What are you up to this weekend? Around here we’re celebrating a birthday and starting a new puzzle. Plus I hope to finish both the holiday shopping and seasonal decorating—two projects that feel like they’ve dragged on for a long time this year! I hope your weekend is just what you need it to be.
My favorite finds from around the web:
- Family Values: An Ode to Aunties and Their Inimitable Sense of Style. “If what a woman wears influences how she feels, the aunties I know aspire to be deliriously joyful.”
- 10 Small Independent Bookstores In The Midwest To Support Right Now. So many great bookstores out there!
- This Is the Year To Finally Accept While You Were Sleeping As the Perfect Christmas Movie. “At the very least we ourselves can hope that this time next year we not only will be back to hugging as much as ever, but also leaning. Which everyone knows requires just as much close proximity, but is *completely* different than hugging.”
- The Tennessee Solution to Disappearing Book Reviews. “We knew there was an audience for this, and we serve readers, not a bottom line.”
- 5 Quick Dinners That Start with 2 Pounds of Chicken Breasts. These recipes sound great!
- About That Wave of Anti-Racist Bestsellers Over the Summer… There are so many takeaways here. Also: please be kind to booksellers and pick up the books you order in a timely manner.
- How adorable are these tiny bookish chocolates?
- 13 Podcasts About Books That Every Bookworm Needs to Get Into. Very cool to see What Should I Read Next? included here, alongside so many other great podcasts!
- My friend has convinced everyone in her life to buy this kneading neck and back massager … and I’m happy to be one of them.
- The power of Mr. Darcy’s hand flex in ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ revisited 15 years later. If you know, you know. (Although I still prefer this adaptation.)
- We are loving these unusually scented candles—burning them before dawn is brightening our kitchen mornings.
- I’m looking forward to this upcoming event with Valerie Koehler of Blue Willow Bookstore! We’ll be talking about book clubs, holiday gift ideas, and my book Don’t Overthink It.
- I had a lovely conversation with TrooMe about overthinking, coping with COVID, and accepting the inevitable. She asks such good questions!
Winter Book Preview is coming!
Our Winter Book Preview is right around the corner on December 8! I’ll be sharing 42 titles I’ve read and loved, that I can’t wait to read, and that the industry is buzzing about this year. There are SO MANY good books this season it was tough to narrow it down, but I did it—and I can’t wait to talk about these books live and put our digital magazine in readers’ hands!
This is a special event for Book Club and Patreon members. You won’t find the list anywhere else. It’s our way of saying thanks for supporting the work we do here. Join either community and you’ll be all set for the Winter Book Preview, plus gain instant access to our past digital magazines and everything else in those archives. (That’s a lot of good stuff!)
There are two ways to participate and get the digital magazine:
• Click here for the lowdown on Book Club, where we’re learning to read better, together.
• If you’d like the Winter Book Preview but don’t want to participate in a Book Club right now, our What Should I Read Next Patreon community is right for you. Click here to get started.
Don’t miss these posts:
- Addictive spiced nuts. We devour this stuff. It makes a great gift too!
- A book lover’s guide to literary Edinburgh. This brings back such good memories. I can’t wait to go back someday.
Have a great weekend!
18 comments
Definitely agree that “While You Were Sleeping” deserves a spot in the Christmas movie canon. Love that movie!
Me too! One of my all time favs
Yes! It’s a yearly Christmas watch for me, for sure.
Today I learned there might be people out in the world who do not consider While You Were Sleeping a Christmas movie, and who would not consider a viewing to be a tentpole event amongst holiday festivities. What a strange thought! 😉
I have loved While You Were Sleeping since it first came out. I watch it at least once every year. SO happy to see this article giving it its due.
It is not Christmas until I see
1. While You Were Sleeping
2. Love Actually
3. Die Hard
Merry Christmas!
I have come to love this “Links I Love” feature – it has become something to look forward to on Fridays. Thank you.
Love this Friday list of yours and look through it while on the bike at the gym. Makes the peddling time go by fast which is a win for sure!
Just wanted to let you know that the “tiny bookish chocolates” Etsy shop stopped taking orders after Nov 20th. It says anything ordered now won’t be shipped until January so it wouldn’t work for a Christmas present. Darn! Have a great weekend !
Thanks for the link to disappearing book reviews –I’m a picky reader, and it always helps me to get background on books that pique my interest, in a longer, in-depth discussion from many points of view. I savor reading the reviews as a prelude to the actual reading of the book. Reading reviews on NYTimes and Goodreads are good starters for me, and its always interesting to read reviews and author interviews after I’ve read the books too.
Book Lovers…..you will enjoy this website: uncommongoods.com. Click “fun” for Reading (includes 111 gifts for readers, including Jane Austen socks); Gardening; and Games & Puzzles; and more. Click “home” for Birdhouses & Feeders; Bookends & Candles; and more. So much more to see. This website is a lot of fun! You will need to make a “wish list.”
With reference to Darcy’s hand flex, I really found another gesture in that clip far more arresting: When Elizabeth curtsy/bows to each of the people there, before she gets into the carriage. What grace, what respect, what charm, what lovliness!! It speaks volumes without having to say anything. I love it, and wish that we all used little curtsys and bows!
I know this link was a repost, but I’m so thankful for your Addictive Spiced Nuts recipe! We made them last year and immediately knew they would be part of our Christmas baking for years to come.
So much fun to be had in this post! My favorite Christmasy candle is the Spiced Orange from Mallory’s Candles in Charlotte, NC (https://malloryscandles.com/collections/candles/products/spiced-orange-candle). A close second is their Blue Spruce.
And I have to give a shout-out to our local independent Midwest bookstore, Joseph-Beth. It’s one of my happy places.
In addition to While You Were Sleeping (which we usually watch on Christmas Day) and Die Hard, in our household we also consider Enemy of the State to be a Christmas movie!
Enemy of the State is one of my favorite movies! And still so relevant today.
While You Were Sleeping is MY all-time favorite Christmas movie though I’d possibly tie Christmas Vacation with it. One thing to note…the adorable book chocolates will not ship until after mid to late January. Was about to order them as a gift when I scrolled down and saw the note!
My daughter and I just watched While You Were Sleeping last night on Disney plus! A must watch Christmas movie for us every year!
You’re so great, I was just thinking this morning I wanted to look for more book-related podcasts!
The 1995 “Pride & Prejudice” will never be beat!