#blog12daysxmas Day 4 The Moonspinners

As I predicted yesterday, my Mary Stewart reading has become a binge on her novels set in Greece:). So I downloaded The Moonspinners and started reading her Cretan tale published in 1962. Again, this novel is set in the post-war era in Greece and romance and suspense are married in a story of British visitors to the Crete of that era. 

This Rough Magic may well follow and take me into Shakespeare as well as the Ionian islands.

#blog12daysxmas Day 3 My brother Michael

On the third day of Christmas I finally finished Mary Stewart's My brother Michael. I can't remember how many times I have read this title before, but I remember that this time I started reading it months and months ago when I was thinking about our trip to Delphi in May 2013. 

Whilst I had my progress recorded on Goodreads from then, I really had to start it again this time. Stewart's writing just pours out Greece to me and was obviously written by someone who knew Greece well and loved it. 

The author, Mary Stewart, who was born in 1916, died this May aged 97 when I was in fact in Athens doing a Greek course at the Athens Centre. My brother Michael was published in 1959 and the Greece she describes is very much one in the aftermath of World War II and the subsequent civil war in Greece. 

Stewart is probably best known for her Merlin books but her Greek ones are not surprisingly my favourites. I may just be starting a binge.

#blog12daysxmas Day 2 Ikaria

I have posted before about the pleasures of books for Christmas:) I love cook books and cooking and I love Greece and things Greek. So the selection of Diane Kochilas' latest book, Ikaria, as a Christmas present for me was a wise choice by my sister. 

I have a couple of Kochilas' other books which make great reading - and have great recipes too. This one is no exception and focuses on food from the island of Ikaria in the east Aegean. Kochilas was born and bred in New York City but her cultural heritage was Ikarian as her father had emigrated from there to the USA in 1937. 

I have only dipped into this book as yet but know I am going to enjoy reading about the history of the island and its food as well as enjoying the evocative photos. 

Day 2 of the 12 days of Xmas was again filled with much eating and drinking and socializing (this time for Neville's birthday), but at least I am doing a bit of blogging and reading today and hopefully will meet my target of 10k steps:) as well as making progress on several of the books I am reading. Eating, drinking, socializing, reading, walking: these are many of my favourite things.

#blog12daysxmas Day 1 My present to me

I signed up to do #blog12daysxmas again and here I am a day behind already. This year I knew it was going to be a struggle as I faced Christmas Day still having no Telstra land connections. So that means no landline phone and NO INTERNET. 

My only connection with the world and online community is via my mobile. It is now over a fortnight since I have been in this situation and it is distressing. However, I will try to do some short blogposts via the Blogger iphone app. 

That brings me to the real topic of my post, namely my Christmas present to me. All my life I have really associated Christmas with being given books. As time has gone by, I have got fewer books and that is probably a good thing for my book-filled house. However, I always get a few and they will feature in a few of my posts.

The first one I want to talk about is my own present to me. A couple of days before Christmas I was heading to Readings in Carlton to collect some books I had waiting for me for Christmas presents. On a whim I checked their online catalogue to see if they had a book that I was interested in and joy!  They had a copy at Carlton where I was headed.

The book is Adrienne Mayor's The Amazons  which was published by Princeton University Press in 2014. This is a great and wide-ranging investigation into Amazons in antiquity. I had known about the research for this book for some time as I am part of a Facebook group that Adrienne Mayor set up to crowd-source information on Amazon-related topics. This has been a fascinating group to be part of and an example of the great use that social media can be put to.

I delved into Mayor's book the day I bought it and am really enjoying it. It is the sort of book that one can either dip into or read straight through. I have been doing both and gaining great enjoyment. I am so glad that on a whim I bought it as my Christmas present to me.