The countdown to Christmas has begun. Local stores have started stocking decorations and advertising gifts, supermarkets are pulling out the gift chocolate boxes and advent calendars and Christmas tree farms are being advertised on the road side. Which means it's time for me to start thinking about my Christmas shopping. I absolutely despise visiting stores in the week leading up to Christmas, the idea of the crowds and the mad dash to try and find something, anything, that is suitable is enough to make me break out in a sweat. So I like to get in there early before all the crowds hit and this is the perfect time to do it. Stores have just started to get their Christmas gift stock - I was chatting to one store manager and she said they had three truck loads in the last week alone and half of it was still sitting out the back in the alleyway waiting for space - but the shoppers haven't hit yet and you can walk around a store without getting knocked into a hundred times.
Onto the books we have two brilliant authors running live chat's through Goodreads this month. Both Barbara Kingsolver and Jasper Fforde are featured this month. Such a great chance to hear two incredible authors.
As for what I'm reading. Now that I am not able to regularly go to my old book club as I have moved towns I have joined a new book club at my local library. This book club defines a theme each month and this month it's Spain. So I'm reading The Scarlet Cloak (Jean Plaidy) which is set in Spain during the era of King Phillip II and the Spanish Armada. I will also talk about The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) which I read last year.More recently I finished Middlesex (Jeffery Eugenides), After Dark (Hauki Murakami) and Maus I (Art Spiegelman). Reviews for each to come.
