We are welcoming in a new year and celebrating Cornflower Books' third birthday today, so I'd like to send the best of wishes to everyone who visits here - the loyal readers, the frequent commenters, the book group participants - because you all help to make the site what it is, and I truly appreciate your taking the time to drop in, to recommend books and send me links and otherwise contribute in such a grand manner!
My thanks also to the authors who make themselves available and to the publishers who provide such a lot of my reading matter; it's a privilege to be in touch with so many of you.
We can't let this occasion pass without marking it by way of a draw, so if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning a book, please leave a comment here telling us what you're reading, or are about to start, as the new year begins. I'll pull a name out of the hat in a few days' time, and I'll be sending the winner something special, so please do enter, especially as there is no geographical restriction and I can send the book anywhere in the world.
Happy new year!
Name in the hat, please!
Sending you the Very Best Wishes for the coming year - all the way from Western Massachusetts - with about 4 1/2 hours left in the old year. :-)
Posted by: Nancy | 01 January 2012 at 12:24 AM
Happy New Year, and Happy Birthday to Cornflower Books! I'm finishing William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow, and starting in on Dickens' Bleak House tomorrow to start the new year.
Posted by: Susan in TX | 01 January 2012 at 12:36 AM
Happy 2012! and many more birthdays for Cornflower Books!I've just finished LOUISE'S WAR by Sarah Shaber (about Washington DC in 1942 - where my parents met and were married in 1941) and am beginning IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson. Two World War II books - I'll have to find something lighter next. Please enter me in the drawing. Thank you!
Posted by: Carol in Maryland | 01 January 2012 at 12:46 AM
Happy Anniversary! I am currently reading Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, although I am distracted trying to choose my first book of 2012. Apparently that is an important decision!
I hope 2012 is a great reading year for us all!
Katie
Posted by: Katie | 01 January 2012 at 12:52 AM
Happy Anniversary! I've just finished Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (umpteenth reread) & I'm not sure whether to start another Sayers (Nine Tailors? Nice cold book as it's very hot here today) or Charlotte Bronte's Shirley. Both would be rereads but I'm not quite ready for a new book.
Posted by: Lyn | 01 January 2012 at 01:01 AM
Happy New Year! I have lots of books on the go, mostly on my Kindle. The main one is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
Posted by: Vivienne Dunstan | 01 January 2012 at 01:06 AM
A very happy new year to you and congratulations on the anniversary.
I started reading Catherine Dunne's Missing Julia. Loved the blurb and finding it very good.
Posted by: Mystica | 01 January 2012 at 01:48 AM
happy new year and a happy anniversary!
Posted by: Sarah | 01 January 2012 at 02:11 AM
We are leaving tomorrow for a 30 night cruise, so I have fully loaded my iPad with books to read..... so nice not to have to carry all of them physically! First up is to re-read Pride and Prejudice, then the P.D. James book to follow. Thanks for all your suggestions..... I have followed you to many of them, although I do not comment often I read Cornflower's suggestions everyday.
Barbara M. in NH
Posted by: Barbara M. | 01 January 2012 at 03:55 AM
Happy New Year and congratulations on the blog birthday. Just finished reading (and blogging)Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley,which is enchanting and all booklovers should read it. Now reading The Haunted Bookshop (a follow-up, but not as good) and Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent - I'm having a wonderful time with the Christmas Kindle and Project Gutenberg, so no more housework will be done!
Posted by: ChrisCross53 | 01 January 2012 at 09:12 AM
Happy New Year and Happy Birthday too! Please add my name to the draw. About to finish the end two chapters my last read of 2011 this morning; Thank Heaven Fasting by EM Delafield, a soothing middlebrow read. Not sure which one from the pile will be the first read of the 2012, maybe Dickens bio from Tomalin or finish Wuthering Heights on the Kindle.
Posted by: Fran | 01 January 2012 at 10:03 AM
I am quickly reading Lady Audley's Secret after seeing you are featuring it as your book group book. I am also reading along with Middlemarch over at dovegreyreader. Other than that I ask my daughter to pick a number as I can not decide which tbr to read next so in that way it is always as surprise.
Happy New Year.
Posted by: Janet D | 01 January 2012 at 10:39 AM
Happy Hogmanay!
I'm still reading David Copperfield and think it may take most of 2012 to acquire the patience to get me to the end, simultaneously finishing The Garden in the Clouds and about to start John Burnside A Summer of Drowning
Posted by: oxslip | 01 January 2012 at 10:40 AM
I hope you'll have a wonderful trip, Barbara. Happy reading, too!
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 January 2012 at 11:16 AM
Happy Birthday to the blog! And Happy New Year to all at Cornflower Mansions!
I've just finished, last night, Gillespie and I which is just as good as you promised, Cornflower and indeed I will email you with a QUESTION when I've put up this comment! I am about to start VISIT FROM THE GOOD SQUAD which I've avoided all year. Do not know why, but my agent gave me a copy for Christmas and she said it was 'good fun.' I feel like something modern and kind of astringent after the glories of Gillespie!
Posted by: adele geras | 01 January 2012 at 11:21 AM
Happy anniversary Cornflower Books and thank you for all the stimulating book chat. I was given Death at Pemberley for Christmas so was very interested to see your post on it and on PD James. I shall be starting it today, all fired up and re-Austened after seeing the television programme about her possible portrait discovery.
Posted by: Georgina | 01 January 2012 at 11:36 AM
Happy New Year to you and congratulations on the third birthday of Cornflower Books. I so enjoy reading both your blogs, so, thank you for writing! I'm reading more than one book (as usual) but the one I will continue with today is "Say Her Name" by Francisco Goldman which Colm Toibin calls "A beauiful love story and extraordinary story of loss" - so far, I agree! One of the other books I'm reading is a non-fiction "Begging to be Black" by Antjie Krog, a South African writer.
Please put my name in the draw! Have a good first day of 2012!
Posted by: Deirdre | 01 January 2012 at 11:52 AM
Have just found your lovely site, so will soon find something stimulating for 2012 (have been floundering...). Am currently re reading The Hare With Amber Eyes - LOVE this book! Please add my name to the hat. And best wishes for 2012
Posted by: Freda | 01 January 2012 at 12:26 PM
Happy New Year! I am reading 'Madame Tussaud' by Michelle Moran-so far it's good.There is also an ever-growing pile of books new and old waiting to be read on my bedside table.Hopefully this is the year to get on and reduce the pile.
Posted by: margaret46 | 01 January 2012 at 12:42 PM
Welcome, Freda! (The Hare is wonderful, isn't it?)
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 January 2012 at 01:03 PM
Happy New Year! I don't comment often but enjoy your blog. I'm rereading Mansfield Park and chasing over the American Southwest with a Douglas Preston thriller, Tyrannosaur Canyon. I'm working on the tbr pile, so I'm booked up for now :>)
Posted by: Susan E | 01 January 2012 at 01:32 PM
Happy New Year ! Have just read two of Paul Torday's books More Than You Can Say and The Girl on the Landing. Great and gripping reads. He is a wonderful story teller. I'm about to start Salmon Fishing in the Yemen also by him.
Posted by: Geraldine | 01 January 2012 at 01:36 PM
Happy Birthday, Cornflower Books! Can you only be three years old? It seems that you have been a part of my routine for so long now. Thank you so much! I am currently reading Jacqueline Kennedy's conversations with Arther Schlesinger, Jr. I think the small bursts of Q and A is all I have been able to concentrate on this week. Looking forward to 2012 with you.
Posted by: Michele | 01 January 2012 at 01:36 PM
Happy Birthday, Karen. Three years! It seems like yesterday.
Posted by: Mary Ronan Drew | 01 January 2012 at 02:02 PM
Oh, I'm reading Georges Simenon, The Innocents . . .
Posted by: Mary Ronan Drew | 01 January 2012 at 02:03 PM
Many thanks for the pleasure you've given and insights you've shared over the last 3 years. My bookshelves are all the heavier for them.
I've just finished THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR by Josephine Tey and I've now started ILLYRIAN SPRING by Ann Bridge which looks very promising.
Posted by: Linda Gillard | 01 January 2012 at 02:23 PM
Happy New Year from Canada! And congrats on your blogiversary! I've just finished reading Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain in the early hour today, so I consider that my first book read in 2012, even though I started reading it early December. I'm going strait to Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Maddens, a book I'll use for the Ireland Reading Challenge 2012 I've signed up. I'm open to suggestions: I need 4 books from Irish writers and with Irish setting, fiction and non. Thanks for putting me in the draw!
Posted by: Arti | 01 January 2012 at 02:38 PM
Happy Blog Birthday!
Not quite as traumatic as my birthday on the 3rd-mumbles, fifty.
I am about to embark on The House of Silence, by Linda Gillard, downloaded onto the Kindle the day it appeared on Amazon.
I didn't quite achieve my target of 100 books in 2011, with a shortfall of four.
All the best for 2012.
Posted by: Carole | 01 January 2012 at 02:42 PM
Happy new year and thank you for your lovely blog pages, the photos and colours are delightful. Name in the hat would be great thank you. I'm just starting Middlemarch because i'm reading along with Dovegrey
Posted by: Lynn M | 01 January 2012 at 02:56 PM
Congratulations on keeping up such a high standard of blogging for three years. Awesome.
I'm currently reading A Little Country Girl, a moral but enjoyable book by Susan Coolidge (author of What Katy Did).
Posted by: Barbara | 01 January 2012 at 03:02 PM
I am re-reading a book called "The Cook" by Harry Kressing. A six and a half foot tall man arrives in a town on a bicycle. He brings with him a carving knife and a magical collection of recipes......
Posted by: Pandora | 01 January 2012 at 03:22 PM
Have you read Famine by Liam O'Flaherty?
Posted by: m | 01 January 2012 at 03:44 PM
Happy anniversary ... is it only three years? You feel like such an old friend! I'm about to start The Odd Women, by George Gissing, which I've been meaning to read for ages and also the Tomalin Dickens which was my Christmas present to myself.
Posted by: m | 01 January 2012 at 03:48 PM
Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary!
And Thank You for the thought, creativity, time and effort you put into your wonderful, extraordinary blog!
Posted by: Lynda | 01 January 2012 at 04:02 PM
Happy New Year and congratulations on such an interesting blog. I'm reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child. I'm about halfway through and it feels as if its building up to something extraordinary.
Posted by: mousebark | 01 January 2012 at 04:39 PM
Arti, looking back at the books I read last year I could suggest two for your challenge: The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney and The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christine Dwyer Hickey, or from longer ago, some Molly Keane, say, but that's a wonderfully rich canon from which you have to draw. Happy new year!
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 January 2012 at 04:39 PM
Many happy returns for the 3rd., Carole!
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 January 2012 at 04:40 PM
Happy New Year and Happy Blogiversary! I've just finished the wonderful Almost French by Sarah Turnball and have started Guernica by Dave Bolingb which is rather more of a struggle.
Posted by: Victoria Corby | 01 January 2012 at 04:48 PM
Happy Anniversary Cornflower. I am reading Helen Humphreys The Lost Garden and Gilgamesh.
Posted by: catharina | 01 January 2012 at 04:51 PM
Happy New Year and Happy Blog Birthday Karen, and here's to many more. I have just finished A.S.Byatt's Still Life which sees me launched on Nos 1,3 & 4 of the quartet now.
Posted by: dovegreyreader | 01 January 2012 at 05:28 PM
Happy Birtday. I enjoy your blog a lot and am disappointed when I don't have time to read the book club read for the month. Looking forward to what you choose this year.
Don't put me in the running for a book as I have already won one from you.
Posted by: jodi | 01 January 2012 at 05:47 PM
Planning to read "Spilling the Beans" by Clarissa Wright.
Mixed reviews, but caught my interest. Please enter me in the draw.
Posted by: naris a, montes | 01 January 2012 at 06:05 PM
Happy New Year Karen, and happy anniversary! I've rarely commented but I've been following this blog since day one, and owe you many thanks for happy hours spent on books you recommended.
I am starting this year's reading with Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens, in honour of his bi-centenary.
Posted by: Marina | 01 January 2012 at 06:18 PM
Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary from Sweden!
Right now I'm reading Dash & Lily's book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan and Tinker tailor soldier spy by John le Carré. Love both!
Posted by: Pia | 01 January 2012 at 06:35 PM
Happy New Year/Birthday and thanks for all the fun.
Posted by: B R Wombat | 01 January 2012 at 06:42 PM
Happy Birthday! And look at all your comments, how lovely. I'm currently read The Poisonwood Bible, for my book group next week - I don't imagine I'll finish it on time, because it's enormous!
Posted by: Simon T | 01 January 2012 at 06:59 PM
I wish I had been following your blog since day one, but I am happy to say that it has been my treat to visit nearly everyday for 6 months! I currently have one foot in The Forgotten Affairs of Youth and one foot in Death Comes to Pemberley. Happy Birthday~Happy New Year! ~From Colorado
Posted by: Blair | 01 January 2012 at 07:15 PM
Happy New Year to all! I'm mid-read in Cutting for Stone. What a wonderful book! Loving it.
Also almost done with Tomorrow River by Lesley Kagen. This one I thought I wouldn't like, but for whatever reason I stayed with it and now I'm hanging on every syllable. I'm almost ready to "cheat" and peek to find out the ending!
Posted by: Marina McIntire | 01 January 2012 at 07:33 PM
48 comments!!
I just began on this New Year's Day, Lady Audley's Secret. I 'bought' it a few weeks ago for 0 money for the kindle.
I'm also reading A Voice From Old New York by Louis Auchincloss in print version.
Wishing you and yours the happiest of years.
Posted by: Nan | 01 January 2012 at 08:32 PM
Happy Anni to Cornflower Books.
Posted by: Zoe | 01 January 2012 at 08:37 PM