Wednesday, December 28, 2011

#526 Christmas reading

Christmas reading is fun!

To compile my Christmas 2011 reading list, I searched the PS shelves in Alderman Library; I re-read Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas; and at the public library, I even found a Christmas-themed mystery set on a cruise ship.  Ho! Ho! Ho!
  • The Birds' Christmas Carol, Kate Douglas Wiggin
  • Christmas at Monticello, Helen Miller
  • A Christmas Blizzard, Garrison Keillor
  • A Christmas Card, Paul Theroux 
  • The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church, Kate Douglas Wiggin
  • One Christmas, Truman Capote 
  • A Redbird Christmas, Fannie Flagg
  • The Romance of a Christmas Card, Kate Douglas Wiggin
  • Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea, Mary Higgins Clark
  • Winter Solstice, Rosamunde Pilcher

This year's favorites were both written by Kate Douglas Wiggin.  I don't know how I've missed these two Christmas gems for so long, since Kate also authored Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and founded the Salmon Falls Library in Buxton, ME!

The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church,1907

The Romance of a Christmas Card, 1916


If the Alderman Library is not convenient, you can download these early-20th-century titles for free from your favorite e-book vendor.  Now that's a merry Christmas!

Yours in unabashedly enjoying Christmas romances,
Mary

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

#525 Ginkgo!

One hundred fifty-one years ago Mr. Pratt planted a ginkgo tree on the University of Virginia grounds near Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda. 

Every November, Mr. Pratt's ginkgo puts on a show in Charlottesville.  Here is the 2011 performance:

 
Yours in enjoying the ginkgo spectacular,
Kelly