I’m a little behind with my blogging schedule thanks to a horrendous cold that hit me in the midst of my birthday vacation. Although I will say sitting on the beach with a sore throat wasn’t too rough, the flights home aggravated my symptoms and left me in flat in bed for a couple days.

Better late than never is one of my favorite old adages, so here’s my bookish birthday rundown!

I was gifted this book by my in-laws, which is awesome in so many ways. Granted, I had it on my Amazon wish list, but there’s a ton of stuff on there so they had to be choosy.

I first saw a copy of it Barnes & Noble not too long ago and it took all of my willpower not to buy it right away. I’m happy to report I started reading this week, and it is even more wonderful than I’d hoped! Our narrator is a fictionalized Joe Biden, who is recently out of office and bummed out that his buddy Barak is off having fun without him. The whole idea is so dang clever and well done. I’m less than 100 pages in right now, and the mystery is only starting to unfold. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, and can hardly put it down when I need to! Stay tuned for a full review later!

I returned home to a a thoughtful birthday care package from my bookish bestie, Lea. She’s quite possibly the biggest supporter of my writing, and one of my few early readers. She’s seen many a rough draft and talked me down from giving up when revising one more time feels impossible. So when I opened this notebook from her, I almost cried because it’s so perfect.

Appealing to my love of vintage cooking and homemaking books, Lea also sent me this adorably out of date copy of 101 Things For Girls To Do, made and published in Great Britain in 1935. It’s currently on display in my living room.

The majority of my gifts were in the form of gift cards for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. With them, I purchased a new Kindle because mine is almost 8 years old and has been freezing up on me a lot lately. Since all my NetGalley advanced copies are e-books, having an e-reader is crucial and fortunately Amazon was running a sale on Paperwhites, and I was able to grab a cute case for it too!

Thanks to my gift cards, I was able to fulfill my longtime wish of picking up a copy of this non-fiction account of the Kelloggs brothers. I’ve moved it to the top of my TBR list!

I love picking up souvenirs when traveling, and while they aren’t exactly bookish, I enjoy shirts with writing on, so here are the two I found in San Diego that I couldn’t resist.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to my birthday celebrations. While of course, I love receiving gifts, I value experiences over physical things.