While 2010 hasn’t shaped up to be as wonderful for the blog, it has been a great year for me personally. My reading and this blog have suffered during the last four months as my husband and I lived in my brother’s basement, waiting out the construction of our new home. But, I now sit in my new office, in our new home, to type and reflect on this year. Totally worth it!
I’m going to save my “what I’ll do for 2011″‘s for tomorrow, so for today I’ll share with …

You know that feel of wanting to devour a book? Of wanting to put off everything – work, sleep, food – in order to just have a few more minutes to read a few more pages? This was what Sarah Water’s Fingersmith was to me.

It is edgy Victorian. A darker version of a British Annie. A novel for a female Dickins. And, it is delightful.

Seventeen year old Susan Trinder has been raised in a house of thieves by Mrs. Sucksby, who often takes in orphans. Unlike other orphans, Sue has been doted on her whole life. When Mr. Rivers, or the Gentleman as Sue knows the frequent visitor, arrives at the house late one evening, the story begins – or so Sue says.

I would venture to guess that of those who have read this book, Owen Meany would make a top 10 list of memorable characters.

Thanksgiving hadn’t even come & gone when a referb’d Amazon box arrived addressed to me. The return address was unfamiliar, but bore the auspicious “SS” of a Secret Santa.
Under some circumstances, I might be tempted to say “I’m going to wait to open this until December 25.” However, this year with the impending move, who knows if I could even keep up with the box until then, so I opened immediately!

I was DELIGHTED to find Jennifer Donnelly’s A Northern Light inside. This has been on my TBR list for awhile, …