My Birthday Books

When my family asked me what I would like for my birthday this year, I thought about it for a couple of days and came up with the following: send me a book that you really enjoyed.

Well, today was my birthday, and I’m happy to say my family came through with flying colors.

Here are the books I received today, via Kindle:

  • News of the World by Paulette Jiles
  • Replay by Ken Grimwood
  • Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland
  • The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston
  • Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield

I told my wife and sons that while the books are a great gift, the best part of the gift is that they are each sharing a part of themselves. And once I finish reading them, it will be fun to chat with them about the books and what they enjoyed the most about reading them.

The hardest part will be deciding which one to start with. I think I may write the title of each book on a slip of paper, put all the slips in a jar, and then remove one slip at a time, and that will be the order I read them in.

And one final benefit, and I did not realize this until I was typing this post – this will likely give me five future blog posts…

Books really are the gift that keeps on giving…

*image from My Birthday Books

63 thoughts on “My Birthday Books

  1. Geez, your family really threw the book at you. If I was related and on your bad side, I would have sent you War and Peace. But actually, this seems like a novel way to bond with your family members, though a bit time-consuming. I hope you have fun with it.

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  2. Books are an awesome gift. I tell my family they can’t go wrong with books as gifts for me. I like your idea of them giving you books they have really liked. Like Tippy said that is a way to bond! I read The Hunger Games due to my son when he was younger. Remember when that series was really popular?
    Hope you had a great birthday!

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  3. happy, happy birthday, jim! what a wonderful gift idea, and a great way to figure out which to read first. the task could be like someone asking you to name your favorite child.) may this year find you full of words, stories, and stats!

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  4. A great idea for birthday gifts and, as you say, a whole store of future blog posts awaits. I’ll be interested to see what you make of each book, and why they all mean something to your family. We could all learn a lot here!

    And a belated Happy Birthday for yesterday – hope you had a lovely day 😊

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