On the first day of my wish-list, my Christmas library...

And I’m back! Just in time (more or less) for Christmas. Which means it’s a year (more or less) since BookSelfish began. Pa-poop! Confetti! Party horns! Paper crowns! Exclamation marks for everyone!!!!!!!

In celebration, commiseration and some other 'ation' words – which haven’t yet popped into my addled brain (addled: bad in both nogs of eggish nature and noggins of thirty-something self-styled wannabe bloggers) – I’ve made a Christmas wish-list. 

And count-down.

That’s right! I’m going to post about a  book I’d like to receive every day until Christmas. By my count, that’s eight books… if I’d thought of it sooner I’d have chosen the obvious festive number… (the best number according to both Sesame Street and Santa Claus, twelve).  If I’d thought of it sooner still, I’d have looked for books about drummers drumming and lords leaping. Maybe next year.

So… (you know the tune)

The first book on my wish list, my Christmas library:

A grown-up (well adolescent) Lemony Snicket – Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up

It’s been quite a year. Typing this I’ve come to the jaw-dropping epiphany that just as Alexander Skarsgard has surpassed Eddie Izzard to top my get-out-jail free list, so too has Daniel Handler pipped Mr Izzard in my personal hero stakes.

Why We Broke Up is Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snicket’s) new novel. It’s really young adult fiction, but we’re past all that right? Age appropriateness is for people who don’t eat cake for breakfast. And while the premise sounds a little trying (at the end of their romance, Min Green presents her ex – also an Eddie – or rather ‘Ed’ – a box of mementos explaining, AHAH!,  why they broke up… because it’s Handler/Snicket at the helm (and, ummm, now that I’ve read the NY Times review) I’m confident in my assessment that it’s going to be fresh, funny and interesting.

So Eddie (Izzard), here’s a virtual box of mementos for you from me. It’s covered in bees and comes with a slice of cake or death (sob). It’s not about the Eurozone, it’s just that I’ve moved on. Here’s why we broke up in one silly Snicket quote. 

To recap... on the first shelf of my wish-list, my Christmas library: a Snicket/Handler teenage love story.