Reading report for December

I had some vacation time left over from the summer, so I was able to use some of those days to extend my Christmas vacation and have a nice, long midwinter holiday, starting on Saturday the 22nd and ending today, January 2nd. In that time, I read 4 of the 7 books I finished in December, and finished about 60% of the translation project, so I never felt like I was cheating by leaving my “desk” (actually my parents’ dining room table) to go and read. 3 of the books were rereads, since I tend to seek out familiar comfort reads when I am too busy to give my full attention to books I have not read before. Rereading doesn’t take as much time or effort as first time reading, since I already know which parts I can safely skip…

It was raining when I left Reykjavík for the north, on December 22nd, but on the 23rd it started snowing and we had the nicest kind of white Christmas: about 3 cm of snow, just enough to cover everything with a layer of white, but not enough to impede traffic (that came later). I did have a scary journey back home yesterday, as the road was covered with a thick layer of wet and slippery snow for about a third of the route, and ice the rest of the way.

The new reads:
Fannie Flagg: A Redbird Christmas
Charlaine Harris: Shakespeare's Christmas
Ngaio Marsh: Death and the dancing footman
Sister Carol Anne O'Marie: Death goes on retreat

The rereads:
Jennifer Crusie: Bet me and Anyone but you
Gerald Durrell: The Bafut Beagles

I hope to post the annual reading report before the end of the month, and to start publishing reviews by the end of February.