Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

This Christmas gift from my husband was a lovely read over break. Meloy's short stories are contemporary and moving. I began at the back of the book with "O Tannenbaum", for obvious reasons. The story involves a couple out to cut down the perfect Christmas tree when they encounter another couple, stranded on the side of the road. Coincidently named Bonnie and Clyde, the strangers add an element of danger to a peaceful outing.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

A lacuna is an underwater cave, or a missing section of text in a manuscript, or according to the definition of Lacunar Amnesia, amnesia about a specific event. So, although I am a huge Kingsolver fan, I took a long time getting into this book because I hadn't had the time to immerse myself in it and kept forgetting what I had read previously each time I picked it up. Christmas break gave me the necessary time to plunge into it, and it was well worth the time. Harrison William Shepherd keeps notebooks. These notebooks, published later by his secretary, Violet Brown, who had a hand keeping some of them from being burned, record Harrison's interactions with a cast of colorful historic characters - Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Lev Trotsky, to name just a few.