Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary:  As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her. After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without? In a frenzy of ...

Currently Reading: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor Date Started:  March 8, 2021 Goodreads Summary:  No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifi...

Currently Reading: Sansei and Sensibility  by Karen Tei Yamashita Date Started:  March 5 Goodreads Summary:  In these buoyant and inventive stories, Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance―familial, cultural, emotional, artistic―really means. In a California of the ’60s and ’70s, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives’ freezers, tape-record high-school locker-room chatter, or collect a community’s gossip while cleaning the teeth of its inhabitants. Mr. Darcy is the captain of the football team, Mansfield Park materializes in a suburb of L.A., bake sales replace balls, and station wagons, not horse-drawn carriages, are the preferred mode of transit. The stories of traversing class, race, and gender leap into our modern world with wit and humor. Little Thoughts :  This is this month's book discussion selection for JASNA NJ's book discussion group.  It's divided into 2 parts, part 1 ...

When I was deciding to come back to the blog I was looking through all the blogging memes that the blogs I read follow. I had done Book Beginnings and The Friday 56 a handful of times, but over at  Mixed Book Bag , JC merged them together and I really like that idea.  So borrowing from her I'm going to start linking up to both Book Beginnings on Friday from  Rose City Reader  and The Friday 56 with  Freda's Voice . This week I'm reading: Jane Austen, the Secret Radical   by Helena Kelly It Begins:   England in April. Even here, in Southampton, in a town full of soldiers and sailors, in a country at war, April is still April. On Page 56: Henry Tilney is highly educated, highly literate, a self-confessed lover of novels ("I have read hundreds and hundreds"). He's an expert reader. He boasts that he finished Udolpho  "in two day"; that's two full days of uninterrupted reading.  Verdict: I'm not done, but so far I...

So my plan is, each Monday to update anyone who reads this on what I'm currently reading and what I may have finished in the last week. So apparently I haven't posted since like the middle of September. I also haven't read a whole lot, but here's what I've read in the last month or so. Currently Reading: Title : Hidden Figures Author : Margot Lee Shetterly Date Started : September 20 Currently Listening: Title : Atlas Shrugged Author : Any Rand Narrator : Christopher Hurt Date Started : August 31 Note : On part 3 of 7 Finished Reading: Title : No Man's Guns Author : Elmore Leonard Narrator : LeVar Burton Date Finished : September 12 Stars : 3 Comments : Episode 12 of LeVar Burton Reads Title : The Cookbook Collector Author : Allegra Goodman Date Finished : September 13 Stars : 3 Comments : Jane Austen Reading Group Title : Alex & Eliza Author : Melissa de la Cruz Date Finished : September 17 Stars : 4 Title : Better...

It's been like 2 weeks since I posted one, so this week's post is going to be a bit longer. Currently Reading: Title : The House on Mango Street Author : Sandra Cisneros Date Started : August 7 Title : Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen Author : Fay Weldon Date Started : August 3 Note : Austen in August hosted by Roof Beam Reader, Jane Austen Challenge Finished Reading: Title : Have You Seen Marie? Author : Sandra Cisneros Date Finished : August 7 Stars : 4 Title : Wired Author : Julie Garwood Date Finished : August 7 Stars : 3 Comments : Buchanan-Renard #13 Title : The Godfather Author : Mario Puzo Date Finished : August 6 Stars : 5 Comments : Honestly this book and movie are one of the only times you'll hear me say that I love both equally. The movie is such a good representation of the book and the story is just great. Title : The Second Bakery Attack Author : Haruki Murakami Date Finished : August 3 Stars : 2 Comments : ...

Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti My rating: 4 of 5 stars Cara Nicoletti loves food, you could say it's in her blood. She comes from a family of butchers and is herself a butcher and a baker. As much as she loves food, Cara also loves books.  She's been an avid reader since childhood. As she reads, she finds that in books as in life a lot of things happen around food.  This book takes a look back at some of her favorite books and the food found between the pages.  Each book is paired with Cara's version of food based on or inspired by the book. The books/recipes are broken up into three sections: Childhood, Adolescence and College Years, Adulthood. Since it is currently August and I participate in Austen in August (run by Roof Beam Reader) I'm going to focus on the two Jane Austen novels that appear in this book. Pride & Prejudice  White Garlic Soup As any reader of the novel knows and as Nicoletti points out,...

Tell this story Rewrite the ending of your favorite book.  It's not my favorite book, but it's the one ending to a book I wish was different.  He's my quite attempt at a rewrite of the last chapter of Jane Austen's Sense and  Sensibility . CHAPTER 50 After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son. Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again. In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed ...

Hosted by Regular Rumination this week This week's prompt: Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert:  Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert). I'm going to Be The Expert  and recommend three great books on Jane Austen and her fandom. A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh Written by her nephew over 50 years after her death it contains the memories of many of her relatives.  Following in the footsteps of Cassandra, Jane's sister, in the decision to burn many of her letters, the book leaves out a lot of personal information. The book help build readership for Jane's books which before had not been read by many outside of the li...

I'm waiting for my Captain Wentworth Source: etsy.com via Andrea on Pinterest

The Espressologist  by Kristina Springer It looks like the book is being made into a Web series .  I guess I'm going to have to get my hands on a copy before the series starts!

I'm currently reading two books for school: For the last two weeks our book for discussions/reaction paper is The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing. It's a good book, but it's depressing. Midnight's Children by Salaman Rushdie is a book we'll be discussing later in class but it is the book I picked for my final project so I need to read it now. I'm moving a lot slower than I would like to be, but it's a difficult read and I want to get as much out of it as I can! My current audio book is: So far I'm really liking Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. It really is a book that I think I wouldn't have been able to get through if I was reading the print book, but listening to the audio book on my commute to and from work I have time to listen and process the information. Being an Introvert I'm really interested in a lot of the information that basically explains why I am the way I am. ...

I was cleaning out my gmail when I came across and email I sent to myself that contained a partial line from Jane's Juveniliastory Catharine or the Bower. ...for what after all is Youth and Beauty? Why in fact, it is nothing more than being Young and Handsome - and that It is a poor substitute for real worth & Merit; I think it's great that we have examples of writing by any author that shows the changes they make to works while they are in the process of writing them. I happen to like the line she crossed out and wonder what her reasoning was for crossing it out.

In honor of Valentine's Day I'm going to share Captain Wentworth's letter today. I have great love for the Captain and an even greater love of this letter. “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing some...