What's On Your Christmas Wish List, Book Wise?

Looking for a Christmas gift for
an avid reader? This would make a
great gift, the first 8 novels in
the series

I am horrible about creating my Christmas Wish list each year.  In fact, this has to be the first year I actually wrote them down before a week before Christmas.  Part of this was brought on by the Musing Monday question asked by Should be Reading Nov. 28, found here.

It sparked me to write out some of the books I want for Christmas, as well as other reading related items I wanted.

Topping the list is either the Nook or the Kindle.  I don't really care which one, as long as they have the E-Ink capability and I can read without any more strain on my poor eyes which are subjected to staring at a computer 10 hours a day.

The following books are on my current want-in-paperback-form list:

• A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
• Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Series #5) by Charlaine Harris
• Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #6) by Charlaine Harris
• All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #7) by Charlaine Harris
• From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #8) by Charlaine Harris
• Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #9) by Charlaine Harris
• Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #10) by Charlaine Harris
• Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #11) by Charlaine Harris
• Home Free by Fern Michaels
• Hide and Seek (The Sisterhood: Rules of the Game, Book 1) by Fern Michaels
  
• Deja Vu by Fern Michaels
  
• Cross Roads by Fern Michaels
  

The above is just a sampling of the books I want and what I have been devouring lately.  Almost anything by Gena Showalter and Sherrilyn Kenyon is on my list.  Too many books to list!

And of course, I mentioned my son's list as well in the earlier blog, but I'll go ahead and list them below complete with links.

• Halo the Flood by William C. Dietz
• The Janitors Son
• The Basket Counts
• Slam Dunk
• Shoot for the Hoop
• Tough to Tackle
• Origami Yoda (not quite sure if this is the book he wants, or if it's the book that teaches you how to create an Origami Yoda.  His title brings up a lot of matches, but nothing exactly "Origami  Yoda")
• The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordin
• The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordin
• Lemonade War
• This Means War

What books are on your Christmas Wish List?

Please note:  All books are linked to my Amazon affiliate account and give me a tiny bit of revenue. If you're wanting to purchase one of the books, please help a poor writer out and purchase through my links.  I have not been asked to promote any of these books, I am just doing so because these are the books I like and want to read and want to provide easy access to finding them for others.

This Post Will Prolly Stir Up Some Angst....but

Photo courtesy of Darwinism on Facebook

Most of you don't know enough about me to know my likes or dislikes.  Obviously you know I like Charlaine Harris and the Sookie Stackhouse novels and Sherrilyn Kenyon and her novels, which must mean I like paranormal romance that has all sorts of fun paranormal characters in it. You know, vampires, werewolves, gods, shifters, etc.

What may come as a surprise to some of my readers is that I abhor the Twilight series.  I won't touch the books (except to maybe burn them, but I won't buy them to burn them because she makes money off that and I'm not willing to have her make money off my burning spree).  I won't watch the movies.   I won't have anything to do with the series, the writer, or anything else.

My reasons why are multifold, but the foremost is, she's a poor writer at best, a bad writer at worst.  I'm being generous here, just in case you can't tell.

The second, and you will find as I write reviews, I abhor characters that continually make bad mistakes and don't learn from their previous bad mistakes which is the case with Bella.  Let's be honest ladies and gentleman, killing yourself isn't the solution to an idiot boy who leaves you.  You're better than that -find someone else that deserves you.

Third, her book teaches girls all sorts of wrong things about growing up and boys.  If you want to raise your pre-teen/teenage-daughter right, I definitely wouldn't let her read these books.  Trust me, teenage girls don't think beyond the hormones and how "romantic" Edward is.  They hope that their emo-goth boyfriend will be just as wonderful.

Fourth, the Twilight Series is by no means original.  Not one bit.  There's another series I read at age 17 or 18 that has *Gasp* a young high school young lady who falls for this guy who ends up being a vampire and he has a nasty evil brother.  They can go to school and all by *Gasp* altering the weather to where it's always cloudy.

At least they don't sparkle.

Fifth, she attempts to change the mythos behind vampires and possibly weres (please note,  I haven't read the book so not positive on the were mythos if she changed it).  But let's be honest here.  Every character has to have a flaw.  The biggest flaws for vampires is that sunlight burns and kills them.  That becomes a challenge for the character.  They have to hide from the sunlight, conduct their business after the sun sets.  They have amazing paranormal powers, but all of that becomes itty bitty when touched by sunlight.  A vampire that just sparkles in the sunlight doesn't make them flawed, it makes them sparkly and pretty - Yuck.

I also -loved- how they called Edward a "vegetarian" vampire because he only fed from animals, not from humans.  Really?  Vegetarian?  Right.  I think if you called Bill or Eric in the Sookie Stackhouse novels vegetarians for drinking TrueBlood, you'd be without a throat.

While I understand the novels are "young adult" novels and are appropriate for pre-teens and teenagers to read, I really have to ask if anyone questioned the lessons the books would teach to those teens.  Sure, they're easy to read, have vampires in it, attract young readers, but do the books really teach young girls what they should be learning?  I don't think so.

Sherrilyn Kenyon does do some Young Adult books in the Dark Hunter Series.  Based on one of the frequently seen characters in her other books, Infinity: Chronicles of Nick and Invincible: Chronicles of Nick, are available for purchase or at the library and are based around Nick at the age of 14, when he was attending High School.  The book covers all the topics, from being the odd-kid out at a private school when he's not wealthy, to protecting friends and saving the world (and keeping secrets to save the world), Kenyon has life lessons in each of her books.  The next in her series, Infamous: Chronicles of Nick is due out in March 2012.

Musing Mondays - Dec. 5, 2011 Edition

Part of the weekly blog meme hosted by Should Be Reading, I (and you) get to answer the following question:

How many books do you read in a week? Month? Year?

That's a hard question for me to answer.  It all depends on the size of the book and the author.  The Series of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin easily took me a week to read the first book, and a couple weeks to read each of the subsequent books.  I haven't touched a Dance with Dragons yet, mainly because I don't own it (and it's on my Christmas list), but I expect it to take a couple weeks to read through, especially with Christmas coming up.

Typically though, I can read 1 to 2 books a week.  If they're short books, like Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, I can read each of her books in 2 nights.  The bigger the book, the longer it takes me to read.  

Of course, it also depends on what I'm doing.  If I'm travelling and doing a lot of flying, I obviously will read through books quicker, especially if I grab a book that interests me at the airport.

So looking at it.  I guess it could be said that I read between 4-8 books a month, which would be between 60 and 90 books a year.  Wow.

That's a lot of reading.

What's your numbers look like?