Yes, it's time again for the Great January Book Giveaway! These are all books I've weeded from my shelves that need a new home with loving parents readers. Claim the one(s) you want in the comments, first person to claim gets it. Feel free to ask for as many as you like :)

Updated 1/9

Title	Author	Genre
House Lessons	Erica Bauermeister	memoir
Staying On	Paul Scott	fiction
The Echoing Green: The Garden in Myth and Memory	Jennifer Heath	non-fiction
Rage	Bob Woodward	politics (Trump)
The Sum of Us	Heather McGee	politics, economics, race relations
Little House in the Suburbs	Deanna Caswell	non-fiction
Clear and Present Danger	Tom Clancy	fiction
Dracula: The Undead	Dacre Stoker	fiction (**audiobook, on 12 CDs)
Complete Book of Furniture Repair and Refinishing	Ralph Kinney	non-fiction
A History of Wild Places	Shea Earnshaw	fiction
Natural Cleaning for Your Home	Casey Kellar	non-fiction
Brain Droppings	George Carlin	humor
Darkfall, Phantoms, Servants of Twilight	Dean Koontz	horror (3 in 1 volume)
Treasury of Fantasy	Carey Wilkens (editor)	fantasy
6 pb romance novels (all basically the same lol)	Barbara Cartland	cheesy romance
Red Death	P N Elrod	vampires
Wolf Hall	Hilary Mantel	historical fiction
Bring Up the Bodies	Hilary Mantel	historical fiction
The Good Life	Helen and Scott Nearing	nature/memoir
The Forstye Saga vol. 1, In Chancery	John Galsworthy	fiction
The Family	Mario Puzo	fiction
The Martian	Andy Weir	sci-fi
The White Hotel	D M Thomas	fiction (seriously weird)
The Fabulous Riverboat	Philip Jose Farmer	sci-fi
Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern	Anne McCaffrey	sci-fi
Educational Games for Fun	Margaret Mulac	non-fiction
Tom Brown's School Days	Thomas Hughes	fiction (v. old hc, early 1900s)
Complete Book of Composting	Rodale Books	non-fiction
Organic Plant Protection	Rodale Books	non-fiction

The Jewish population of Bahrain -- a majority-Muslim country -- is very tiny, and yet in 2015, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa invited European Jewish leaders to conduct a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in the capital city of Manama. It was the first time such a ritual had been performed in Bahrain since 1948. The King's official sanction of the Jewish ceremony continued this year, and is a vivid demonstration that it is possible for people of all faiths to respect one another and take joy in one another's celebrations. You can read more here.

Christmas Day, so once again we made my great-grandmother's egg nog to take to my sister-in-law's. With 4 pints of half-and-half, bourbon rum AND brandy, this is high-calorie and high-test, but oh so very good. I am now having a mug and getting caught up on hoggywartyxmas and sshg_giftfest -- happy happy joy joy!

Here's hoping that all of you had whatever sort of day you wanted, doing whatever you wanted to do, with the companionship you wanted most. Hugs and happy holidays!

Reveals are up over at hoggywartyxmas so I can now own up to being the author of The Spoof is in the Pudding, a wizardy riff on "The Night Before Christmas, in which Hagrid and Flitwick eat too much fruitcake with surprising results while Severus and Minerva exeunt, pursued by a waltz.

I was thrilled that my poem was one of the opening day posts for the fest, and I have been truly overwhelmed by the number of positive comments that my little rhyme received. In particular, my recipient mmadfan said that the poem brightened her day twice when she was feeling under the weather. I cannot imagine a higher compliment :)

hoggywartyxmas always has superlative offerings, and the writers and artists this year really outdid themselves. Thanks to the mods for running it yet again, and I am already looking forward to next year!

Antonio Gramsci did not like New Year's Day:

I want every morning to be a new year’s for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to draw from it new vigor...No spiritual time-serving. I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its mandatory collective rhythms, to share with all the strangers I don’t care about. Because our grandfathers’ grandfathers, and so on, celebrated, we too should feel the urge to celebrate.

And there is something to be said for that. But I still love New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, with its feeling of freshness and potential. I think there is something good about choosing a specific time to reflect on what has passed and what is to come, and to think seriously about how one hopes to shape the next twelve months of one's life.

We had a lovely, mellow New Year's Eve finishing up our Firefly marathon and then watching the first Star Wars movie. Both made us rather melancholy, Firefly because it was cancelled so early and so abruptly, with so many stories left untold, and Star Wars because they all look so damn young. Still, it was great fun to watch the young and dashing Han Solo swash his buckles across the galaxy, and cheer for Captain Reynolds and crew as they fight their way through Reavers to get the truth out about Miranda. It occurred to us both that Captain Reynolds bears more than a passing resemblance to Captain Solo, even down to the stripes on his trousers. And of course the aforementioned dashingness. Big damn heroes, both of them.

The last eighteen months have been a real roller-coaster for me and mine, and I am devoutly hoping that 2016 will be a more serene period. I also hope to do more writing -- yes, I say this every year, and so far have failed, but that doesn't mean I give up on it as a goal. I also plan to take a page from teddyradiator's book: "to keep my zen, to play more, and to cherish my friends."

Many hugs and warm wishes to all for the new year!

"O large being or beings of whatever gender or branch of the animal kingdom, who did something great and is now someplace where we aren't, please forgive us for whatever you deem bad, and help us to do whatever strikes you as good, whether that be to work hard, eat no pork, or wage a holy war. Grant us whatever you tend to grant, unless you don't interfere with earthly concerns. Watch over us, or save us from evil, or let us find out for ourselves, or damn us randomly. Amen. Praise Allah. Have a nice day."

From Worshipers-R-Us

Also, Generic All-Purpose Last Rites:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

From Roger Zelazny

The company that posted this song, Soomo Publishing, calls it a "satirical video." Possibly one could also call it a grownup version of Schoolhouse Rock. I prefer to think of it as just a kick-ass way to celebrate the Fourth of July. I especially like the part where somebody -- Sam Adams, is it? -- gets up on the table and starts playing the fiddle. Plus the mischievously sexy bit with the feather from 1:09 to 1:14. Hubba, hubba.

I thought this clip would be up on YouTube dozens of times, but there were only two! Apologies for the annoying fuzzy text over about 30 seconds near the end -- my only other option was the BBC's official clip, but they cut it short so it ends before the fade-in of the field of poppies. Which is, you know, kind of necessary for the full impact.




In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...

The mysterious person who has left roses and cognac on Poe's grave on his birthday for the past 50 years failed to show last night.

This is very upsetting. As if we haven't lost enough of our hallowed American traditions (roller skating, wedgies, fraternity hazing, capitalism, bombing third world countries -- oh wait, we still do that one). This is the last straw, really.

But seriously: I love Poe. I loved this mysterious tradition, so in keeping with his tales and stories. I loved that no one tried to fuck with it by, say, tackling the guy or turning it into something gaudy and public with spotlights and news cameras. There are not enough lovely mysteries in life these days and it's depressing to see even a small one crumble.

Oh yeah -- and the numbers, shameful as they are:
0 hrs, 0 words (grrrr work, grrr homework, grrr sleep...)
(...40 days...)