Season's Readings

Holiday reading, Lazy Elf coffee, cozy season favorites, plus my weekly what

Every year around this time I respond to the ✨magic of the holiday season✨ by stocking my TBR with easy holiday romances - the fluffier and more holiday forward the better! I proceed to binge these books, in the strictest sense of the word, quickly doubling my romance reading for the year over the course of just a couple of weeks.

A favorite bookish tradition, these quick, sweet (sometimes steamy), seasonal stories are just the right pairing to keep me entertained and in the spirit as I spend hours on all the holiday magic making (wrapping gifts, cooking, et al.) or cozying up to read near the tree.

Here’s a selection of this year’s possibilities:

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Tell me:

• Do you have any bookish holiday traditions?

• Do you read holiday romances? Any you’d like to recommend?

• Anything, let’s chat!

What I’m…

Reading

• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Baby’s first Franzen. I picked this up because it was listed as #5 on The New York Time’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The story of a midwestern family from mid-century to near “present day” (though since this book was published in 2001 this means near the turn of the millennium) revolving mostly around the elderly mother attempting to bring her adult children together for one last Christmas at their suburban home. I read this a week ago and I’m still trying to settle on how I feel about it. While it undoubtedly reads like a modern classic, I expected to enjoy it way more than I did; something about the writing style was a little off for me and I shared my utter annoyance with a 550+ page book lacking proper chapters. Capturing the transition of one generation to the next and the evolution of a 20th century America into the 21st, I can see why this book is considered one of the best of the 21st century so far. It also won the National Book Award. While the plot does revolve around Christmas, the book is not Christmassy. And I think I’m going to have to read at least one more Franzen to cement an opinion on his writing. Bookshop | Libro.FM

• The Price of Salt/Carol by Patricia Highsmith. A classic both published and set in the 1950s about forbidden love between a young department saleswoman and a suburban housewife. A little pulpy, a little thrilling, lots of layers, and SO transgressive! I love thinking about just how groundbreaking this book would have been at the time it first published. Bookshop | Libro.FM

• One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery. Broke the seal on my annual holiday romance book binge with this one. More of a family drama with romance elements set at Christmas in an idyllic cabin that keeps expanding to accommodate extended family and friends, and ex-wives of new boyfriends. There’s drama, there’s holiday traditions, it wasn’t love for me, but it wasn’t a bad start to my seasonal reading. Bookshop | Libro.FM

Listening

• Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De Leon. This book immediately went to the top of my TBR after it won the National Book Award for non-fiction. An anthropologist who embedded and formed relationships with the smugglers who aid migrants across the U.S. southern border provides an incredibly honest, empathetic, and humanized look at this complicated and violent world. I recently read Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis and not only do I think these titles are must reads, they’re also an excellent pairing. Bookshop | Libro.FM

• The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz. I quite enjoyed this follow up to The Plot. Though it’s a worthy sequel I did like The Plot better, but I just love the way Korelitz uses these stories to comment on writing and the book industry. I listened to most of this on audio, narrated by Julia Whelan it’s a great listen. Bookshop | Libro.FM

• A Jingle Bell Mingle (Christmas Notch #3) by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. These steamy, festive books featuring an odd mashup of adult film, a Hallmark facsimile network, and aging boy band members making holiday media in the idyllic town of Christmas Notch, Vermont are SO fun! I read the second book, A Holly Jolly Ever After, last year. These are great on audio with dual narrators. After reading I discovered book 3 is to be the final for the series. This gives me the opportunity to circle back and read the first book next year! These books can be read out of order as is typical of companion romance novels, assuming you don’t find references to prior couple’s HEAs a spoiler. Bookshop
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• Culture Study Podcast: The Expansive World of Queer Romance. This convo between Anne Helen Peterson and Adib Khorram (author of Darius the Great is Not Okay) touches on a lot of interesting topics related to queer romance and who writes it, who reads it, and who is featured in these stories.

Watching

• Somebody Somewhere (Max). We did a full series rewatch now that season 3 is out and the show is complete. This is a chronically underrated dramedy with so much heart that more people need to watch.

Eating & Drinking

• We had a rescheduled Thanksgiving meal last Sunday so we did a couple nights of leftovers this week because my fridge was bursting with containers

• I also made this Leftover Turkey Soup, which proports to be the best. I haven’t made enough leftover turkey soups to say definitively, but this one is really quite good and easy to put together and allows for modifications, all of which I appreciate. I made this with 1/4 cup each of brown and wild rice and added 6 oz of sliced mushrooms to the sautéing veggies. I think it could also stand a glug or two of sherry or white wine, which I had planned to try, but forgot until I was sitting down to eat - next time!

• These Dressed-up Sloppy Joes are a forever family favorite. I served them with curly fries from the freezer and grapes for a quick and easy late week meal.

• Lazy-elf Peppermint Mochas have made a return to my morning holiday mug. If you missed this last year, I add an Andes mint to my mug before brewing coffee as usual. Add a splash of cream and you’ve got yourself a tasty seasonal treat.

Links + Loves

• I bought a puzzle board back in November to make myself feel better about the impending doom of the cold winter months when I tend to do a lot of puzzling. I LOVE this thing. It’s super functional and really levels up the experience. The exact one I have is currently sold out, but this one looks extremely similar and currently has a $10 off coupon. This would make an excellent gift for anyone who enjoys puzzles, or for yourself - you deserve it!

• It has been freezing cold here the last couple of days and my heated throw blanket has been working overtime. I use this thing daily in the cold weather months.

• Obviously I’ve been leaning into the cozy lately, the other thing I appreciate is a cozy scent. During the day I’ve been diffusing Peaceful Holiday and Joyful Holiday from Eden’s Garden (currently offering 25% off sitewide) on repeat. In the evening I’ve been burning Trader Joe’s Evergreen Cedar or for a cozy level up Frostbeard Studio candles, I am loving the Holiday Hygge right now. I really enjoy Winter Keep and Bookstore. (Click for 20% off at Frostbeard.)

• After reading The Price of Salt I immediately took to the internet for some additional context. I came across this Lit Hub piece about a writer’s experience reading a used copy, which inadvertently came to them pre-annotated: A Secret Literary Love Hidden in the Margins of The Price of Salt.

• As a big fan of both While You Were Sleeping, a sleeper Christmas rom-com, and staying in bed, this 2018 article that hit my radar really spoke to me: Every Sandra Bullock Outfit in While You Were Sleeping Is Pajamas: This classic romcom is a love story between a woman and staying in bed (Elle)

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