Happy birthday, Thor!
I’ve started calling my brother “Thor’’ since his genealogy research last fall showed us as belonging to the Thor line of Pates. No, it doesn’t mean we’re descended from Vikings (although we might be) but from a Thoroughgood Pate who lived in Virginia or North Carolina during the 1700s. Supposedly “Thoroughgood’’ was a right popular name during the Revolutionary War era, although I don’t know if it was from a surname or one of those Christian virtue names, like Prudence (a paternal great-grandmother) or Endeavour (the closely guarded first name of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse). I prefer “Thor.’’
Anyway, I sent Thor the first two novels in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Tales series, The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horsemen, set in the ninth and 10th centuries when King Alfred and his heirs were battling to keep Wessex from the Viking conquerors. Cornwell writes vigorous, well-researched historical fiction, and I thought my brother would like these because we both liked Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe novels and because of our probable if incredibly distant ties to the Saxons and Danes.
I haven’t read this series yet, which is unusual because I almost always read the books I’m giving as presents. And I love giving books to friends and relatives, which made my recent holiday shopping both easy and fun as I tried to match book to reader.
My mom and I mutually gave one another Sue Grafton’s ‘U’ is for Undertow; last year we shared P.D. James’ The Private Patient. An aunt who likes lighter fare received Mary Kay Andrews’ The Fixer-Upper with firm endorsements from my me, my mom and her daughters (the other two-thirds of Caroline Cousins.) They got Jeanette Walls’ novel about her remarkable grandmother, Half-Broke Horses, because I knew they’d like it and because we keep talking about writing something about our remarkable grandmother, Nanny Love.
I took a chance with my uncle who likes Westerns and has already read Larry McMurtry, Robert B. Parker and all the Zane Greys and Louis L’Amours. I picked for him Larry Watson’s memorable coming-of-age tale, Montana 1948, and quickly re-read it before wrapping it up. My college sophomore niece thought she would like Jennifer Weiner’s breezy Best Friends Forever, which I enjoyed last summer, and after my nephew in the Army told me he was re-reading free classics on his I-Phone, he got a paperback of The Hound of the Baskervilles along with the DVD of the movie starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.
And then there was Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which may have been my favorite book of last year, sort of a collegiate Harry Potter writ dark. I knew my longtime friend Laura would love it because we love the Narnia books and Tolkien and T.H. White and fairy tales, and of course, J.K. Rowling. “Wow, this guy must really know every fantasy book going,’’ she marveled this morning, promising to put Grossman’s The Codex on her reading list. My book-gifter heart was thrilled.
I think that’s it. My mom’s birthday was last week. I sent her flowers and promised to put the new Anne Tyler, Noah’s Compass, in the mail – just as soon as I’ve read it.
(Open Book: I bought all the books mentioned above except for Best Friends Forever (Simon & Schuster), which I received in a web giveaway from the publisher. I also have my own copies of the books I gave away, except for the Cornwells, which I hope Thor will lend me.)
On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever 
Hello, Nancy. I know this isn’t exactly on topic, but I wonder if you’ve seen the Ballet Shoes movie, the one with Emily Watson? I thought it was quite good, for all the liberties taken. And, as it happens, I’m re-reading Movie Shoes, which I adore. (By the way, I saw Ballet Shoes because it was free at Netflix! Well, not free — I have a membership — but it felt free.)
Hi, Laura, I knew about the movie but was wary; now I’ll put on my list. I think I have Movie Shoes somewhere. A treasure is Tennis Shoes, which I bought in London several years ago. Streatfeild wrote it in 1937 and supposedly it was one of her faves. Wimbledon a bit different these days!
When’s the next book?! Must check your blog.
I had read a wildly diverging reviews of The Magicians; it appears some people loved it and others, well, didn’t. If you give it a thumbs up I’ll check it out, but: I’m not a particular fan of fantasy, would I like it anyway?
I like to think I’m good at choosing books for other people, as long as I know a little something about their reading habits. Weirdly enough, Laura, I just recommended your books to an old college friend who needs a new suspense series to dive into; she hadn’t read George Pelecanos, either…I think I’ve set her up for a good few months of reading.
Connie — I think The Magicians is fantastic in best sense of word, but I know fantasy fans that didn’t like all the collegiate behavior/relationships part of the plot, and others that didn’t like the fantasy elements.
Think you have to be familiar w/ a lot of the classic fantasy to get most out of it, but it is beautifully written.
Have you read Swan Thieves? I’m halfway thru but as good as The Historian. yet.
You know, I bailed out on The Swan Thieves after about 30 pages. It felt like it was going to take a looooong time to get to where it was going, and I had other stuff to read, but maybe I jumped ship too soon.
I did like The Historian, although I think a book about Dracula needs to be scarier and sexier. I realize nobody is going to top those opening 100 or so pages of Stoker’s Dracula, but still…
oh, larry watson. my husband loves his books. i’ve not read them. but we both love another writer from that part of the country–kent haruf. i’m betting you know him, too.
and the shoe books! i read every one of them, tennis shoes and movie shoes and theater shoes and, of course, ballet shoes. but my favorite of her books was “the magic summer,” about some children who were sent to live with their eccentric aunt in south Cork in ireland. brilliant.
I loved Kent Haruf’s books!
I was lucky enough to sit next to Kent Haruf at a book dinner at BookExpo one year. He was as nice as you could hope.
Connie, on Swan Thieves I think I meant not as good as The Historian, but 2/3 thru now and it’s picking up. But for a book about obsession, it’s not so much.
Nancy, reading your new blog is the next best thing to sitting around the fire with a bunch of bookish friends, sipping wine and trading books. I’m going to see if I can see the “Shoes” movie on Netflix. Do you all remember when the Meg Ryan character recommended them in that scene in YOU’VE GOT MAIL?
Of course I remember the scene in You’ve Got Mail! I actually did a story on it, and how Nora Ephron convinced publisher to re-release several Shoe books. Now if I could just find them without causing a landslide…
I’ve ordered Ballet Shoes flick too.