@valiantarcher Re:Christmas Carol: Yes, one detail that I don't think I've seen presented in any adaptation is that

Audible apparently decided I was eligible for a free trial again recently, so I picked up the Narnia boxset (for simplicity's sake since I have most of them on CD) and a Beauty and the Beast retelling: The Beast's Heart by Leife Shallcross (and narrated by Jim Dale!). I started listening to TBH and I'm enjoying it so far. We're just getting to where Beauty's father appears (I think) and the Beast has a good, strong voice so far. Jim Dale's narration doesn't hurt either.

Posted by: @fantasia

The Home Ranch is currently waiting for me to pick up at my local library.

I thought I would be smart and put both this book and the following, Mary Emma & Company, on hold at the same time because I'm buzzing through them so fast. (And yes, I read The Home Ranch already, and loved it just as much as the first two.) But someone has Mary Emma checked out, and it's well overdue. The current policy at the library is that after you return a book they let it sit for four days before they check it back in, but it's even more overdue than that. I saw that the other library that's kind of close to where I live has it available, but I lost that library card years ago. So, do I pay the fee for losing that card and get it right away? Or just patiently wait for the mystery person to return it to my primary library?

@fantasia Oooh, that's a tough choice! I guess it would depend on the extent of the fee. If it's less than $10, it's totally worth it for me. But patience isn't a terrible thing to cultivate. 😉

We did our Christmas gift exchange with my in-laws today, and I got a bit of a book haul (I think my wishlist was 95% books this year after a couple years of trying to balance my list a bit):

-- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (I put this on my wishlist as soon as it was announced. ?)

-- A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (See above.)

-- Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono (Yes, this is the inspiration for the Studio Ghibli film.)

-- The Prayers of Jane Austen (This is a slim volume but I expect it to be inspiring.)

-- The Fall of Gondolin by Tolkien (I think this completes my Middle-earth fiction collection; I still lack one or two of Tolkien's sagas and about half the History of Middle-earth series, and a few other volumes of Tolkien errata.)

-- Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell (I love this musical and can't wait to dive into this behind-the-scenes look at it.)

-- WIngfeather Tales by Andrew Peterson (I still need to finish this series.)

-- Plenilune by Jennifer Freitag (I've read this one before, but wanted a physical copy to sit on the shelf with some other books from similar authors I know.)

Posted by: @shastastwin

-- The Prayers of Jane Austen (This is a slim volume but I expect it to be inspiring.)

I've got that book and it IS inspiring! Jane Austen wrote three prayers that we know of (she might have written others that haven't survived), each of them fairly long and really beautiful and heartfelt. Not all modern biographers and commentators seem to appreciate the fact that she was a woman of very deep and sincere Christian faith — it was quite a surprise (a lovely one) to me when I learned that myself! Here's an excerpt from one of her prayers that I have on my notice board above my desk, which gives a good idea of the tone of them:

Incline us O God to think humbly of ourselves; to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

I think I might have recommended it in the Jane Austen thread, but there is at least one author who's written a book on Jane's faith and how it's infused in all her novels in ways we might not realise at first — Paula Hollingsworth's The Spirituality of Jane Austen. It's very readable and really worthwhile, if anyone else here is interested.

Oh, that is a hard decision, @fantasia.

Nice, @shastastwin. My siblings enjoyed the Wingfeather Tales, I've only read the first one and that's a series I really should finish one of these days.

I got a new batch of library books and I haven't finished the previous bunch. Anyway I am really excited to read Fortitude by Dan Crenshaw and The Hunt For Red October by Tom Clancy (will be the third time reading this one) which are just two books from my stack. Oh, also got the Faith and Freedom series by Douglas Bond which the siblings will read first.

I am reading Joseph and Gospel of Many Colors by Voddie Baucham Jr. and Chosen People by Robert Whitlow and listening to Grace Canceled by Dana Loesch. Voddie Baucham's book is excellent, I'm really enjoying it.

I don't think I am going to get around reading One Shenandoah Winter by Davis Bunn or Pony Express Christmas by Sigmund Brouwer, but I have read a few cute kids Christmas books from the library.

SnowAngel

Meanwhile, far away from both UK and US, separated both by oceans and lack of flights, I barely think about getting the wonderful books that I keep reading of, on here and on FB, and know that almost nothing will get to me for months.

One book I am re-reading is 'Carols Before Dawn', an auto biographical adventure in West Wales; it tells of the writer's training for the clergy and in the Welsh language (he was born there, but had grown up in England), and then of his years of ministry in small towns and rural villages. 

I met the author when visiting the town of Carmarthen for a long weekend, in late May 2019. I turned up hopefully for a 5 pm service, which was led by Rev Thomas, with about five of us in the congregation. After the service I was welcomed, as a visitor, and when I told them of my Welsh grandmothers, and my membership in a Welsh club back home, the lovely old man went off to get me a gift.

The title refers to the pre-dawn service, plygain, [lit 'rooster-crow'], a Communion service with some carols and a sermon. Imagine the poor minister, having to do midnight service at a different village church, then this, and others elsewhere during the morning! 
Each chapter tells some aspect of Christmas celebrations in that part of Wales, and he quotes lots of Christmas carols. many written in a more colloquial dialect than formal Welsh (as shown by his English translations).  One carol begins:
"Let's all go singing to Bethlehem,
Jumping, dancing and having fun,
So as to see the kindly Son
Born today, Christmas Day"

A number of biographies, especially of people from my own country, have arrived on my bookshelf from various places over the last few years. Perhaps I will read Peter Jackson's life story, or that of an early settler here.
But not until I have finished re-reading the Narnia stories, from my 1974 Christmas gift box-set (I was 18, and had only just heard of the books). LWW is mostly separate pages!

@fantasia, Mary Emma and Company is one of the series I haven't read yet. So my vote is that you read it as soon as possible.  

Speaking of Plenilune, I wrapped up the final book in the Bitterbynde trilogy and my final assessment is that Plenilune did the same theme better and more succinctly, with a similar lyricism. To top it off, The Battle for Evernight wrapped itself up with like, three dramatic twists in a single chapter instead of dragging it out for another two books. The author even had an author's note saying that readers had been unhappy with the ending, so she wrote a longer one and then they liked the old ending better. Which is fair, because the longer ending focused on the visuals of the wedding ceremony but gave us only the shallowest of impressions of the feelings of the participants. There was a lot of potential to the story, and it went a lot of places--some of them well--but the romance was not one of them.

@shastastwin, very good point! I do feel like

Spoiler

Fred's Christmas party often gets short-changed in adaptations, which is a shame because it's humourous and it's great to see Scrooge just enjoy himself. Also, if I'm not mistaken, I picked up the indication that Fred's wife is expecting - and that's not something I remember from any adaptations I'm familiar with.

Ooh, tough choice, fantasia!

@Mel, I'm a little confused: not dragging out the plotline for two more books sounds like a good thing? Or is it just that a single chapter is way too short to finish it? And the author included the original ending, but also had a longer one that you could read separately? Also, based on the Plenilune comparison (which baffles me a bit - are the plots really that similar?)...maybe I give it a miss?

I'm almost done with War Letters - I'm in the final section, in the middle of the Persian Gulf War (the last major conflict to be covered, since the book was published 2000/2001).

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Or is it just that a single chapter is way too short to finish it?

Well, if we'd skipped the twists, it could have been an acceptable ending, but the twists were horrible. Not horrible as in out of place, but horrible in that they had no space to breathe after we'd spent an entire book on... not filler, exactly, but certainly a lot of drawing out of the tension between the previous catastrophe and the final confrontation between forces which had been built up over the rest of the story.

I turned to Tonke Dragt's The Secrets of the Wild Wood as a change of pace, and it also had a similar conflict play out as one of the plot threads. I'm much happier with Secrets, maybe because the contrast of the stark translated prose is that much greater when compared with the layers and layers of elaborate description in Bitterbynde.

Next up is Piranesi. Or, at least, I have it checked out from the library. It doesn't have any twin brothers, does it?

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@shastastwin, very good point! I do feel like

Spoiler

Fred's Christmas party often gets short-changed in adaptations, which is a shame because it's humourous and it's great to see Scrooge just enjoy himself. Also, if I'm not mistaken, I picked up the indication that Fred's wife is expecting - and that's not something I remember from any adaptations I'm familiar with.

Wait, Anaïs Mitchell wrote the lyrics for Hadestown? I've never listened to the music, but I've heard about it and am familiar with Mitchell from her collection of Child Ballads.

Oooh, I hadn't noticed that tidbit. I'll have to go back and check my copy for it.

Yep, Hadestown is her baby. She did a studio album of it back in . . . 2010, I think? And it's finally made its way to Broadway. I'm about halfway through the book now, and it's wonderful to see her creative process as she works through how to bring the story to its fullest potential.

@Mel, I think I'm still a little confused as to what the problem was, but if you think I'd lose patience quickly, I shall take your word for it (it does sound frustrating!). And I can't say for certain, but I think you shall be free from that problematic plot point in Piranesi.

@shastastwin, at least that was my interpretation of

That book that was processing at the library for three months finally came in. It was The Invisible Boy by Alyssa Hollingsworth and I just read it. Overall, I thought it was quite good. It felt real and grounded in a different way than her first book - I think maybe because so much of setting reflected some of her experiences growing up. I very much appreciated her author's note at the end -

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@shastastwin, at least that was my interpretation of

Spoiler

A Christmas Carol

the comment that Scrooge had forgotten about his niece sitting in a chair with a footstool instead of playing Blind Man's Bluff and the other active games, and that he never should have startled her and Fred if he had remembered. It could be that she just has a delicate constitution - but even that seems to usually mean pregnancy in older books.

Oh, neat! Maybe I shall have to give Hadestown a listen then.

Yes, I think you're right. I had noticed the first tidbit but didn't make the connection until I went back and read the scene again today. 

I finished the Hadestown lyrics. It's an excellent little book. I imagine I'll come back to it again in future. Yes, Valia, you should give it a listen! You're in for a real treat. (FYI, if you're so inclined, the 2010 studio album functions as a "folk opera" and stands well on its own, although I think the musical is a more refined version of the story.)

I've started on Kiki's Delivery Service. It's very similar to the film (which surprises me given Miyazaki's creative liberties in the Howl adaptation). I'm not sure if it's the translation or something to do with Japanese fiction, but sometimes the dialogue seems a little . . . oddly structured or stiff? But some of the descriptions are lovely. As it's a short little book I don't think it'll take long to finish.

I was actually gifted with CS Lewis' Space Trilogy for Christmas! I cannot wait to read them.

I finished Kiki and I think I've decided that I like it more than the book of Bedknob and Broomstick but a little less than The Little Broomstick in the category of magical children's books that I've loved the movie versions of. Being the first part of a series, Kiki doesn't quite have the end-of-story resolution I was looking for with some of the relationships, but unfortunately I don't think any of the sequels have been made available in English. The dialogue either got better as I went, or I got used to it. (Actually, the more I read, the more I was reminded of some of Haruki Murakami's short fiction in that regard.)

I also read Patricia McKillip's In the Forests of Serre on recommendation from @valiantarcher . It's a bit of a retelling of the Russian tales about the firebird, but as with anything McKillip does, it's entirely her won story while feeling steeped in a world we only get glimpses of. I highly recommend this one if you enjoy McKillip's stories and want something familiar but fresh to read.

On to Piranesi!

Oh, and I got more books for Christmas from my parents and my wife

From Mrs. Stwin:

- Stranger Planet by Nathan W. Pyle (2nd collection of the popular Strange Planet comics)

- Battle Ground by Jim Butcher (17th Dresden Files novel)

From the parents:

- Tolkien's The Monsters and the Critics (I've been wanting to read this for ages, more so since I read Tolkien's Beowulf this summer.)

- European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman and The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss (The 2nd and 3rd books in the Athena Club trilogy; I read The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter this fall and loved it.)

- The Answer Is by Alex Trebek (I'd wanted to read this when it was first announced, and then when he passed it became even more necessary.)

- The Monster in the Hollows and The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson (As I said, I need to finish this series. I kind of wish I'd asked for the whole set in the new style because these covers are GORGEOUS.)

- Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (Sequel to Magpie Murders, which I read and adored during the lockdowns earlier this year.)

@Glenwit, what a great gift! I hope you enjoy the trilogy.

I'm really glad you enjoyed In the Forest of Serre, @shastastwin! And I'll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Piranesi when you finish. Ooh, if Strange Planet is what I think it is, that's a really fun comic. Thanks also for the info on Hadestown! I'll probably give the studio album a try first.

I'm currently reading a volume of short sports & adventure stories, part of "The Young Folks' Shelf of Books"; this series has been on our bookshelves as long as I can remember, but we really only read the first volume (folk & fairy tales) and occasional excerpts from another one or two. So far, the stories have been a bit hit or miss, but the last short story I read was hilarious: "Head over Heels" by B. J. Chute. Published in 1942, "Head over Heels" is about a member of the school Study Club who is goaded by a member of the Athletic Club into signing up for all three levels (Beginning, Intermediate, and Expert) of a ski race the following week. The snag? He's never skied before and, while enthusiastic, his Study Club pals have only book experience to pull from, resulting in moments in practice such as the following:

"Why, that's colossal!" Pat applauded as Woody vanished over the brow of the hill, weaving unsteadily but miraculously upright. "In a week's time, he'll be able to lick Speed with one foot tied behind his back and both hands –Oh, oh!"
A respectful hush fell on the watching committee, then Bob said, "I think his mistake was in trying to go round both sides of that tree at once. Maybe we'd better go and collect him."