International readers may not know that us (we? this is a grammatical rule I’ve never mastered) fat Americans have just finished a holiday noted for its gluttony. Now we will follow it with a holiday once much-revered for celebrating world peace but which has been mutated into a four-week orgy of spending.

My kid promptly handed me a list on Friday. Not just any list. THE list. Santa’s list. Thankfully I noted some book titles, and an underlined plea for gift cards so she can get the latest Erin Hunter title, helpfully released December 26 to take advantage of the after-season holiday frenzy (marketing genius, Vicky!).

I’ve got a list of my own, and I find that the more time I spend in a bricks-n-mortars store shopping for others, the more I feel justified in buying a little something for myself. No one knows my tastes like I do. I’ve decided that 2007 is going to be the year of the quirky read for me.

At the top of my list is Jasper Fforde’s THE EYRE AFFAIR, followed by THE KEEP by Jennifer Egan. I’ve also thrown in some sundry classics. Maybe this is the year I read Flaubert. Everyone should read Flaubert, I hear. And of course, if the portents hold, we’ll have the final Harry Potter installment ready to be devoured on 7-7-07.

[Ooo, UPDATE: the Guardian newspaper is holding a contest to name the final Harry Potter book. The winner will receive an autographed book plate by the queen herself, JK Rowling. Hmm, Harry Potter and the Tome of Unreal Expectations? Harry Potter and the Well of Everlasting FanFiction?]

The NYT’s has helpfully compiled a list of 100 Notable Books just in time to add for your holiday wish list (free subscription required). The Guardian has one too, for children.

What’s on your book wish list?

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
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