Every year, up until I was about 30, and living far away from home in the UK, I used to get a book for Christmas. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Isabel Allende. Richard Flanagan. Inside, always inscribed, 'Love from Mum and Dad'. Christmas Day was always curled up on the sofa reading a book. We always did the extended family dinner on Christmas eve, and breakfast with my folks, so the afternoon was always very quiet and lazy. My Dad used to say Christmas Day was the one day in Australia that everyone just stopped. It gave the earth a break, he used to say.

I miss those days.

This year will be our first Christmas without Dad. It'll be worse for Mum, who won't have the distraction of a partner. She's doing okay, considering. She confesses to feeling flat, and she misses Dad terribly. She's doing her best.

My sister and I thought we'd buy her a book each for Christmas, because despite being terrible at gifts, Dad always managed to find a couple of books for Mum to read on Christmas Day.

Me, I'm at the library, stocking up for Tassie, where we head on Boxing Day. I have 'The Three Body Problem', as I loved the first season of the TV adaptation. By Liu Cixin, it's set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, where astrophysicist Ye Wenjie contacts an alien civilization, whose impending invasion divides humanity, with factions either aiding or opposing the extraterrestrials. A good summer read, I think.

I've been enjoying getting cook books to flick through, something I hadn't thought about before as viable library options. I always get inspiration from cookbooks, though rarely use the recipes, so flicking through these over breakfast seemed like a fun thing to do. Next year I think I'll grab more non fiction as there's a lot of gardening books as well which would also be inspiring.

I also really want to read the Booker Prize for this year, Samantha Harvey's Orbital, but the reserve list is about 30 people long so I might just have to buy it. I think Big W have copies for $14 compared to the usual $35. Reading is an expensive hobby.

However, the thought of curling up with a book on Christmas Day and beyond on a beach in Tassie for the summer is just a really warm thought.