My niece just got married and I gifted her The Joy of Cooking, All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking, and The Ultimate Guide to Home Repair and Improvement because she requested my go to cookbooks and a book for general maintenance of their new apartment. She is a woman after my own heart!

I have been a total slacker in terms of playing book bingo...but THIS I can do.

There are a few books I always try to keep an extra copy of to give away.

1) Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossed. I love this little novel/thought experiment comparing the benefits and potential problems of an anarchist society to a capitalist one. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13651.The_Dispossessed?ac=1&from_search=true



2) Gossamer Axe. An amazing, powerful fantasy novel that's now out of print. It was the first novel published by Gael Baudino and among other things deals much with healing and music as magic. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/790426.Gossamer_Axe?from_search=true


3) Deerskin by Robin Mckinley...a novel based on the French fairytale Peau D'ane (Donkey Skin)...a princess who runs away when her father tries to make her replace her dead mother. This a very intense emotional healing journey in a fantasy novel. I'd say it def deserves trigger warnings.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8087.Deerskin

So many others too....Our Bodies Ourselves for teen girls.

Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_on_the_Corner_of_Bitter_and_Sweet

Ok, I've already gone over 3...so I'll stop here.

I love to give people books or gift cards to books stores. Last Christmas I gave my niece the book Rejected Princesses by Jason Porath. Which is an awesome book that introduces you to over 50 women who changed history.

Also given last Christmas The Magic Nesting Doll by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, such a beautifully drawn book. It is a fairy tale about a Russian girl who saves a her country and the prince from an eternal winter.

At a recent baby shower the mom-to-be asked in lieu of cards to bring a book for the baby. I chose Horton Hatches an Egg by Dr. Suess, which was my favorite book when I was very young.

I love the sound of the magic nesting doll story!

It is really good. The illustrations are gorgeous.