What books did you get for Christmas?

[Georgiemc]

I received The Safekeep by Yael van de Wouden and Heart the Lover by Lily King

The new Ian McEwan - "What We Can Know."
Now I just need everyone to leave me alone and let me read it 🤣

I didn't know this existed so I just googled it, I want to read this!

Same here

A workbook how to manage OCd.

What can we know here too
dream count by Chimamanda
Clown town by mick Herron

i really enjoyed the safe keep OP, hope you do too

Raising Hare, by Chloe Dalton
The Real Jane Austen - A Life in Small Things, by Paula Byrne
Patchwork - a graphic biography of Jane Austen, by Kate Evans
Diddly Squat - The Farmer’s Dog, by Jeremy Clarkson.

Won’t start any of them until I have finished Educated, by Tara Westover, which I am currently half way through.

Girl, 1983 by Linn Ullmann. Started... not sure what i think 🤔

Ooh I’m interested in this one.

I also got The Safekeep, The Artist (in beeeauuuuutiful hardback edition) and Kathy Burke’s autobiography plus The Dark by Emma Haughton.

Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades, James Fox
A Year with Gilbert White, Jenny Uglow
Inspector French and the Mystery on Southampton Water, Freeman Wills Croft
Death in Ambush, Susan Gilruth (British Library Crime Classics)
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2026, Lia Leendertz
Also got The Safekeep, but not my kind of book, so will pass it on.

Vagabond - Tim Curry's autobiography 😍

A friend from NZ sent me Prey by Vanda Symon who is described as NZ's Queen of Crime. He actually ordered from a bookshop local to me so her books are available here. I also got the The Director by Daniel Kehlmann in German which I am really looking forward to reading. And which I also bought for my friend in NZ.

The Waves and Flush by Virginia Woolf. Very much looking forward to reading them when I get a bit of time!

Pompeii by Mary Beard. Not as dry as it might appear!

All My Mothers and The Healing Season of Pottery.

Three Revolutions by Simon Hall - looks interesting

I asked everyone for The Safekeep but nobody got it!

2 poetry books

The latest book in the Morland family dynasty by Cynthia Harrod Eagles. I probably need to read the entire series again to be honest as I have forgotten bits of it. A family in Yorkshire live through all the historical events from 1450 onwards. I well recommend it.

I got
Rainforest by Michelle Paver
The House of Splinters by Laura Purcell
What Stalks the Deep by T Kingfisher
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V E Schwab
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez.

You are here by David Nicholls

@ChristmasMantleStatue - the Forager's Year is hilarious. He mentions a handful of good things, lots of mushrooms you can only pick if you are very knowledgeable, and everything else is "technically you can eat this, but I don't know why you'd bother. It's not very nice."

"Nasty bitter things you can eat if you're desperate" might hav been a more accurate title. It's very funny and much more honest than most.

TBH the way most of DH's jams and preserves turn out I am not sure I would know to blame it on 'nasty bitter things'.

Eleanor - Alice Hoxten
Life Impossible- Matt Haig
David Attenborough- Life trilogy

I got a fabulous haul, most of them pre-owned as is our family tradition;

Raising Hare - Chloe Dalton
There Are Rivers in the Sky - Elif Shafak
Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout
So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan
The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
Two more in the Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Water and The Boy who Followed Ripley
The first four books in the Hawthorne detective series by Anthony Horowitz

and I think I have The Safekeep wrapped up ready for my birthday next month.

I am slowly making my way through Tove Jansson's book of short stories A Winter Book, but all the Christmas prep and finishing work meant I haven't read much these past weeks. Once the DC leave tomorrow, I will batten down the hatches, pour a large glass of Baileys, and start from the top of the pile.

Amazing. There Are Rivers In the Sky was one of my favourite 2025 reads

@MadameBethunesome great reads there. I have really enjoyed the Hawthorne and Horowitz series too.