First reads of the New Year

As a Christmas gift I was completely chuffed to receive a book of poetry from my husband.  Poetry isn't everyones cup of tea, but I can get utterly lost in it.  I have always read it aloud to my son as the rhythm can be quite soothing, but now he's 3 he says 'that's boring mummy'!

My husband chose Carol Ann Duffy New Selected Poems for me as he remembered the poem I asked to be read at our wedding was River (from the Love Poems collection Rapture).  What was also so lovely and made me feel that my family do actually know me well, was that Sis chose the same book as a Christmas gift for me too. Was really touched.  One for my bedside and one for the 'slowly peruse shelf' at Granny's house.

The dust jacket has a lovely design by the Printmaker Angie Lewin:

The other book that was a pleasure to give to my niece Sophia was The Red Shoes by Sun Young Yoo / Gloria Fowler from Ammo Books, an adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale.

The illustrations in this book are beautiful and the sentiment of  the story is very inspiring:

...this contemporary version of The Red Shoes, offers a positive message to young girls that is much more in tune with our time. This adaptation focuses on the transcendent love between a mother and daughter, and the key notion that perseverance, ingenuity and hard work can allow one to overcome some of the greatest obstacles in life in order to pursue one’s artistic and creative dreams.

Many more stories and poems to lose myself in and many more books out there to discover. I'll let you know what we find over the year ahead.

Now, the only thing missing is a window seat - one of those snug little window seats with cushions to sit with a book and a cup of tea...and a cat maybe!

Can anyone lend me one?