12 Days if Christmas Guest Post: Ana and Thea, le Book Smugglers

Alright, ya'all, for today, Opinionated? Me?'s 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS bring to you...

Ana and Thea! (aka The Book Smugglers)!


When Danielle invited us to guest blog during her Christmas celebration we were absolutely delighted as we are major fans of her blog. Then it hit us: we don’t really have any special holiday reading! Not in the traditional sense, at least. Like, you wouldn’t find Ana all cosy with a Christmas anthology or Thea reading A Christmas Carol for the 100th time (it would be easier to find her reading Zombie Scrooge or something like that. Oh, wait. * http://thebooksmugglers.com/2009/12/smugglivus-double-feature-vampire-haiku-by-ryan-mecum-i-am-scrooge-by-adam-roberts.html *. But even though we don’t have Christmas traditions per se, we do have a month-long special at our blog – we call it Smugglivus (after Seinfeld’s Festivus) and it does make us all tingly inside. Plus, this time of the year we end up taking a break and reading to our hearts desires so in a way, this is our tradition!

Ana: Exactly. For the past two years, all my reading around this time has been about catching up on those titles I missed or books that Thea has read and recommended to me. Two years ago, I was all about the romance and I must have read about 12 books between Dec 26th ad Jan 3rd (yeah, seriously) . This time around I am catching up with YA and Fantasy reads. For example, last week, I finally read The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert VS Redick which was out in 2008! One year late but I am glad I took the time, I loved the book. Then from the 24th to the 2nd, when I have a break from work I have a HUGE pile of lined-up books to read before the 31st or ELSE. Like, the Moira J. Moore’s Hero books. I read the first one Resenting the Hero which Thea highly recommended and I am now hooked. I shall be reading the next three in the series (The Hero Strikes Back, Heroes Adrift and Heroes at Risk)first. Then OMG, it will finally be time to read some of the YA I couldn’t find the time (shame on me ) to read throughout the year, like The Ex-Games by Jennifer Echols and Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford. And many more .

But you know even though I can’t really say I do any traditional Christmas reading, I do have movies that I HAVE to watch every.single.year around Christmas time. My favourite movie of all time is (yes it is!) , It’s a Wonderful Life. I just love, love this movie to bits and it makes me cry every time I watch it. Every year here in the UK, they show some musicals (and boy how I love musicals) and I always have to watch at least Singing in the Rain(I know, not Christmas-y at all, but hey it’s Gene Kelly. Singing and Dancing in the Rain! That’s BETTER than one thousand wrapped Hershey Kisses.) (No, I Lie, it is not, but it’s close) . And then, of course, there is my annual viewing of Gone With the Wind since I was 14, on New Year’s Day, I watch Scarlet O’Hara being all manipulative and man-steal-y but also so strong and hopeful and the last line of the movie: “Tomorrow is Another Day!” is the perfect way to start the year in my opinion!

What about you Thea ?

Thea: Well, Ana's basically said it all. Around this time of year, I usually find myself with a little extra time on my hands which I use to catch up on books of the year I desperately want to squeeze in before the Dec. 31st marker. Last year I was able to read Susan Beth Pfeffer's the dead and the gone, the horror anthology The Living Dead, and the last five or so graphic novels of Bill Willingham's Fables - all of which made my top 10 list of favorite reads of 2008! This year, I don’t have as much free time, but I'm still trying my darndest to squeeze in some late 2009 titles - Deadtown by Nancy Holzner, The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi, The Affinity Bridge by George Mann, Under the Dome by Stephen King. But, like Ana said, it's also a time to read some older titles too - I've had a hankering for some good scifi, and I'm hoping to get some of Stephen Baxter (a SF author I just discovered this year)'s backlist covered, and I've got Robert Charles Wilson's Spin on the burner too.

Did I mention the holidays are also a time of insane reading goals and delusions? Heh.

And, again as Ana said, i don't really have any go-to holiday reads....but I DO have a go-to holiday movie. This is kinda freaky, but my favorite movie of ALL TIME is also a Christmas film...Die Hard. I can recite it by heart (accents and inflections included), and I watch it every December at least twice. (I also watch it other times of the year, but it's got a special meaning for me on Christmas Eve)

So, there you have it!

A huge thank you to Danielle for inviting us over!

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be sure to check out these lovely ladies' blog, and stick around later for a review of the recent HATCHET BOOK GROUP release, Over the Holidays.