Hello lovely readers! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season – I know I certainly have. While December hasn’t really been a successful reading month for me, what with finals and the holidays, it has most definitely been a wonderful month for acquiring new books. I thought I would take sometime today to show you the the new books that have come into my life lately, both books I’ve bought myself and books I’ve received as gifts for Christmas. These are all books that I’ve been wanting for ages, and I can’t wait to read them in 2017.

This book definitely has one of the most gorgeous covers I’ve seen in a long, long time! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as I’m sure many of you will already know, is the screenplay and stage directions for the corresponding film by the same title, which was released back in November of 2016. The plot follows Newt Scamander, a so-called “Magizoologist,” who travels to New York in the 1920s with a suitcase of fantastical, magical creatures. I’m already about halfway through this one, as I started it as soon as I got it on Christmas day, and so far I’m enjoying it. I have not seen the film yet, so I plan on watching it after I finish the screenplay and possibly writing a blog post on how I feel about both. We shall see. 🙂

Find it on Amazon: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

Amor Towles’ only other novel, Rules of Civility, is one of my favorite books of all time, so when I heard that he was releasing another historical fiction book I absolutely had to get my hands on it. I can be a bit cheap when it comes to buying new releases in hardback (college student budget and what not), but when I saw a signed copy of this at Barnes and Noble on Black Friday I couldn’t resist. Set in 1920s Russia, A Gentleman in Moscow follows the aristocratic Count Alexander Rostov who is sentenced to house arrest in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. Towles’ writing is always magnificent, so I’m looking forward to reading this one.

Find it on Amazon: A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

If you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon is one of my favorite book series of all time. I enjoy the TV series almost as much as I do the books (how could you not, with Sam Heughan as Jamie?), and although I’ve gotten a bit behind with it as of late I can’t wait to catch up, particularly now I have this official guide to the first two seasons by Tara Bennett. The Making of Outlander promises to take “readers behind the scenes and straight into the action” of the television series, from interviews with the stars to how the sets are built. This book also seems to have a section for each episode of the first two series, which I think is a rather nice little touch. The photography in this book seems to be beautiful, and I can’t wait to dip in and out of this one over the next year.

Find it on Amazon: The Making of Outlander: The Series: The Official Guide to Seasons One & Two

Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M. M. Blume is the only book from this haul that has been mentioned previously on my blog, as back in July I included it in my Hemingway-Inspired Reading List. This nonfiction book takes Hemingway’s first published novel, The Sun Also Rises, and looks at the real-life people that inspired the characters and storylines. One of my favorite historical fiction novels, Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, touches upon this subject a little bit, but I love reading about the 1920s and I can’t wait to find out more about the scandalous set that inspired Hemingway’s prose.

Find it on Amazon: Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises

While I love planning out my TBR list in advance and heading out to the shops knowing exactly what book I’m looking for, sometimes there is nothing better than meandering around a bookshop and stumbling across a volume you’ve never seen or heard of before in your life, and this is exactly how I found The Six by Laura Thompson. I don’t really know anything about the Mitford sisters, other than that Nancy Mitford was an author, but something about the cover of this book compelled me to pick it up off the shelf. It wasn’t until I read the following sentence from the inside flap, however, that I knew I absolutely had to buy this book:

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by British poet laureate John Betjeman; the third was a Fascist who married Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.

Doesn’t that sound amazing?? I’m a bit of a sucker for books about strong women, and I think this one sounds completely fantastic. I will most definitely be picking this up within the first couple months of 2017.

Find it on Amazon: The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

The last book in this haul is another book relating to the Outlander series, however instead of a nonfiction guide this is a prequel novella. Written by Diana Gabaldon herself, Virigns follows the series’ main male character, Jamie Fraser, before the action of Outlander begins and he falls in love with Claire. In this book, according to the description, the year is 1740 and “Young Jamie Fraser has left Scotland and, with his best friend Ian Murray, is running with a band of mercenaries in France.” I was really excited to receive this as a Christmas gift from my mom, as it was only printed in the UK, but if you’re interested in reading it for yourself you can find it fairly easily in ebook format.

Find it on Amazon: Outlander 07: Virgins

So that’s all of the books I acquired throughout the month of December! Have you read any of these? Are there any books you received for Christmas that you’re particularly excited about? Let me know down in the comments. 🙂