Sooo, what did the Christmas book elf bring...?

When DD1 was younger, we had a Christmas book elf who used to bring books for all the family...leave them wrapped (in waterproof packaging) out in the garden, to be discovered later in the day once the initial present rush had worn off. Funnily enough we were the only family we knew who had such an elf ...:lol:

These days he prefers to wrap them up in ordinary paper and leave them under the tree.

So...what books did YOUR book elf/Santa/Aunty Doreen bring this year?

I scored 2 - one of which The Messenger is by Marcus Zsusak - who wrote The Book Thief. I can't wait to finish reading my current novel to get stuck into it. The other, The Whisperer is by Fiona Mac Intosh - for younger readers...it looks interesting and I'm hoping by me reading it it will create an economy of desire and DD1 will want to read it then.

My Christmas book elf (ie ME!) brought me A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons. She's one of my faves. Going to start it tonight while DH is fishing and the kids are in bed.

DP got me The Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix.... *shrugs* I'll let you know how I go and if I like 'em

Mum and Dad gave me Maralinga by Judy Nunn. So far I'm enjoying it.

My mum always gives us book shop gift cards. Alexzander picked a massive hard cover collection of all the Thomas the Tank Engine stories today, it's beautiful & such a great choice. I haven't picked mine just yet but I have $70 to spend up big in the sales :D

Litha Book Elf got me a book on Santeria plus a Suzanna & Trinny book.

And since I'm cleaning out my bookcases, I've found a whole pile of books I've not read, so have lots of reading material!

Oh my book elf is my dad... he always gives me a few...

Girl with the dragon taottoo
Ben Elton - Meltdown
Diana Gabaldon An echo in the bone

Cant wait till I have time to start reading these!!!

And he has started the tradition with DS... who got a number of fun books... Shapes, numbers etc...

Oooh Rufalina the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is great. I have read all three in the Millenium series and loved them.

The books elf this year bought me Dan Brown's Angels and Deamons and a gardening book called Harvest which shows you all about planting your own edible garden. Can't wait to get into both of these when I finish my current novel.

The kids also got a number of books which is always handy as they are already little bookworms. But my favourite for them was a boxed edition of The Complete Peter Rabit Library which is 23 books :o all for when they are a bit older though!

The Christmas book elf brought me... an Amazon Kindle!! Google it, seriously, I'd never heard of it before and I. Am. In. LOVE. So far I've downloaded The Great Gatsby, Madame Bovary, The Age of Innocence (catching up on my classics while I decide what new stuff to buy) and have downloaded a bunch of free samples of random books that sounded good so I can check them out and decide when I get paid :)
Best Christmas gift ever!! :D

The kids got some Grug and Little Miss books, and some Little Golden Books, too :)

OOOOH now I'm having a lil envy fit, Glamourcide! Not as much amazon content apparently as when you live in the US (where you can broadband your stuff straight down into the kindle without a PC intermediary) but still very very cool. Please post again in a few days when you've been able to fiddle and read with it and tell us all about it!!!

Oh Marydean, it's unreal... soooo simple and user-friendly, I had it figured out in seconds. I'd never heard of them (I mean I knew digital/e-books existed but wasn't sure how they worked), so I opened the box and was like, 'Uhh... DH... what in the name of Christmas is THIS?' and he explained it to me... I just about killed myself waiting for it to charge up, I wanted to use it straight away! There are only three or four buttons, so navigation is really simple... the screen is sooo easy to read, in bright or dim light (it's not backlit but the ink rendering and matte screen makes it a very clear picture), books download in seconds and it's so easy to browse the store and purchase them (literally it takes just seconds), and you can download free samples (usually a chapter or two) of books that you're interested in to see if it's worth buying - and so cheap!! The Age of Innocence cost me US$2.99, Madame Bovary was free and most of the others I'm looking at (broke after Boxing Day sales lol) are around $11 (US). It's super portable and I've been using it non-stop since Christmas Day and the battery is still half-full :) I don't know how much they cost (lol I insisted DH not reveal that to me because I'm betting it's expensive and I don't deserve such a wonderful gift after the mood swings I've subjected him to lately) but they are definitely a great investment for any avid reader, I reckon... over 300,000 books from all kinds of catgories to choose from, I'm stoked :)

DP got me Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantle. It's about Thomas Cromwell who was Henry VIII's offsider. I was a bit dubious as a) I've read just about every book about The Tudors that there is since my teens and I'm a little bit over them now and b) this is fiction.

But, enjoying it so far.

MIL is my book fairy. I think I have gotten either a book, or a voucher that I use to buy books since DH and I have been together. This year she got me the Masterchef cookbook and it has all their best recipes in it - including the lemon diva cupcakes LOL. It is a really good book with stacks of general information in it.

And the book elf didn't come for the kids this christmas because they came a few weeks early when they raided the A&R sale stall at batemans bay on holidays LOL. Got stacks of books for them then.

so far, I have "The Law of Nines" by Terry Goodkind
Today I'll get "The Magician's Apprentice" by Trudi Canavan

Love dh and post christmas sales!

Well he brought my Dad Wally Lewis' book about his epilepsy journey - I read 3/4 of it throughout Christmas Day and he let me bring it home to read the rest. Quite good and I am not into football that much.

I got gift cards & spent them on the Tomorrow When The War Began series by John Marsden. Read them in high school & felt like picking up an old fav!!

ausgirl, what's the title of that one? My dad is epileptic and I think he'd quite like it.

Book fairy forget me this year *sob* not a single one... :(