New Year's Wishes from Neil Gaiman

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever. - Neil Gaiman"

-Neil's three New Years wishes to his fans. Beautiful words to welcome in a New Year. I hope 2012 treats you all wonderfully. Be Safe and Have a great night!

Books in my Stocking

As always I got a good selection of books for Christmas. This year they ranged from childhood favorites to memoirs young me would cringe at and I am excited to tackle each and every one of them!

For the child at heart I got The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. Both of which I have already finished and loved to pieces. 

I'm totally in love with the Winnie the Pooh cover, it comfort and vintage at the same time. It just screams "remember me".

The rest of my book haul:
Illuminated - Orloff,  The Rules of Attraction - Ellis, The History of History - Hattemer - Higgins

Bossypants - Fey and Just Kids - Smith

Now comes the hard part, reading all these before buying anything new!

Was Santa good to you this year? Comment and let me know all about your awesome gifts!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! 

I hope you find many lovely books under your tree and bookmarks in your stocking! Eat good food, spend time with loved one, take the time to appreciate the silly Christmas music you can't get away from. It's going to be gone tomorrow! Hope you all have a great Christmas!

Unreviewable Books

Four months ago I finished Slaughterhouse - Five. I liked it well enough. In fact I sped through it. Having never been able to finish Vonnegut before, but loving the idea of him as a person I was really pushing myself to like something, anything by him and I had finally found something sink my teeth into. Does anyone else do that? I love some authors as people but just can't love their work *cough Hemingway cough* and then just punish myself by trying to get through something that obviously isn't for me.

Seriously, who doesn't find Hemmingway just hilarious? Probably most of you. Right.

Anyways, I finished Slaughterhouse -Five and thought "Well, I don't have anything interesting to say about this." I don't know if it was the prose, or the story or just the overarching influence of the book but I was paralyzed by my lack of commentary.  Luckily at the time I was behind on reviews. This was going to be future Sarah's problem. Only now future Sarah is really just Sarah, and I still don't have anything to say about one of people's favorite Vonnegut books. So instead of writing some halfhearted review of a book I now only vaguely remember I am letting me off the hook. Slaughterhouse - Five was good. It was a pleasant way to spend a couple of days back in the summer. I recommend it as a way to ease into Vonnegut if, like me you tried but didn't really like Breakfast of Champions. That is my review. Do with it what you will.

Does this ever happen to you? To you ever just blank on what to say about a book you really wanted to review? What was your solution? Let me know!

I'm Baaaaaaaaack

Hello! Remember me? The girl who runs this little ol' book blog? It's ok if you don't. I kind of abandon you for a while. I got lazy, life got a little crazy and overall I kind of shunned books for a while.

It doesn't help that my Kindle broke right in the middle of The Secret History and I was to hooked to pick up another book and to scared of phone calls to call amazon until a week later, but I have a brand new Kindle and everything is right again!

Anyways, I'm back from my hiatus and excited to get back to everything that entails (like trudging through my overfull google reader. YIKES). Thanks for not giving up on me and stay tune for new reviews, musings and Christmas ideas!