Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, in fact, this blog could easily have been called Austen & Poe in Wonderland. It was a bit wordy and I wanted to focus more on an eclectic blend of topics. I know quite a bit about her life, and I’ve read a majority of her 6 novels (haven’t gotten around to Northanger Abbey). However, I freely admit I don’t know everything. Jane Austen was certainly unique in her time period and remains so today. I picked up 30-Day Journey with Jane Austen today. I bought it months ago but hadn’t read it. Well, I only made it through the introduction and day one of the book before I decided I HAD to share excerpts from it with you. If you enjoy history, hopefully, you’ll like these Austen facts. This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a…
If you’re like me, you might enjoy reading spooky stories all year round. If you only like to read them along with horror and supernatural ones during the Halloween season, we’ve found resources for you. Halloween reading is alive and well (yes, we said it). We found a Paste article listing the best 50 horror novels of all time, a fun Halloween book club you can join from a multitude of online places, and an intriguing novel we weren’t familiar with but will be ordering ASAP. If we love nothing at all, we do live for a good fairy tale! Have you lain awake at night wondering what the 50 best horror novels of all time are? No? Well neither have we, however, we were curious since it is October. Paste made a list in 2018 written by Steve Foxe and their staff and it’s pretty comprehensive. Yes, you can…
This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. Where do you find your latest books these days? I’ve been discovering and ordering ones that cross my Instagram feed from book reviewers. I enjoy their breakdowns and honest opinions of what’s on their To Be Read (TBR) lists. It’s been my main source since the continuing state of the world has drastically cut down on my trips to bookstores. I dart into Barnes and Noble and used stores if not crowded. In and out. I decided I’d Google top books of 2020 to see what’s new. After scrolling through title lists, I’ve picked 5 out to tell you about today from some key categories. The source I used was FiveBooks.com which is a site where experts and authors make recommendations on what they consider the top…
Storiarts scrolled across our feed one day and caught our interest. Their photographs display works of literature turned into everyday items. As avid book readers, this is a win-win! Big fans of wearing what we like as shirts. and can you imagine quotes from Jane Austen, Poe, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Shelley, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Maya Angelou? One of the main things that also impressed us about the company is their devotion to literature. They work with an organization – LitWorld – to spread the love of reading and writing to children. Part of every purchase is donated to LitWorld. “LitWorld is a non-profit organization dedicated to on-the-ground innovative solutions to tackling illiteracy worldwide. Based in 28 countries, LitWorld created three programs that stand today as the organization’s core models: LitClubs, LitCamps, and World Read Aloud Day. Storiarts shares their vision to strengthen children and communities through the power of their own stories…
Happy Birthday to Alice in Wonderland! A day late but nonetheless. Wishing Happy Birthday to the story that began July 4, 1862, on a boating trip with Charles Dodgson and the Liddell sisters. A very merry unbirthday to all of you! https://youtu.be/RdsZT7WKjW8
Happy 168th Birthday to Alice Liddell – the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland! Interesting that the story’s image of Alice is a matter of dispute. Obviously, it is not the illustration of the original Alice. Carroll sent a photograph of another child friend, Mary Hilton Badcock to the book’s illustrator, but whether or not the artist actually used it is cloudy. A letter Carroll wrote suggests the illustrator did not. Either way Alice Liddell had a life of adventure and helped to establish stories we know and love. You can read more about her life here and the illustration of the story in this article. Alice Liddell (right) with her sisters circa 1859, photographed by Lewis Carroll Liddell aged 7, photographed by Lewis Carroll in 1860
I read and enjoyed Hex and reviewed it for others since people pop up online and ask about it.
The Japanese word describes piling up books to save for later … even if you’ll never actually read them. “Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity.” – A. Edward Newton, author, publisher, and collector of 10,000 books. Are you one of us? A master of tsundoku? Mine takes the shape of the aspirational stack by my bedside table – because I am going to read every night before bed, of course, and upon waking on the weekends. Hahaha. My tsundoku also takes shape in cookbooks … even though I rarely cook from recipes. And I think I most fervently practice tsundoku when I buy three or four novels to pile in my suitcase for a five-day vacation. Sometimes not even one sees its spine…
In search of something good to read? USA TODAY’s Barbara VanDenburgh scopes out the shelves for this week’s hottest new book releases. Published January 22, 2020 1. “Almost Just Friends,” by Jill Shalvis (William Morrow, fiction, on sale Jan. 21) This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. What it’s about: After her parents died, tough-as-nails Piper Manning raised her younger siblings, who are now all grown. Now, at 30, she’s ready to sell the house and move on to live life on her own terms. But a fling with a charming Drug Enforcement Administration agent with his own trauma threatens to upend her plans. The buzz: “Shalvis will immediately grab the reader’s attention with a strong heroine and caring connection between two wounded souls,” says Publishers Weekly. 2. “A Long Petal of the Sea,” by Isabel Allende (Ballantine, fiction, on sale…
Review by Jennifer Graham A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick I can’t even express how much I love this book! I didn’t want this story to end!– Reese Witherspoon I recently finished reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. It debuted in August 2018 and has sold more than 1.5 million copies. A #1 New York Times bestseller – it is an emotional story I will carry with me awhile. Here’s the description of the book from the inside of its cover: This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But…