November Wrap Up and Bookish Gift Ideas

In November I read a lot of great books, I traveled to Phoenix to visit my family, and submitted my research application for my thesis. And now it’s time for all the holiday madness!

To celebrate, I’m going to give away one book a week in the month of December. I’ll post about it soon so you can enter. I’m still working on the details but they will be paperbacks in good condition that I read this year.

Looking for bookish gift ideas? I recently got this awesome journal where the lines of the journal are actually the entire book of The Wizard of Oz. Uncommon Goods has some awesome literary gifts like a very cool scarf that comes in Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights (not my favorite books or I’d be on this one in a second). And here are two more posts with bookish gift ideas:

• Estella’s Revenge
• The Reader’s Room

My migraine diet has been really successful. I had one or two not-severe migraines this month and those were due to cheating on the diet a bit (and by that I mean wine). I haven’t taken a migraine drug in three weeks which is a long time for me. Giving up so many things I like (chocolate, wine, processed foods) has been tough but not impossible. And if I slip up a little the effects aren’t horrible. I’ll keep up with it in December.

Here’s what I read in November:

• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
• Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
• The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
• Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

And the books I reviewed in November:

• Weighing Shadows by Lisa Goldstein
• Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
• Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
• The Secret River by Kate Grenville
• Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt
• Thanksgiving by Mary R. Arno

My favorite read: as usual I can’t pick one!  Girl Waits with Gun was awesome, and The Aeronaut’s Windlass was a lot of fun. The Things They Carried was a really powerful read.

DNF: I’m still thinking about whether to finish Stranger in a Strange Land. The writing feels dated to me and it gets a lot of negative reviews. Thoughts?

Next up: I have Missoula by Jon Krakauer on my Kindle. I also need to finish up a couple of challenge books.

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! Here’s to a busy but happy holiday season.