I confess. I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping. I went out yesterday, but the stores were over crowed due to the  post snowstorm frenzy, and I have such a strong aversion to crowds, that I gave up and came home early.  

It’s not that it’s a difficult task for me to accomplish. Everyone is getting books. Books are what everyone always gets from me.

Crowds or no crowds, I have to admit that I do love shopping on Christmas Eve. It’s something we always did with my dad, We’d shop and then visit friends, dropping off gifts house to house. In retrospect, I’m sure the whole thing was really just a way to get my brother and me out of the house so that my mother could finally get something done. Still, it was a very special day with my father, and we looked forward to it.

Family arrives tonight if more snowstorms don’t ground their flights. Tomorrow, I will drag my niece around with me to all the local bookstores. Maybe we’ll stop and pick up my brother as well.

Have great holidays!

Brunonia

I have about ten more gifts to go, but here are the book titles I’ve selected so far:

Home by Marilynne Robinson

The Cure for Grief by Nellie Hermann

Best American Short Stories 2008 – Edited by Salman Rushdie

The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III

City of Refuge by Tom Piazza

The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent

American Transcendentalism by Philip F. Gura

American Lion by Jon Meacham

The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

Second Sight by Rickey Gard Diamond

Dewey by Vicki Myron

I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass

The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan

The Other by David Guterson

I was recently notified that The Lace Reader has been nominated for Borders’ 2008 Original Voices Award in the fiction category. Obviously, I’m thrilled.

They describe the award as follows: “Now in its 13th year, the Original Voices Awards recognize fresh, compelling and ambitions works from the new and emerging talents of 2008 in fiction, non-fiction, young adult/independent reader and children’s picture books.”

The six nominees in the fiction category are:

“Dear American Airlines,” by Jonathan Miles (Houghton Mifflin)

“The Cellist of Sarajevo,” by Steven Galloway (Riverhead)

“The Good Thief,” by Hannah Tinti (The Dial Press)

“The Lace Reader,” by Brunonia Barry (William Morrow)

“The Somnambulist,” by Jonathan Barnes (William Morrow)

“The White Tiger,” by Aravind Adiga (Free Press)

I am honored to be in such great company.