When I was a little kid, I had to fight to keep my letter to Santa from becoming more than a page. This was usually done at the behest of my parents.  See, they apparently did not like hauling the huge bundle that was my novella (aka the Letter to Santa) to the Post Office and paying $25 to mail it to the North Pole.  Multiply that by my twin brother and my older brother, and well, I can’t blame them.

Christmas comes, Christmas goes.

My list has gotten a lot smaller, but I still get a kick out of the things I used to as a kid. My favorite thing ever was looking at the tree on Christmas Eve and seeing all those presents under there.  Even now, I get a little giddy over it, wondering what each little box holds, what that bag stuffed with tissue paper hides (and knowing how easy it is to peek…but resisting, making the torment even worse!), and all of that.

What did I haul in this year?  Books.  Lots of books.  The gift that’ll keep on giving, especially for this aspiring writer.

The Clone Elite by Steven Kent : A wonderful military sci-fi series.  I picked up the first book (The Clone Republic) a few years ago when we were on vacation and I found myself needing something to read.  Got hooked pretty quick.

Hot, Flat, and Croweded by Thomas Friedman : The author behind The Lexus and the Olive Tree.  Never read that one, but I read his other (The World is Flat) on a Sierra Club trip out to California.  Great stuff.  I enjoy the non-fiction genre sometime.

Couch by Benjamin Parzybok : I first heard about this book from this Big Idea column on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog.  It sounded intersting, so  thought I’d give it a try.  My family thought it sounded interesting enough that they gave me two copies 🙂  I passed one off to my brother.  Parzybok is a new author so I like supporting them.

World War Z by Max Brooks : Technically not in my hands yet.  Got a B&N gift cert and I’ll use that to purchase this book.  It’s gotten a lot of good reviews so I wanted to try it.

Of course, all of these have to wait until I’m finished with Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.  Had a slow start, but I’m really getting into it now.  Maybe I’ll try my hand at book reviews when I’m done with them.