Sweaters and Books.

Someone asked me the other day if I had started packing for my Christmas trip up north.  To which I responded, "I'm just taking sweaters and books'.  I literally travel with a suitcase almost entirely filled with books.  Before you smarty pants suggest I buy a kindle I actually have one AND an ipad...but it's just not the same and library books and used books are so much less expensive.  So, as backup to my suitcase of books I will also have ereader options handy.  But here's a peek at what I'll be working on over Christmas...

Everywhere hailed for its emotional intensity and unflagging narrative momentum, this magnificent novel transports us to the turn of the twentieth century, to the world of a prominent Boston family summering on the New Hampshire coast, and to the social orbit of a spirited young woman who falls into a passionate, illicit affair with an older man, with cataclysmic results. (via Goodreads)

Anna Emerson is a thirty-year-old English teacher desperately in need of adventure. Worn down by the cold Chicago winters and a relationship that's going nowhere, she jumps at the chance to spend the summer on a tropical island tutoring sixteen-year-old T.J. 

T.J. Callahan has no desire to go anywhere. His cancer is in remission and he wants to get back to his normal life. But his parents are insisting he spend the summer in the Maldives catching up on all the school he missed last year. 

Anna and T.J. board a private plane headed to the Callahan's summer home, and as they fly over the Maldives' twelve hundred islands, the unthinkable happens. Their plane crashes in shark-infested waters. They make it to shore, but soon discover that they're stranded on an uninhabited island. 

At first, their only thought is survival. But as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man. (via Goodreads)

Note: This book is a New York Times Bestseller and was highly recommended to me.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. (via Goodreads)

These are the books I snagged from the library or used bookstore in time to head up to Indiana.  I have placed no limited on how much or little I will read this Christmas since I've already completed my 100 book goal for the year.  But I would say somewhere between 2-10 books will be accomplished.

Any other books you'd highly recommend for me this Christmas season?

Love,
B