Today is the last day of the HoHoHo Read-a-Thon, and I think I've done a pretty good job.
I finished 2 novels
1 novella
and 2 short stories
Twitter party tonight!
(We'll see if I can do this. Twitter is not really in my comfort zone. I'm too old and by the time I finally get it---we'll have moved on to another form of social media. That's the one I'll master!)
My latest -- the novella --- is the book we are reading for our book club in December:
The Christmas Letters.
From Goodreads:
In The Christmas Letters, three generations of women reveal their stories of love and marriage in the letters they write to family and friends during the holidays. It's a down-home Christmas story about tradition, family, and the shared experiences of women. Here, in a letter of her own, Lee Smith explains how she was inspired to write this celebrated epistolary novel:
Dear Friends,
Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.
In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The Christmas Letters is also told through shared recipes. As Mary, my favorite character, says, "I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crepes phase, and now it's these salsa years."
I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday--Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.
With warmest greetings, Lee Smith
Dear Friends,
Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.
In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The Christmas Letters is also told through shared recipes. As Mary, my favorite character, says, "I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crepes phase, and now it's these salsa years."
I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday--Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.
With warmest greetings, Lee Smith
From Me:
This was a lovely little book. Told the story of a family thru the years and I do love that.
It wasn't very "Christmasy" tho, if that's what you are looking for.
The story wasn't about getting you in the Christmas spirit--it was about a family and how perhaps you really do need to read between the lines of those Christmas letters. Life is never as perfect as we make it seem.
Personally, I am a lover of the Christmas letter. I love to see what's been going on with old friends and family. I don't care if they do exaggerate! Still fun for me.
I think the author said it best when she said "Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and to celebrate who we are.
3.5 stars!
