Back in June, I entered a giveaway hosted by Waterbrook & Multnomah Fiction on their Facebook page. A giveaway for seven of their Christian fiction titles. AND I WON!!! I got an email informing me that I won about a week ago, and my books came in the mail today. Looky:
Can you believe I've never read any of these authors? Not even Kim Vogel Sawyer, though people keep recommending her books to me. Well, hers is the first one of these I'll try!
I enter book giveaways all the time and just... never win them. So that makes me especially excited about this :-) Plus, do you see how many of these have a western setting? I'm going to have some fun reading coming up!
And because it's Monday and I haven't done this linkup for a while, I'm linking this post up with Mailbox Monday! Did you get any books in your mailbox lately?
My birthday was a little over a week ago, and Cowboy couldn't figure out what to get me for a long time, so I said, "Oh, just find something on my Amazon wish list, it's bursting with ideas."
So he checked out my Amazon list and decided to get me ten different books off it, focusing on the out-of-print ones we could only get used, but putting a few new ones in the mix too. He wanted me to get a package or two in the mail every day for a whole week, and it pretty well worked! I think there were only two days I didn't get a surprise from him, and some days more than one!
Top to bottom, they are:
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster -- sooooo looking forward to digging into this once my writing/revising hangover passes.
The Silent Gondoliers by William Goldman -- this is supposed to be very funny, and it's from the guy who wrote The Princess Bride and set up in the same way, ie that it was originally told by S. Morgenstern.
Westward the Women by Nancy Wilson Ross -- I'd kind of forgotten this was on my wish list. I'm curious as to whether it bears any resemblance to the movie of the same name.
Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy by Flora Thompson -- I've heard a lot about this trilogy, and more about the TV show based on it, and I'm hoping it'll be really fun.
Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson -- obviously, a prequel to Anne of Green Gables, but other than that, I can't remember what I've heard about it, or even where. I'm hoping to read this during My Year with Anne, if I can squeeze it in.
The Quest for Shakespeare by Joseph Pearce -- someone's attempt to figure out what Shakespeare was really like, I think.
The Lavender Cookbook by Sharon Shipley -- I tried cooking with lavender for the first time last year and had mixed results with recipes I found on Pinterest, so I'm hoping this will lead to more successes.
The Anne of Green Gables Treasury by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson -- a collection of a bunch of Anne-related stuff, like a map of Avonlea, a timeline of her life, how to do crafty activities mentioned in the books, and so on.
Tolkien's World -- a coloring book. Yes, it's true. I'm an adult colorer! One of these days, I'll do a post about all the different adult coloring books I have, and which ones I like versus which ones have disappointed me, and so on.
EDIT: I just realized I left one out! Sam absconded with it, and I forgot to get it back for the photo and post. It's Mr. Bliss by J.R.R. Tolkien -- a picture book about a man in a tall hat and his yellow car, which Joseph recommended to me a while back.
I'm linking this up with Mailbox Monday, which is always such fun :-) Have you gotten any new (or at least, new to you) books lately?
I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday again this week! I didn't get any of the following books in my mailbox, though. Our library has used book sales four times a year, and one was this past weekend. And I bought a stack of books, which kind of is what usually happens.
The light's really glaring here, and the titles are hard to read, so here's the list of what I got (and why), from the top down:
101 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare by Janet Ware with Al Davis (looks cute and funny, and I can never know too much about Shakespeare)
The Mystery of the Empty Room by August Huell Seaman (bought solely because it's all '50s cool)
Romeo and Juliet & West Side Story (yup, both plays in one volume, from 1965)
The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger by Stephen King (I don't like King's fiction much, because I can't deal with horror, but I keep hearing good things about this series and... a gunslinger. I'm hooked by that word, bigtime.)
Bear Island by Alistair MacLean (because I haven't read it yet)
The Jane Austen Guide to Life by Lori Smith (looks fun, and it's a gorgeously clean copy)
A Memoir of Jane Austen by J.E. Austen-Leigh (because I keep meaning to read this, so now maybe I will)
All Things New by Lynn Austin (I read lots of praise of Austin's novels, and this one is about a Virginia plantation during Reconstruction, so yes please!)
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (I have never heard of this, but it's a retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," which is one of my favorite fairy tales.)
Cowboy Curmudgeon and Other Poems by Wallace McRae (I'm thinking of doing Something Interesting for National Poetry Month, which is April. Stay tuned for details.)
And then there are allllllllllllllllllll those green books on the bottom. Those are all 14 volumes of a set called Great Writers of the English Language. It looks amazing. Like, I can't wait to delve into them myself, and I think in about 7 years, they're going to be a great curriculum for high school English and Lit classes for my kids. Here's a closer look at them:
Uh-huh. Sooooooooooooooooooooooo cool.
Have you read any of these? Did you get any new (or new-to-you) books in your mailbox, on your doorstep, or *gasp* from a store this week?
Look what we got in our mailbox last week!!! It's Natalie Lloyd's new book, The Key to Extraordinary. Sam and I both loved her debut novel, A Snicker of Magic, sooooooo much that I pre-ordered this one.
Sam just happened to be wearing a perfectly matching shirt when this arrived, so I snapped a shot of him holding it before either of us dug in. So far, I've definitely been enjoying it! Lloyd's writing is so quirky and sweet and imaginative. This is not a sequel to A Snicker of Magic, but it's got some similarities: a young girl protagonist with an odd family, magical little town in the Appalachian mountains, and heaps of fun.
I'm happy to be linking up with Mailbox Monday for the first time in a while. I'm sure I'll be reviewing this fairly soon, too, so if it intrigues you, please check back!
None of these actually arrived in my mailbox, but I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday anyway because I did buy them all this past week! A local used bookstore is going out of business and had all its books 30% off, so you know I had to stop in. Here's part of the treasure trove I brought home:
The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer -- People tell me that since I like Jane Austen, I might like Heyer too, so I'm giving her a try.
With Every Letter by Sarah Sundin -- I loved her "Wings of Glory" books and have been wanting to read this for a long time.
Mark of the Cross by Judith Pella -- I read a bunch of Judith Pella's books back in high school and liked them a ton. This one is about England in the 1200s, so knights and stuff :-D
When Calls the Heart by Janette Oke -- My mom LOVED Janette Oke's books when I was young, and she owned the same edition of this one. I read a bunch of Oke's books back then, and this is the one I remember liking best, so I decided that hey, for $1, it was worth revisiting.
North to the Orient by Anne Morrow Lindbergh -- About Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh flying around the Arctic Circle.
Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh -- I love AML's collections of letters and journal entries. The only one I've read all the way through is Bring Me a Unicorn, so I snapped up this and the two following books because I'm eager to read more of these collections. This one is going to be sad, though, because it's from 1929-1932, which means it will involve the time when the Lindberghs' baby son was kidnapped and murdered.
Locked Rooms and Open Doors by Anne Morrow Lindbergh -- Promises to be happier than the previous one because it's got more about the Lindberghs flying, and also them moving to England.
War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh -- This one is about WWII, so it's going to be really interesting, because that was when Charles Lindbergh took a very unpopular isolationist stance about not joining the war.
My Little House Songbook -- A collection of songs that are mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books! Complete with sheet music for the melodies :-) I think my kids will enjoy this as part of their piano lessons before long.
And yes, I said these were "part of the treasure trove." I also got a bunch of books for my kids! But they rushed away with them before I could grab a picture. I don't mind -- I'm happy they're excited about books :-)
Did you acquire any books this week, in your mailbox or otherwise?
I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday for the first time in a long time. I've been trying not to buy so many books and movies lately, since my TBR and TBW shelves are sagging already. But I hit a clearance sale on Barnes & Noble's website last week and did get a couple things for myself, as well as some birthday and Christmas presents for friends and family. Here's what I got for me:
The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle has been on my TBR list for quite a while. Isn't the cover pretty? Of all the Pride and Prejudice pastiches that focus on Mary Bennet that I've read about, this one has gotten the most positive reviews, so I'm hopeful about it.
And Wild Western Days by Clarence E. Mulford is actually a collection of 3 full-length Hopalong Cassidy novels: The Coming of Cassidy, Bar-20, and Hopalong Cassidy. I've never ready any of Mulford's books, so I'm really looking forward to these! I hear they're a lot different from the Hopalong Cassidy movies, much less light-hearted. Interesting!
Linking up with Mailbox Monday again this week :-) I got this in the mail a few days ago:
I'm hoping to start reading it soon! I've read a couple reviews that said it was sweet and cute... but not too sweet or too cute. Sounds like a good antidote to that late-winter "why isn't spring here yet" melancholy that tends to hit me in February.
I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday again! This week, I received a delightful surprise in the mail, a gift from my husband that he happened to see on Amazon and knew I would love:
Yes. Brick Shakespeare. As in, four of Shakespeare's tragedies told somewhat like a comic book, with little Lego people acting out the scenes and actual Shakespeare dialog for each panel. It doesn't use the full texts, but it does a really great job of retelling these stories. I haven't read the whole thing yet, just the first few acts of Hamlet (enough to see that this is not a retelling suitable for kids, so alas, my Lego-loving Sam can't read this yet).
Here's detail from one page that I thought I'd share so you could get an idea of the book's flavor:
What was in your mailbox this week?
I've seen this meme/link-up/thing on other blogs several times, and today I realized that I could actually participate because I got books in my mailbox last week! So I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday for the first time.
First is a copy of The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing, edited by Leland Ryken. This was a tardy Christmas gift that finally arrived, and it had perfect timing because I was having a supremely crummy day, and finding it in the mailbox was a burst of sunshine. I flipped through and read two little essays right away because I simply had to -- the one by J. R. R. Tolkien was so splendid I gobbled up the next one before I could stop myself. This is an anthology of essays and other writing selections by a wide range of authors, like C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle, T.S. Eliot, and many others.
And I also got Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster in one combo volume. You may remember I loved Daddy-Long-Legs when I read it for the first time not long ago. So much I ordered my own copy :-) The sequel is high on my list of things to read this year!
AND I got The Adventures of Robin Hood by Paul Creswick because Heidi ~ Lady of Anorien recommended it and I needed a good new retelling to wash Outlaw out of my hair, and also a used copy was only $4 including S&H. Sometimes I love Amazon too much.
I've been scrolling through the Mailbox Monday blog a bit, and it's a fun read, so I suggest you check it out yourself :-) Have you gotten any books in your mailbox lately? And have you read any of these?
Don't forget to enter my Sherlock Holmes giveaway here! It ends at midnight tonight.
