning. In the wee small hours (we're talking two a.m. here), my brothers would come and drag me out of bed to go with them to the Christmas tree (sorry to tell family tales, but they harbored an abiding fear of Santa Claus, from whom they thought I could protect them). When we crept into the living room, the tree was always sparkling with tiny magical lights and Santa had always come, leaving mountains of presents for my brothers, who fell upon them gleefully, and a large stack of books for me. I'm sure I had other gifts, but I don't remember them. What I remember is GONE WITH THE WIND, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, THESE OLD SHADES, A WRINKLE IN TIME. Over the years it added up to hundreds of books. I eagerly devoured them all. One of my brothers (they're all grown up now, with families of their own, but I see them all the time, along with the little sister who came along when I was fifteen) recently said to me, "We used to feel so sorry for you at Christmas. All you ever got was books."

But books were what I wanted. They opened the door to a magical place that I still live in a good deal of the time. My own three boys always find stacks of books under the tree, and they're familiar with that magical place as well. Giving them the gift of being readers is one of the things I am most proud of as a mother. As for my own mother, every time I remember those stacks of books at Christmas I thank her for the lifelong gift she gave to me.


Tomorrow, Clyde Ford shares what inspired him to write the book he is most proud of, THE HERO WITH AN AFRICAN FACE.

Labels: Guilty, holiday-blogs-2008, Karen Robards

Sam Wyly, author of 1,000 DOLLARS AND AN IDEA, describes the tumultous personal history of his family, and the comfort they found in reading Margaret Mitchell's classic tale, GONE WITH THE WIND.


I have vivid memories of my parents reading aloud to my brother, Charles, and me back in the days on our cotton patch in tiny Lake Providence, Louisiana. We sat at their feet and listened to stories of heroes and plain folks, to the lush detail of places and times we would never see except in our minds. With Lake Providence tucked into a bend of the Mississippi River, pretty much everything Mark Twain ever wrote, we had heard. But my most lasting memory is of the book Margaret Mitchell wrote.

For Christmas in 1939, my father bought my mother a copy of GONE WITH THE WIND. The story of Scarlett, Rhett, Tara, and the ravages of the Civil War originally had been published in June of 1936. The movie had just been released, but my parents always believed in the completeness of a book's story and the power of imagination unleashed by the written word. And GONE WITH THE WIND, they said, was an especially meaningful saga for the family to imagine from the book.

Like all of the South in 1939, we were at war --- not with the North, but with the Great Depression. My Scots-Irish folks owned 400 acres of cotton land called Island Point, which had once been part of a vast 2800-acre farm called Arlington Plantation, owned by my great, great grandfather, Edward Sparrow. By 1860 he had built it into one of the top 10 cotton-producing plantations in the South. Then came the Civil War --- "The War of Northern Aggression," as it still is referred to in Lake Providence --- and the Sparrow family was thrown out of the beautiful home by Union soldiers. Arlington became a headquarters for Generals Macpherson, McClellan and McArthur, and the first floor was turned into a stable for officers' horses. Hoofprints from them are still visible in the downstairs parlor.

I was only five years old that Christmas, but with my family history the Civil War was a story that already resonated with me. And I never heard it described as graphically, or with as much feeling, as when my parents read GONE WITH THE WIND aloud to Charles and me. For 1,024 pages, we hardly spoke. In so many ways, it was our story, too.

Like Tara at the hands of the war, Island Point was under siege by the Depression. We'd been living in a white painted house in the town of Lake Providence, but by the end of 1939 cotton prices had fallen to six cents a pound and the crop "almost wasn't worth pickin'." It was a long period of hard times.

Scarlett's father, Gerald, had told her, "It will come to you, this love of the land. There's no gettin' away from it if you're Irish." He was right. My parents wanted desperately to hang on to this land that had been passed down from Dad's Irish great-grandfather, born in Dublin in 1810. Just as Scarlett finagled $300 to pay taxes on Tara in order to save it from the carpetbaggers, my folks sold our painted house in town to pay down the farm debt to the bank. As Scarlett made clothes from curtains so as not to appear destitute, my mother made curtains and linens to sell to make ends meet.

The painted house gone, we moved outside of town onto Island Point itself, and the four of us made a new home in one of the field hand's cabins, an unpainted clapboard house with a rusty tin roof, a "double shotgun." We pumped water from a well outside, where there was also an outhouse. Dad ran a wire from an electric pole into the house so that we could power a radio to listen to progress of the war in Europe and to have a light to read by. By the light of this solitary lamp, our parents read us GONE WITH THE WIND.

Money being what it was in December of 1939, the book was the Big Gift that Christmas. Even if it hadn't been, it would have meant the most. Its account of the cultural history of the Old South seemed to parallel stories of my own people, brave and hard-working Scots-Irish immigrants who settled in Louisiana and became successful cotton planters. Scarlett came to love the land, as her father had predicted. She got Tara back, though other tragedies awaited her. We would lose Island Point. In 1941, when prices hit five cents a pound, my parents let go of what had been a 15-year fight and sold most of the land. A few acres we still have. I guess it's a nostalgia thing, a feeling of roots.

But any good story has ironies. One of ours is that the family got back Arlington Plantation. My cousin Flo lives there today, along with the hoofprints in the parlor and the dried blood of wounded Union soldiers soaked into the back porch. The house, which was the Tara of our family, tells its own stories.

Another irony is that my family embraced the philosophic view of the deeply flawed Scarlett, namely that "Tomorrow is another day." There is a fundamental optimism in that, a belief that if you don't give up, you will find a way. It guided my irrepressible folks to realize new dreams of self-determination (they bought a small newspaper in Delhi, Louisiana) and time and again, over a 45-year career in entrepreneurship and investing, enabled me to pick myself up and find a happy ending.

Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece that Christmas of 1939 became the foundation of my understanding of my own heritage. It remains at the core of my lifelong interest in American cultural and intellectual history. I just wish things had turned out as well for Scarlett.

But then, tomorrow is another day.


Tomorrow, Karen Robards discusses her proudest accomplishment as a mother.

Labels: 1000 and an Idea, holiday-blogs-2008, Sam Wyly

Today's guest blogger, Joseph Finder, introduces us to one of literature's greatest, but most underrated villains . . . the Grinch?


People always ask authors about their influences. Mine aren't surprising to anyone who's read my books: Frederic Forsyth, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming. . . Dr. Seuss.

Yes, Dr. Seuss. You remember him: the creator of one of thriller fiction's great villains.

Here's the story: in a remote mountain fortress, a twisted creature plots his vengeance against an unsuspecting population. He enlists his henchman into a nefarious plan that requires elaborate disguises and high-tech transportation; he launches his attack in the middle of the night and he even steals candy from babies.

It's a James Bond novel, right? No, it's HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, which is sadly overlooked as a classic thriller.

Talk about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances: the Whos wake up on Christmas morning to discover that all their presents and decorations are gone. Little Cindy Lou Who, in fact, met the Grinch and lived to tell the tale, in a scene reminiscent of that classic moment in FRANKENSTEIN when the monster has tea with the little girl.

And yes, the power of the Whos' Christmas spirit thwarts the Grinch, but who really wins in the end? Isn't the Grinch himself at the table, helping himself to the largest slice of roast beef? He's insinuated himself into the fabric of Whoville, and from there, who knows what havoc he might wreak . . .

Christmas. It's not just a time for joy and giving, it's a time for plotting world domination. Dr. Seuss taught me so.


Tomorrow, Sam Wyly discusses the personal significance that the of epic saga, GONE WITH THE WIND, holds for his family.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, Joseph Finder, Power Play

Kristin Hannah, author of FIREFLY LANE, reminisces about childhood holiday traditions that she's since passed on to her own son, and muses over just what makes the presents they share so special.


In my family, books went with the holidays like turkey and cranberries. I literally can't remember a Christmas morning that didn't included a much longed-for novel waiting under the tree. It was a tradition in our house to open one gift on Christmas Eve --- always a book. As kids, we waited all day for that moment. The idea was, of course, that if we were going to stay up all night, waiting for Santa, we might as well be reading. We tore off the beautiful paper and bows and ran upstairs, diving under our covers and turning on the lights. I have saved every one of those books, and the inscriptions --- often in my mom's elegant handwriting --- still move me. She always managed to capture both the essence of the novel and the purity of her love in those words. And isn't that what a book as a gift is really all about? The giver is saying, "I know you, I love you, and this story will become one of your favorites." What better gift could there possibly be?

My husband and I have passed on this tradition to our son. One of the best aspects of parenthood --- and I didn't see it coming --- was the ability to hand memories from your life directly to your child, through the books you recommend. The books I've given my son are really a timeline of my own life: THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, The Lord of the Rings, DUNE, THE STAND, and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I introduced him to Stephen King and Anne Rice (when he was old enough), and he introduced me to J. K. Rowling. Together, we met Stephenie Meyer. And all of it kept us connected, gave us something to talk about and share. This Christmas, I think he's finally ready for ATLAS SHRUGGED, and I can't wait to sit with him on a chair lift, on a snowy January day, and talk about the book.

If I'm lucky, he's got one hidden under the tree for me, too.


Tomorrow, Joseph Finder opens our eyes to a side of Dr. Seuss we've never considered before.

Labels: Firefly Lane, holiday-blogs-2008, Kristin Hannah

Wade Rouse, author of CONFESSIONS OF A PREP SCHOOL MOMMY HANDLER, reflects on "Christmas miracles," and what he's gained from the most important women in his life.


As a child, my holidays were often fraught with disappointment.

For instance, when I would ask my father why Santa rarely came to our house, he always told me, "Because Nixon needed a little extra help." And then all the adults sitting around the fire would laugh and say, "Ain't that the truth."

I was a chubby little boy in the Ozarks who had a soft spot for ascots and Robbie Benson. I used to take the tinsel from the tree, tie it into the back of my hair and pretend to be Susan Dey. I mean, I needed to believe in something to get me through the year. And I didn't even have Santa. Which is the reason why I figured I always got a Daisy BB gun and fishing lures instead of an Easy Bake Oven or Lite-Brite. And then one year, my mom and grandma gave me a gift in which I could believe.

They gave me the Erma Bombeck book, THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER OVER THE SEPTIC TANK. I remember ripping off the bow, adhering it to the side of my head, like I always did to make myself look more cosmopolitan, and then tearing apart the red foil paper to discover Erma's name. Now, I was a young reader. I loved Nancy Drew (but of course), and I wept in the schoolyard over WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS (not a great idea in the Ozarks, btw). But I adored Erma.

I read her column, "At Wit's End," in our small-town newspaper, even clipped a few of my favorites to adorn my corkboard wall. Though I was very young, maybe 11 or 12 at the time, Erma connected deeply with me. She was a humorist and human who made the mundane memorable. She wrote about family and food, laundry and life. She wrote about everyday stuff with which I could relate.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER OVER THE SEPTIC TANK was funny, yes, like its title, but it was also deeper: Along with daily suburban family issues, Erma tackled diet and self-image in this book. And for a fat gay boy living in rural America, I found a role model in an older, straight mother who seemed to be dealing with just as many self-esteem issues as I was.

From that Christmas on, I wrote and journaled more earnestly about my life, and I always tried to do it with humor, just like Erma. I found laughter softened the pain, made life seem so much more bearable.

And that's what I still try and do to this day, in each and every one of my memoirs: Write about everyday life from a unique perspective --- with a whopping dose of humor and cynicism --- touching upon those themes that touch us all, be it unconditional love, family, sex, relationships, jobs, self-esteem, neuroses. I still believe that the very best memoirs force us to hold a mirror up to our collective faces and take a good long hard look at what's reflected back. And that image, I still believe, always looks so much better if we somehow manage to smile.

Looking back, my mom and grandma really gave me more than a book that Christmas. They gave me an escape. They gave me hope. And, ultimately, the most important women in my life --- my mother, my grandmother and my Erma --- gave me a career.

Now, that's not just a great holiday gift, it's a downright Christmas miracle.


Tomorrow, Kristin Hannah reveals the best part about giving favorite books as holiday presents.

Labels: Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler, holiday-blogs-2008, Wade Rouse

Today's guest blogger is Francoise Mouly, Art Editor of The New Yorker, and the Editorial Director of TOON Books. Here, she reminisces about the intimate experience she shared over a comic strip with her now-husband, cartoonist Art Spiegelman, during the early stages of their relationship, and how that event forever changed the way she approached the solitary act of reading.

There was a time, a long, long time ago, when I dreaded the approach of the holiday season. It was a couple of years after I had arrived in New York from Paris at the age of nineteen, not knowing anyone. I had settled here but my social life was limited, and so was my shaky command of English. I knew that the impending holidays would only serve to remind me that friends and family were an ocean away.

One year, I unexpectedly got a call from one of my acquaintances, the cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who had himself recently moved back to New York. He asked me if I had any plans for Thanksgiving, and I asked in return, "What is Thanksgiving?" We made plans to go to Chinatown for duck dinner that Thursday night. During dinner, Art --- delighted to have found someone even more alienated than himself --- enjoyed filling me in on all the details of the American custom: cranberry? What is cranberry? (There are none in France.) Sweet potatoes? Pumpkin pie??? After dinner, he invited me back to his place where he showed me his collection of comics (we have that pick-up line in French, but it's usually "let me show you my collection of Japanese prints...")

I trusted my attraction --- besides, I knew I also stood a chance to get an invaluable crash course in American culture --- and soon I was cozily nestled next to Art on his coach, while he read aloud to me page after page of Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, a strip that ran from 1905 to 1913. I had never been read to before. My parents were too busy when I was little and, in any case, it wasn't being done; my teachers had declaimed poems that they then had us memorize, but to do so, they stood on a podium in front of the whole class. No one had ever held me close and read aloud to me, bringing the words to life just for me. Art was infinitely patient, going back and explaining words I didn't know, while pointing out all the extraordinary visual fireworks and rhythms in McCay's pages. He was reading with intonation and a whole magical kingdom was unfolding right there and then, unleashing a new visual effulgence every time another page was turned. It was a stunning experience: how could I not fall in love with this man, and with the medium he so passionately inhabited? I had until then always loved reading, but it was partly because reading isolated me and protected me from others. At that moment, though, I discovered a new hidden dimension: the pleasures of sharing a work you love and that of being read to, all of which must have contributed to making me want to be a publisher, in turn sharing what I love with others.

Nowadays, decades later, I greet the holiday season with eager anticipation: it's a moment when, in our busy and overbooked lives, our kids and us can be all together, and maybe a moment when we can all listen to one of us read aloud.


Tomorrow, Wade Rouse shares how unwrapping a book by Erma Bombeck one Christmas changed his life.

Labels: Francoise Mouly, holiday-blogs-2008, Jack and the Box, TOON Books

Today, Ad Hudler --- author of MAN OF THE HOUSE --- recalls his attempt to teach his neighbors a lesson in environmental preservation through the poetry of Dr. Seuss.


I live in an historic southwest-Florida neighborhood, not far from the winter home of the late, great Thomas Edison. Thankfully --- and I say that because the sun is brutal down here --- we are rich in mature trees, our yards canopied by immense live oaks and poincianas and purple-blooming jacarandas. We also have some of the biggest mango trees I've ever seen. One used to stand tall in my neighbor's yard, stretching a good 75 feet into the air, providing shade for humans and food for fruit bats and an itinerant flock of wild parrots.

And then my neighbor moved out, and some rednecks moved in, and down, down down came the mango tree! Down, down, down came a key lime! And down, down, down came a gumbo limbo! He did, after all, need to make room for that new, attractive chain-link fence and his Hummer and RV ("The biggest, most expensive in the world," he assured me.) Okay, okay, I may sound catty here, but I used to eat those mangoes every July.

From that point on, the poor couple never had a chance. Independently, neighbors decided to shun them. In our minds, they wore scarlet "A's" on their backs (for arborcide, of course). I, too, avoided them, until Christmas, when I saw opportunity. I gave them a copy of Dr. Seuss's THE LORAX. If you don't know the book, it's about a beautiful make-believe land that is filled with truffula trees, and a man comes to town and starts chopping them down and using their silk to make "thneeds." (Hey, this is Dr. Seuss, remember). And soon, a little tree spirit who looks like a hairy fish appears and tells the man, "I am The Lorax, and I speak for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as much as you please." It's a modern-day, cautionary, environmental parable, one that speaks to both adult and child. Or so I thought.

"Thank you," they said. "That's real nice of you." And then, a month or so later, I saw the book out with the trash on the curb. At least they'd had the decency to put it in the recycle bin.


Tomorrow, Francoise Mouly reveals how her attitude towards the holidays has changed upon meeting her husband, Art Spiegelman.

Labels: Ad Hudler, holiday-blogs-2008, Man of the House

No good can ever come from banning books, as demonstrated by today's guest blogger, Laura Pedersen --- whose new memoir, BUFFALO GAL, is featured in this week's Holiday Basket of Cheer. Here, she reveals why her family has attempted to do so in the first place, and describes how the family tradition of book giving was kept alive by a particularly rowdy game of Trivial Pursuit.


In my family we've attempted to ban book giving on birthdays and holidays, the reason being that the rest of the evening is lost to reading, everyone perched in a chair thinking they'll just have a glance, and before you know it there are some small skirmishes over good lighting and the smell of burning roast is coming from the kitchen. That's because I come from a newspaper family and they're addicted to the constant flow of information, the worse the better. If a fire truck clangs down the street, the entire family leaps up from the table and heads out after it. My mother has a police scanner going 24/7 next to her reading chair in the living room and regularly calls to tell me when the father of a childhood friend topples of his roof.

However, we haven't banned books, yet, largely because we like to buy them as gifts for other family members and read them first (but if you drop it in the bathtub, you own it). It's not only cost-saving but a version of recycling and perhaps even an odd form of literary society. Never is a book exchanged without the giver saying, "You'll love the part where they're in Africa" or "Don't read the last page first or you'll be sorry." (My mother and Uncle Jim are the rascally readers who immediately turn to the end before so much as checking the inside cover for an inscription.)

What's really saved book giving in our family is playing Trivial Pursuit. My mother, aunt, and uncle, are viciously competitive when it comes to games of knowledge, having grown up without television, amusing themselves with word games. They quickly cascade back in time, yelling accusations of cheating and demanding that I reread the rules. One night I had my high school class over for a holiday get together. We were college-bound seniors taking all A.P. classes, and thinking we were pretty smart. One of the girls had even starred on a television quiz show. For the first time the Watson Clan had a chance to take on some outsiders, and they handily wiped us out, three of them against over twenty of us, including a boy who'd been accepted early decision to Harvard. My self-educated Uncle, who'd left school at 16 and worked as an editor at The Courier-Express, was especially flushed with victory.

My friends and I have bought a lot of books since that fateful and humiliating day. It's 25 years later and I can safely say that we're prepared for a rematch, though I can't be certain we'd win, because they've been reading right along with us, page for page.


Check back tomorrow for Ad Hudler's hilarious attempt to drop a less-than-subtle hint to his less-than-considerate new neighbors.

Labels: Buffalo Gal, holiday-blogs-2008, Laura Pedersen

Today's guest blogger is David Baldacci, bestselling author of STONE COLD, THE WHOLE TRUTH and DIVINE JUSTICE. Here, he recalls a truly amazing experience in which he gifted an extremely rare copy of SOPHIE'S CHOICE to the author who wrote it, William Styron.


I was riding in a car with my publicist in the middle of a book tour in New York. I was killing some time in between interviews by perusing a catalogue from Bauman's Rare Books. I collect rare editions and have found Bauman's to be a first-class organization. One item caught my eye and I phoned Bauman's and bought it on the spot. I kept the book for months, right up until around Christmas of 2000.

During the course of that year my home state of Virginia had orchestrated a one-book read program, in which the entire state was reading the classic novel, SOPHIE'S CHOICE, by Virginia native, William Styron. There were events throughout the state with Mr. Styron, school discussions and other programs having to do with the powerful themes in the novel. It was a great success. When Mr. Styron became ill during the latter part of the year other writers, including myself, stood in for him at the remaining events, although he left impossibly large shoes to fill.

As part of the reading program, theaters in Richmond were showing the film version of Sophie's Choice. Its two stars, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, came to Richmond, along with a host of other world-famous celebrities, including Diane Sawyer and Mike Wallace. They were all there to honor Mr. Styron. My hometown had never seen such star power!

Mr. Styron had been released from the hospital in time for the closing event of the program, a sold-out black tie event at the Library of Virginia at which he, Kline and Streep were to give remarks. At a small reception before the event, I walked over to Mr. Styron. I had had dinner with him months before and had immensely enjoyed his company. I handed him a wrapped present. I told him it was an early Christmas gift. When he opened it, I could see the puzzlement in his eyes, for it was a copy of SOPHIE'S CHOICE. I'm sure he was wondering why I was giving him his own book. It was safe to assume that he had a few copies lying around back home! When he opened the novel to the title page, his expression changed from puzzlement to shock, and from shock to pleasure. He looked up, his eyes watery, thanked me and shook my hand.

This copy of the novel, you see, was indeed very special to him. He had inscribed it to a very good friend of his, another famous writer and a mentor to Styron. That writer's name was Truman Capote.

Mr. Styron has since passed away. He will be forever remembered as one of the greatest novelists of his or any other generation. He was a man with a huge heart and an indefatigable desire to understand and make sense of the most complex issues of the human mind and heart. In his novels he took on controversial themes, for which many unfairly criticized him. Through it all, he handled himself with a courage and dignity that garnered the admiration of millions. Though I had only met him a few times, I have many memories of Mr. Styron. Yet the most memorable of all will always be the expression on his face when I returned that special copy of SOPHIE'S CHOICE to the man who created it.


Tomorrow, Laura Pederson points a finger at who --- or what --- is to blame for a ruined holiday dinner with her family.

Labels: David Baldacci, Divine Justice, holiday-blogs-2008

Not all of the best presents are given on birthdays or holidays. For graphic novel artist Bill Willingham , creator of the Fables Comics series, the best gift he ever received came at the most unlikely of times --- on a sick day.


What is arguably (and since I'm the only one in this particular essay allowed to make an argument, I win) the most important book in my life was given to me as a result of a dire and terrible betrayal by my own dear mother.

One day, in my largely misspent youth, I had to stay home sick from school. And since we were a largish family and mom had no time in her all-too-busy day to coddle one of her (possibly) malingering children, the standard deal was simple enough: In return for staying in bed, leaving her alone as much as possible to get her work done, and generally not being a complete pest, she'd pick up a handful of new comic books when she went out to run her daily errands. It was a great deal, and the only time comic-buying money would come out of a parent's pocket, rather than mine.

And, by way of full and honest disclosure, I have to confess that I may have stayed home sick at times simply to score the free funny books. But those times were rare, since I actually enjoyed school for the most part, and they'd hardly constituted a betrayal on the same level of what my mother had done on that fateful day. Not only did she not buy me any new comic books, she brought home a book book instead. You know, the kind of book with no pictures of muscle-bound men in improbably tight tights jumping off of buildings. There was just page after page of text.

Boring, droning text.

Seemingly without end.

The thing had to be a hundred pages or more.

"I thought it was about time you read something other than your funnybooks," was all she would say in response to my entirely reasonable protestations of shock and indignation --- pronouncing the final word in a unrestrained sneer of contempt, as if a comic book occupied the same distasteful level as what one might find in a clogged toilet bowl.

Don't get me wrong. This wasn't my first ever prose book. I'd been required to read them countless times before, at school. Real books were work. Comic books were what one read for pleasure. The two were mutually exclusive artifacts, alien to each other.

Mom had broken the pact.

She'd violated the sacred trust.

So I complained loudly. When she put a swift end to that, I sulked. That was good for an hour or two, but being in bed all day is boring. She wouldn't let me get up to watch TV, or do anything else, because sick people stay in bed. Period. If I was well enough to get up for any reason, I was well enough to go to school. More to the point, it would mean I was obviously well enough to have gone to school in the first place, which was the sort of crime that had consequences, "When your dad gets home."

Eventually, out of desperation, I turned to the book she'd brought me. It was a large-type abridged printing of THE RETURN OF TARZAN, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which only deepened the betrayal. As was well known in the Family Willingham (stemming largely from my earlier childhood encounter with a very scary Johnny Weissmuller --- which is a subject for another time), I hated Tarzan. He was that grunting, monosyllabic idiot in the movies who swung through the trees on vines --- even though anyone could clearly see they were leaf-decorated trapezes, filmed at not quite enough of a distance.

There was more sulking and more complaining, all of which were steadfastly ignored by Mother Stoneheart. And so, lacking any other recourse, with incandescent reluctance, I began to read. Of course, you've already figured out the punch line. It was a truly wonderful book. I can't swear to it, but I believe I finished it that day, in one (literally) fevered session.

It seems the Tarzan of the novels bore only the slightest resemblance to the one in the movies. He was smart, articulate, tougher than any number of spandex-clad superheroes, and even appeared in a full suit of clothes in the first chapter, seamlessly interacting with civilized people. And he was deadly in a way that the dubious Mr. Weissmuller never was, no matter how many giant rubber alligators he wrestled in the water.

On that single, day my love for reading (things other than comic books) was born. In the years that followed I tracked down every book Edgar Rice Burroughs had ever written. I toured the dying planet of Mars with John Carter, explored Venus and the interior world of Pellucidar. I learned of the rage at the Mucker's heart, the injustice that created the Outlaw of Torn, and the unimpeachable honor behind the gentlemen's bet that wouldn't let the Mad King shave his beard, despite the troubles it caused him. And I read more Tarzan. Veritable tons of Tarzan.

Years later, when I'd finally run out of Burroughs books, but hadn't run out of a desire to keep reading, I reluctantly looked around to see if some other author had written anything worthwhile. It turns out one or two had. And the rest is history.

And fiction.

And romance.

And biography.

And folklore.

Etcetera.




Tomorrow, David Baldacci shares a poignant moment involving author William Styron and a second-hand copy of SOPHIE'S CHOICE.

Labels: Bill Willingham, Fables, holiday-blogs-2008

Bestselling author Debbie Macomber --- whose latest holiday tale is A CEDAR COVE CHRISTMAS --- reveals her lifelong love affair with the works of James Michener, and the Broadway musical that motivated it.


As a young teen, I loved listening to the music from Broadway musicals. Actually, I still do. One musical that stuck a chord with me was South Pacific. I saw the movie and loved every song and every scene. Who can forget Ray Walston parading down the beach wearing a coconut bra and singing, "There Is Nothing Like a Dame?" Not me. Or Mitzi Gaynor singing, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right out of My Hair." When John Kerr was killed on that Pacific island, I cried my way through two of my father's big handkerchiefs.

I purchased the record (which goes to tell you how long ago this was!) and played it so often that I nearly wore it out.

For Christmas that year, my parents gave me TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, by James Michener. I devoured every word. This was his first novel, and it won him a Pulitzer. The top literary prize for his very first novel! If he were anyone else I'd say he hadn't suffered enough before achieving such success, but he deserved the prize for this exceptionally entertaining book.

TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC began my love affair with this incredible author. Early in my marriage, Wayne and I read everything he published. A special book that will remain with both of us is HAWAII.

Shortly before his death, I read his memoir, titled THE WORLD IS MY HOME, and came to appreciate him and his body of work even more. I came away with an immense respect for him as an author and as a man. His life and his work inspire me to this day . . . and to think it all started with a musical I loved and a book my thoughtful parents gave their teenaged daughter for Christmas.


Tomorrow, Bill Willingham remembers his shocking discovery of life beyond comic books, and the classic literary hero responsible for his love of reading.

Labels: A Cedar Cove Christmas, Debbie Macomber, holiday-blogs-2008

Today's guest blogger is Charlotte Bacon --- author of four novels, including SPLIT ESTATE. Here, she reflects on childhood summer road trips with The Lord of the Rings and the abilities that books have to connect people, regardless of the distance between them.


In my family, books were passed around until they barely resembled themselves anymore. They could be read or transported anywhere, and they were: cars, subways, trees, bathtubs, all as a sort of an extra limb. As a consequence, they were buckled, foxed, torn, and warped from all that use --- more like ancient sweaters than sacred objects and preserved long past when others would have passed them on or exchanged them for something fresher. We did this to good books and bad, Tintins and mysteries, and they followed us wherever we went, and grew rain-speckled or sandy depending on the season. Books were more like food, something bought, borrowed, inhaled as regularly and messily as we ate. It was always better to be reading or being read to than doing anything else.

When I was nine, my mother read the Trilogy of the Ring aloud to us in the car as we drove from Manhattan to the ragged corner of upstate New York, where we spent weekends. As an effort to impose peace on three children, two cats (one an unstoppable vomiter) and a dog, it was unmatchable. But I don't think she realized how relentless we would be. Her voice grew hoarse and still we insisted, another chapter, more, more. Shelob was coming. The orcs were gathering. Frodo was tiring. All of it more real than the New York Thruway, and far more exciting. Wishing we were eating elf crackers rather than ham and cheese on rye from Paris's deli. Sometimes we'd arrive and couldn't leave the car until she'd finished a particular grisly episode, my father grumbling about being left with all the bags, the cat finally teetering out of the tire well, the three of us hunched in the back seat as the dark and the crickets gathered and my mother read to us of elves and swords, Gondor and Aragorn.

So, singling out one book that I've given or received would be like choosing which hand I liked best. I'm a liberal loaner of books and don't really care if they come back to me, figuring that the more people reading, the better. I've also continued the tradition of loving books to death with my own kids, who haul their battered favorites everywhere we go. Having recently moved to Bali, the books we used to read in New York have a talismanic quality and remind us of other weather, friends, and places. They are deeply reassuring, redolent of our other histories. As with wedding presents, I remember who has given me which book, and every time I open one, I crack wide as well a memory of that friend or relative. Books are themselves, their own discrete creations, of course, but they have other, oddly connective capacities as well.

Three small examples of what I mean. An old friend suggested I'd like Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, and he was right. I fell in love with her humor, her seriousness, and her lovely, warm prose. ITALIAN DAYS became my favorite and I recommended it to another old friend, my adviser from high school. He loved it and passed it on to others, extending the book's reach like an echo. I'd thought of him because his passion for books, treating language and story as a necessary, daily immersion in a way of being, not something arcane, reserved for specialists or, worse, snobs, bound me to him deeply. He, like my family, wove books to life and in thanks for that, I dedicated my third novel to him. (For my money, that's probably one of the best parts of publishing --- the chance to emphasize gratitude on that first, white page.)

My mother, to whom I dedicated my second novel, is another person who makes of reading an essential pursuit. When I went to see her in London last winter, the first question she asked was, "What do you have to read?" I'd brought Patrick Leigh Fermor and, rather stingily, told her she could have it but only until the week was up. Of course, she wasn't done in time, and in an act of what I considered true sacrifice, I told her she could take it back to New York even though I hadn't read it yet. True to form, when it arrived back in Bali, it was barely recognizable from its immersion in bath water. Just as I expected, just as I'd hoped. Much loved --- the book, the person, the gift of all that portable joy wrapped in one.


Join us tomorrow, as Debbie Macomber discusses how her love of musicals led her to discover who was to become one of her favorite authors.

Labels: Charlotte Bacon, holiday-blogs-2008, Split Estate

Photojournalist Kevin Rivoli --- whose latest work, IN SEARCH OF NORMAN ROCKWELL'S AMERICA, recreates the beloved painter's quaint and classic tableaux in contemporary photography --- shares with us one of the most important gifts he's ever received. . . a gift he gave himself.


I've always loved to give and get books as gifts for Christmas --- especially books about photography and photojournalism. But my favorite gift-giving experience is about a gift I gave to myself.

It was the holiday season 1987 and I was struggling. Out of college a few years but still unable to find where I fit in, I was waiting tables to make ends meet. I was watching football on television and saw photographers running up and down the sidelines capturing the action
with their cameras. I was envious. I had taken a photography course in high school and really loved it, but was discouraged by the teacher from pursuing a career in it.

"It's tough to make a living in photography," he said. "There's no money in it and there are too many photographers out there.' He instead encouraged me to go into teaching --- and that's what I did. I graduated from college with a degree in physical education. But for me, it wasn't the right fit.

I continued to watch the game --- with an eye on the sidelines. It was then I made a life-changing decision. It may not pay well, and it may be tough, but I was going to become a photojournalist. With no formal training and no money to return to school, I decided to splurge and do something I had never done before. I was going to give myself a Christmas present. I ordered myself a series of books titled The Kodak Library of Creative Photography. It was a 17-book series published by Time-Life Books in association with Kodak. The series included titles such as HOW TO CATCH THE ACTION and PHOTOGRAPHING THE DRAMA OF DAILY LIFE.

I read those books cover to cover, over and over again. And with used camera equipment in hand, I began to hone my skills. I was rejected by just about every paper in New England --- some of them twice --- for entry-level photography positions. Not many papers were looking for someone who was, well, self-taught. I pushed on and eventually a small paper decided to take a chance on me --- The Citizen in Auburn, New York.

Two years after ordering those books, I was selected and attended the prestigious Eddie Adams II Workshop. That same year I was named National Press Photographers Association's Photographer of the Year for Region 2, which includes all of New York State, Europe and Eastern Canada. That was the beginning.

Those books still sit on a bookshelf in my living room. And they will be with me for as long as I live. They are the physical representation of a story I will tell my children about, when I talk to them about pursing their passions and the importance of perseverance. I can't remember what those books cost at the time but I can tell you that for me, that gift to myself was priceless, and it was the best investment I ever made in myself. That Christmas, I gave myself a gift of pursing a dream. And more than 20 years later, I'm still living it.




Tomorrow, Charlotte Bacon introduces us to some of the book lovers who have inspired her, and muses on the connective capacities that books possess.

Labels: holiday-blogs-2008, In Search of Norman Rockwell's America, Kevin Rivoli