Happy New Year from France
I wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope 2013 will be good for you and your beloved ones. I wish you the best for this New Year.
Blogging and interacting with fellow avid readers has changed my way of reading. It’s become less solitary. When I had no reading plans three years ago, I find myself with some right now. I’ll read the books I got for Christmas through our Humbook Gift Event. I want to finish In Search of Lost Time; two more volumes to go after La Prisonnière. I already know that I won’t like Albertine disparue but I’m looking forward to reading Le Temps retrouvé. I remember it was fantastic.
I also have the books we chose for our Book Club. In January, we’re reading Notre Coeur by Maupassant, you’re welcome to read it along with us if you wish. I want to read more of Thomas Hardy, the next one on my list is Far From the Madding Crowd. Then I’d like to explore other European writers. And I bought White Dog by Romain Gary in English. I want to compare it to the French version. You can’t talk about translation because Gary adapted the “novel” in English by himself. So I’m curious about it.
Anyway, I’ll start first with a Japanese book as Tony hosts January in Japan for the first time this year. Therefore I’m currently reading N*P by Banana Yoshimoto.
More importantly, I’m on a serious book buying ban this year. My TBR is huge and it needs to go down. To keep my promise, I even pre-ordered Andrew Blackman’s next novel, Virtual Love, which will be released in April. See how earnest I am about it; I’m trying to set some boundaries to avoid temptation. So I’ll need to steer clear of bookshops and refrain from downloading books after reading enthusiastic reviews on other blogs. That’s going to be a tough fight with myself.
I will continue to read other blogs and comment when I can or if I have something to say. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to thoroughly follow as many bookish blogs as I’d wish to. Thanks again to all the readers who intend to follow my literary life. I send a friendly Hi to all those who will pop here now and then or land here by accident after typing something in their search engine.
PS: Special message to all the persons who arrive here after searching “How French men treat their women”: as far as I’m concerned, I’m well treated… 🙂 Please find another sentence to word your thoughts, this one sounds so Neanderthal to me.
Book Around the Corner 
Happy New Year to you, too!
Good luck with all of your plans. I had a two or three year stretch when I bought almost no books – one or two a year – so I know that it is possible.
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Happy New Year to you too!
Thanks for the encouragements: I see it’s possible to stick to the resolution not to buy books. I have more than a year of reading at home.
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Happy new Years Emma!
May 2013 be a great reading year!
P.S. I just HAD to type that search into Google. Your blog came up first 🙂
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Happy New Year, Brian!
I wish you a good reading year too.
PS: Did you reach the post about French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton? I had to put this somewhere in a post as I often get visitors after they typed this. I wonder what they’re looking for.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR, EMMA. Here’s to logs of good books in 2013.
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typo: lots
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Happy New Year to you too, Guy.
I hope 2013 will be good to you and full of literary gems.
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Off to a good start.
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Here’s to a wonderful new year, full of excellent books 🙂
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Happy New Year, Tony.
I’ve just finished Banana Yoshimoto and I’m preparing my first entry for January in Japan.
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If you repeat the phrase its likely to attract more of the same, best to delete the phrase if you don’t want more of them visiting 🙂 The irony of it makes me laugh. Don’t ever mention the thing you don’t want, it attracts more of it, mention the thing you do want and it will arrive in abundance.
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I know that.
I did it on purpose, it’s my rebel side: this phrase irritates me and I’m glad to mislead people to something that has nothing to do with what they’re looking for. Just as I always give wrong information to marketing surveys that are imposed on me or when I’m obliged to give my birthdate to complete an order on internet. I’m having fun messing with their database.
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🙂 If you are interested in search terms visit Cassie at booksandbowelmovements.com every week I read the most enterprising search terms that bring people to her site, mine are so boring in comparison! And she reads a lot of interesting books!
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Thanks for the recommendation.
Tom from Tomcat in the red room tweets about his best ones too. Usually, it’s funny.
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They’re the best, guess you gotta know how to inspire them! Must watch out for TomCats tweets 🙂
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I wish you a very Happy New Year as well.
Good luck with the book buying ban.
I will follow your example. Let´s see who caves in first.
Mayb we could tunr this into a game. The one who buys the first book has to buy a book present for the other one? Or something like that.
I will make far less plans this year. I was very active last year but most of the things I did had not that much to do with my previous plans. I´ve also finished my first Japanese book and some others.
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Happy New Year.
Let’s think positive and say that we won’t cave. OK for the game but you’d better stick to the book buying otherwise you’ll get a gift book that you won’t read since gifts gather dust on your shelves. It won’t help with the size of yourTBR. 🙂
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happy new year from derbyshire ,all the best stu
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Happy New Year to you too.
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Happy New Year, Emma! Thank you for teaching me the word copinaute this year – I don’t know how I’ve managed so long without it!
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Happy New Year, Litlove.
This word is lovely, isn’t it? Writing billets to copinautes is lovely in itself.
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Happy New Year Emma!
A book buying ban. I did a post about a year ago on cutting back purchases. I should post an update. Good luck, and enjoy the Banana Yoshimoto (I’ve only read Kitchen by her, the famous one).
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Thanks Max, I wish you a Happy New Year too. I hope you feel better and that your back will leave you alone in 2013.
I’ve finished the Banana Yoshimoto and I found it…Murakamish.
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Happy New Year to you too, Emma! Hope you have a wonderful year filled with lots of books and beautiful reading moments! All the best with your book buying ban. I wasn’t on an official ban but was on an ‘unofficial’ one and resisted book buying for a while. But a couple of months back I thought I will relax it and suddenly there are more than 20 new books lying on my shelf! I am liking the buying part, but I think it is not a wise thing to keep buying without having the time to read. Happy reading!
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I’m hoping that making my book buying ban official will help me keeping to my word.
I have enough to spend a whole happy reading year.
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Happy New Year, Emma! Thanks so much for ordering my book. That’s probably my first sale! It means a lot to me that you’re thinking about it enough to order so far in advance. Hope you like it, when it eventually arrives.
Your book-buying ban makes a lot of sense. I’ve tried it in the past myself, with mixed success. Well, OK then, let me be honest: I failed miserably. The only mixture was the degree to which I failed. But I am sure you will have more discipline than I did!
Hope you enjoy the year ahead, and read lots of wonderful books. As ever, I look forward to reading your thoughts about them.
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Happy New Year, Andrew. I hope you’ll have a great reading year too and that your novel will be successful.
I decided to talk about my book buying ban in the hope that it will help me stick too it. In a kind of a weight-watcher spirit.
Thanks for reading my billets and commenting.
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