Khaled Hosseini | The Literary Bunny

And so this is Christmas.
And what have you done?

Well, I have been unwrapping books and I like that. I love receiving books as gifts – especially when it’s books I have been wishing for for a long time. So here’s my Christmas Haul!

Octavia Butler: Kindred. A sci-fi novel dealing with slavery. How could I resist that? Besides, everyone who has read this one, has been raving about it and it sounds really intriguing. A modern black woman is taken from her time and transported back to the South because of a drowning white boy. She’s apparently his nanny – and a slave! I’m so looking forward to reading about how a modern black woman deals with living in this time.
Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed. I have only read The Kite Runner but it was so good and I have been regretting that I haven’t bought A Thousand Splendid Suns yet. I was hoping that it would become available together with Hosseini’s new book, but so far, no such luck. Still, I have the new one and it’s supposed to be wonderful as well so I will probably love it!
Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence. This year’s Christmas Classic (the classic, my boyfriend gifts me for Christmas) is Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. I am so looking forward to reading it and I hope I like it because I have received the Norton Critical Edition so essays about the book takes up more pages than the actual novel itself in this edition! This will be my first Edith Wharton novel and I have so high hopes for both this novel as well as her other novels.

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Stephen King: Doctor Sleep. I have been eagerly awaiting this novel. I love The Shining, both the book and the movie, and when I heard that King was writing a sequel, I of course needed to get it. And here it is, looking all pretty with a cat on it’s cover?! My boyfriend also wanted to get me The Shining but apparently it’s sold out and we have to wait for a new edition. I really want to read them back to back so I think I’m going to wait with this one until I get The Shining.
Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch. Donna Tartt is a wonderful author and I have loved both The Secret History and The Little Friend. I have been waiting for this one for a couple of years and it’s finally here and looking big and amazing and I hope to get around to this one really soon.
Ib Michael: Himlen brændte. (The sky burned) Years ago, I attended a lecture about one of the biggest natural disasters in the history of the earth. On June 30th, 1908, there was an explosion in Tunguska in Siberia and it completely destroyed a huge area of the tundra. And the explosion is still a mystery. I have fascinated by this ever since and when I saw a novel about this event, I had to have it.

And finally, the debut novel of Selma Lagerlöf: Gösta Berlings Saga. I got a pretty old edition of this book, first published in 1891. I have never read Selma Lagerlöf and only know her as the author of Niels Holgersens underbare res a venom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Niels). I don’t know what this one is about but I’m looking forward to getting to know more of Lagerlöf’s writing.

So this was my haul this year. Some amazing books and I’m really looking forward to reading them! How was your Christmas? Did you receive any books or other great gifts? I also got some cool plates and a backpack and the kids had a wonderful time (although we now have two Furbys in the house…!) so this was a great Christmas!

So this week, the Top Ten Tuesday is looking forward. Which books are the most anticipated books for 2013? I remember doing such a list in January 2012 – and I don’t think that I knew that both Salman Rushdie, J.K. Rowling and many many more great authors would publish books this year. So there’s no guarantees that these ten are my most anticipated books for 2013 – but they are the most anticipated that I know of! As always, the Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and here is my list for this week.

Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I’m falling in love with Neil Gaiman. I have liked the The Sandman and Death graphic novels for years. I liked The Graveyard Book a lot. And I just loved Neverwhere. So I’m so looking forward to not only reading American Gods and the other books I have yet to get around to but also this new one, coming out in June.
Stephen King: Dr. Sleep. This is the sequel to The Shining. Set about 20 years later, the protagonist of this book is the son from The Shining, Danny Torrance. Well, need I say more? It’s Stephen King for crying out loud. Definitely very anticipated!
Donna Tartt. Yeah. This was on my list of most anticipated books of 2012 as well. I haven’t been able to find a title or a publication date so I don’t know if there’s any chance it will be coming out in 2013 but I’m keeping my fingers crossed since her first two books – The Secret History and The Little Friend – were both so good.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah. I absolutely loved Half of a Yellow Sun. It was such an amazing novel and I learned so much about the history of the Nigeria-Biafra war 1967-70 by reading it, a war that I didn’t even know existed before reading this book. I’ve been waiting for a new novel from her and it’s finally here!
Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed. I loved The Kite Runner! Again, such a great novel. I haven’t read A Thousand Splendid Suns yet but I have been told that it’s just as good. And now, finally, a new book from Hosseini, 10 years after The Kite Runner and 5 years after A Thousand Splendid Suns. I’m looking forward to this one too!
Joyce Carol Oates: The Accursed. Of course there’s a new book out from Joyce Carol Oates. Nothing surprising there. And of course I’m anticipating it. Nothing surprising there either!
Philip Pullman: The Book of Dust. A companion novel to the His Dark Materials trilogy. Count me in! I’m definitely looking forward to this one. Maybe I can squeeze in a reread of His Dark Materials before this one comes out? And maybe read Lyra’s Oxford too…
Brandon Sanderson & Robert Jordan: A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time #14). Finally. The last book in the Wheel of Time series. Will it come out? Will this series finally be finished? It has been dragging out for so long that I have to see it before I believe it and even though I have only made it through the first 4 novels in the series, this is one of my most anticipated novels, simply because I don’t believe it will actually be published but that the Wheel of Time curse will stop it instead…
Diana Gabaldon: Written in my own heart’s blood (Outlander # 8). I’m slowly getting into this series. I have really liked both Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber so even though I’m so behind on reading this series and therefore can’t pay too much attention to the publication of new books in the series, I’m still anticipating this one.
Adrian Tchaikovsky: War Master’s Gate (Shadows of the Apt #9). I’ve read the first 4 of this series and I’m so fascinated by the world, Tchaikovsky has created. I own 6 of these and I hope to get some time to read more of this series next year.