Happy New Year?

Mr. Engineer and I started the new year off with colds and his turned into a sinus infection. Now I am sitting here feeling the pain killer wear off from the two ancient fillings that I had replaced today. 2010 is not starting out that well for us. Hopefully it will improve from here.

As a start, let's get back into the Booking Through Thursday routine, shall we?

What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)?
Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?

Ooooo! I like these questions! I received a few books this year and I made sure that Mr. Engineer received a few that I also wanted. Is it poor form to give your partner books that you want to borrow? Perhaps, but we do it anyway. Here are the books I received this year:

Abigail Adams, by Woody Holton
Well Preserved: Small Batch Preserving for the New Cook, by Mary Anne Dragan
Steampunk, edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
The Black Book of Secrets, by F.E. Higgins

The first two were purchases I made in my role as Santa and the second two were my gifts from my book club's secret gift exchange. They were on my short list of books that I wanted. Yes, I do request books and I buy them myself. My sister and her husband set a budget and then go to the bookstore together. Quite efficient.

Here are the books that Mr. Engineer received from me that I will be borrowing:
Superfreakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
And Another Thing..., by Eoin Colfer (the sixth book in Douglas Adams' trilogy)
Good Eats: The Early Years, by Alton Brown
Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, by Kevin Zraly

Young Man didn't miss out either, but he has already read all the books he received under the tree and in his stocking! I guess I can't complain if he will stop playing video games to read. Here are the books he received:
Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume (Vol 1), by Jeff Smith (actually, we returned this version and bought the individual books because the color versions really are nicer and the big volume was too big to read in bed)
Castle of Llyr, by Lloyd Alexander (book 3 in the Chronicles of Prydain series)