Mailbox Monday: The New Year's Eve Edition

2012 sped by for me!  I'd like to wish all of my readers a happy and healthy new year!  Do you have any resolutions for the new year?  My resolution for 2013 is two deceptively simple words: read more. 

Last week, I received two books.  From Zibilee's wonderful blog, Raging Bibliomania, I won Runaway Girl by Carissa Phelps, which sounds like a touching and inspiring memoir.  Forks Over Knives by Gene Stone, a book about the health benefits of a plant-based diet, was under our fragrant fir tree on Christmas morning.  I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat a lot of meat, and I'm always eager to learn more about health, so I think I'll find this book quite interesting. 

Mailbox Monday is a marvelous way to share our new books.  Created by Marcia, who has set up several book blogs as well as a blog devoted solely to Mailbox Monday, this meme has been "on tour" for the past few years.  I've greatly enjoyed hosting Mailbox Monday for the month of December.  Lori's Reading Corner will be the host of Mailbox Monday for the month of January.

What new books arrived in your mailbox or home recently?  Please leave a comment after linking.  Thank you!

First Lines 2012

Created by Melwyk from The Indextrious Reader, the idea of the First Lines meme is "to take the first line of each month's first post over the past year and see what it tells you about your blogging year." It's fun to revisit past posts and do a sort of personal review of your blog in this manner.  This is my fourth time to do this once-a-year, end-of-year meme.  I look forward to it all year; keeping this meme in mind reminds me to write more interesting opening sentences, especially at the beginning of each month. :)  To read more of any post, simply click on the month above the first line.

January
Usually, I let Bermudaonion--Kathy--do all the work.

February
Did the first month of 2012 fly by, or is it just me?

March
Mailbox Monday, hosted this month by Anna from Diary of an Eccentric,  provides a socially acceptable way for us to boast about our new books.

April
Sometimes, more times than I'd like to admit these days, I feel sort of "old school".

May
Welcome to the 45th edition of Really Random Tuesday!  

June
Before reading this book, I associated Transylvania with Bram Stoker's horror novel and film, Dracula, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

July
Does Laura mean lucky?

August
The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe is a novel about Grace Miller, who yearns for a child and opens up a French café in Macau, China, where she and her husband, Peter, live.

September
The breezes taste
Of apple peel.

October
Pick a book, any book.

November
Will you join the more than 90 million Americans expected to cast their ballots today?

December
It's a wonderful life!


To my surprise, I discovered that I started the year with a meme, Wondrous Words Wednesday, and began a majority of months with memes, namely Wondrous Words Wednesday, Really Random Tuesday, and Mailbox Monday (which I've been hosting this month).  In 2012, I did plenty of memes, and aptly, my last post of the year will be a meme as well (Mailbox Monday).  On a different note, I did not include quotes from books or other sources as "lines", but I did include the opening line of the poem September by John Steinbeck, as that entire poem was presented as the first part of the ninth month's first post.

If the idea to gather your first lines also appeals to you, please feel free to follow suit.  You might learn a thing or two about your own blog in the process.