{"id":6693,"date":"2011-12-01T15:51:01","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T19:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=6693"},"modified":"2016-07-11T12:56:19","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T16:56:19","slug":"december-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2011\/12\/01\/december-recommendations\/","title":{"rendered":"December Recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love Christmas and the holiday season, but apparently I read very little in the way of holiday books. I was tempted to skip this &#8220;monthly&#8221; recommendation and call it good when I post my &#8220;year&#8217;s best&#8221; in a few weeks, but then I decided to go through my books and see which ones have a touch &#8212; however slight &#8212; of the holidays in them, or, at least, which lend themselves to a bit of quiet reflection as the days get shorter. I actually came up with five very easily.\u00a0Though none would usually be considered a great holiday classic, they each are certainly classic in their own right.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>The Ghost Writer<\/strong><\/em>, by Philip Roth (<a title=\"Mookse Review of The Ghost Writer\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2008\/07\/04\/philip-roths-the-ghost-writer\/\">original review July 4, 2008<\/a>). I&#8217;ve recommended this one before and I&#8217;ll recommend it again (because I know there are many of you out there who haven&#8217;t read it yet). It&#8217;s not a holiday book, but it takes place in the Berkshires in the winter, even though most of the time we are inside a house discussing literature with a literary hero. The reason I included it here, though,\u00a0is because when it is almost over, it has one of the most memorable winter morning scenes I can think of.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh<\/strong><\/em>, by A.A. Milne (<a title=\"Mookse Review of The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2009\/02\/20\/aa-milnes-the-complete-tales-of-winnie-the-pooh\/\">original review February 20, 2009<\/a>). This one can be recommended during any season &#8212; spring\u00a0for when\u00a0Pooh Bear disguises himself as a rain cloud or for when Owl is in danger of losing his house on the\u00a0blustery day; summer for\u00a0when we celebrate Eeyore&#8217;s birthday or\u00a0for when we hunt Heffalumps; fall for when we leave them all behind and Pooh and Piglet go off to the sunset. For winter, we should read\u00a0Chapter Three: IN WHICH Pooh and Piglet\u00a0Go Hunting and Nearly\u00a0Catch a Woozle.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Ghosts<\/strong><\/em>, by C\u00e9sar\u00a0Aira (<a title=\"Mookse Review of Ghosts\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2009\/05\/05\/cesar-airas-ghosts\/\">original review May 5, 2009<\/a>). This strange book takes place on New Years Eve. A multi-storied condiminium is being framed, and, during the construction, a\u00a0family of squatters resides there, along with several ghosts. If you read this week&#8217;s story in <em>The New Yorker<\/em> (my thoughts <a title=\"&quot;The Musical Brain&quot; Forum\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2011\/11\/28\/cesar-aira-the-musical-brain\/\">here<\/a>), you know that Aira can be very strange indeed, but, as strange as this one is, it is also quite serious.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Wait Until Spring, Bandini<\/strong><\/em>, by John Fante (<a title=\"Mookse Review of Wait Until Spring, Bandini\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2010\/01\/05\/john-fante-wait-until-spring-bandini\/\">original review January 5, 2010<\/a>). One of my favorite books of the last few years, <em>Wait Until Spring, Bandini<\/em> is one of the true holiday books on this list. It doesn&#8217;t all take place around Christmas, but a memorable portion of it does, and it has the power to make us feel like we&#8217;re wearing wet wool mittens as the sun goes down.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>\u00a0The Peregrine<\/strong><\/em>, by J.A. Baker (<a title=\"Mookse Review of The Peregrine\" href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2011\/03\/03\/j-a-baker-the-peregrine\/\">original review March 3, 2011<\/a>). Here&#8217;s a spoiler: you&#8217;ll be seeing this one on my upcoming &#8220;year&#8217;s best&#8221; post. I loved this strange memoir where a man pushes himself out of the reach of humanity (even potentially his own)\u00a0in order to track the peregrine falcons that\u00a0hunted near his home in the fall and winter. It&#8217;s a beautiful nature book as well, and it certainly manages to remove the reader from society, which is one the things I like best about the holidays.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some December recommendations! <a href=\"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2011\/12\/01\/december-recommendations\/\"><u>Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[271],"tags":[],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-6693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monthly-recommendations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/winnie-the-pooh1.jpg?fit=371%2C475&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-1JX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6693"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19243,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6693\/revisions\/19243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6693"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}