New Year's Books

I got some books for Christmas! But even before that, I got hold of The Accidental, by Ali Smith, recommended by Sarah J. Sloat, who knew I would like it and was so right. It is perfect for someone who labels her blog posts "Random Coinciday," and that someone is me. By chance (!), I had just re-seen Love, Actually (an actual Christmas present from my daughter this year!) when a character in the book was seeing it! This young man thought the movie was crap...*...and yet!--he cared for the girls who were moved to tears by it. Girls like me!

*...the way a character in the movie thinks the song he is singing is crap...

Now I am reading Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris. It makes me laugh out loud. She is honest, funny, and endearing in all kinds of ways. She was a milkman and a copy editor for The New Yorker. I'm agreeing with her and learning from her, and I am delighted and comforted to have made some of the same mistakes over the years. There are words I always have to look up. Mary Norris actually looks things up in a physical dictionary. So do I!

Thanks to my daughter for the movie, my husband for the book, and my son for this new keyboard, as I was typing the letters off the old one! And for this new computer! (My old one was dying...) And for setting it up for his dear old sentimental technologically-challenged book addict of a mom. Happy New Year!