Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Hope to Find Under My Tree

Ho Ho Ho and Merry Bookmas, readers! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsty Reader Girl, is about the books we are hoping to unwrap come Christmas morning. Like most bookworms, I have several books on my wishlist and am hoping to find at least one of them under my tree. Plus, the books I receive on Christmas are always that much more special because Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, don’t you know?

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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
by Steve Brusatte

What kid didn’t go through a dinosaur phase? I never actually outgrew mine, though. I keep up with as much dinosaur news as possible and recently finished an amazing podcast that took place within the halls of London’s Natural History museum, one of my favourite places to get my dinosaur on.

So when this book came out, I was immediately interested. I tried the audiobook earlier in the year thinking it would be like listening to a paleontology lecture, but I was having trouble concentrating so decided to wait for Santa to bring me the print book.

Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe, The True Science Behind the Starship Voyages by Andrew Fazekas

Star Trek is the most amazing thing ever and one of the few things that keep me going in this bleak world called the 21st century. Aside from the characters, visuals, and fandom its spawned, it’s nice to see a world that has so little of what we’re currently dealing with like poverty and wealth inequality.

With so much of science fiction actually becoming reality, it stands to reason that while we may not be living in luxury space communism yet, some of the science must be real or on its way to being real. I’ve been wanting to read this for ages to find out just how much of Trek’s science is rooted in fact (SANTA ARE YOU SEEING THIS??).

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition

The Penguin Clothbound classics are a set of books I am desperate to have line my shelves. The Secret Garden is one of my favourite books, but my childhood copy has been lost somewhere along the way. After seeing an amazing production of it this summer in Gibside Hall’s own secret walled garden, my desire to replace my copy shot up exponentially. And what better copy to replace it with than this gorgeous one?

Jabberwocky by Lewis Caroll, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition

 

Other than a few Shel Silverstein gems, there are very few poems I can recite large portions of from memory. ‘Twas brilling, Jabberwocky is one of them. I have a slight Alice in Wonderland obsession so I’d love to have a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky in my collection, especially this beauty.

The Iliad by Homer, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition

If you’re going to be asking for The Iliad for Christmas then really you must also ask for…

The Odyssey by Homer, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition

… The Odyssey! Two more clothbound classics I hope to see under my tree this year.

Color Your Own Classic Movie Posters

Still technically a book, I’ve been wanting this coloring book for a few years now. Even though the craze of adult colouring has seem to wane, I’ve always been a big colouring book nerd. It was my favourite pastime as a kid and that love never went away. I’ve always had several colouring books lining my bookshelves and my favourite medium to fill them in, Crayola crayons.

Fun fact, my husband and I initially bonded over our shared interest in classic movies, with Casablanca being one of the ones we discussed the most. I even walked down the aisle to a Spanish guitar version to “As Time Goes By.”

Picasso Coloring Book 

This colouring book just looks like a lot of fun, full of pictures I can really go to town with using every single crayon in my 120 box.

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This would have been a list of 10 books, but my Secret Santa actually bought me the two books that were at the top of my Christmas Wish List!

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
&
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Each year, book bloggers from all over the world take part in a Secret Santa exchange called The Broke & Bookish Secret Santa. This year was the 10th year running and was hosted by our favourite TTT gal, That Artsy Reader Girl.

This was the first time I participated and I absolutely loved it! It was seriously well organised and I had so much fun getting things for my blogger. Then when my package arrived I was utterly blown away. I had put my husband down as my contact for my Secret Santa in case she needed to ask any questions about me and little did I know that those two were in cahoots to make my package special. And special it certainly was!

My Secret Santa, who you can find over at Fantastic Book Dragon, even included presents for my husband and for my dog, Zorro. Everything was wrapped beautifully and I was already in happy tears before I even unwrapped the gifts because of how thoughtful she had been.

I tried to wait till Christmas (ok, I didn’t try that hard), but somehow all my packages got opened the day after I got them! Inside were truly lovely little gifts, all topped off by the two books I had wanted most this year.

Coffee, chocolate, books, and llamas- what more do you need?!

Zorro wanted me to hurry up with this picture so he could run off with his new toy.