Litsy

Anne's House of Dreams | L. M. Montgomery

Repost for @BarbaraJean

Next up for the #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead: Anne‘s House of Dreams for #LMMReread (+ the short story “The Life-Book of Captain Jesse”) and The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett for #LMMAdjacent.

Discussions are on Saturdays and all are welcome! Let me know if you‘re not tagged and you‘d like to be. (Tag lists for each book are in the comments)

Original post - https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2831188

BarbaraJean Thanks for reposting! 1d

35 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

Anne's House of Dreams | L. M. Montgomery

Next up for the #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead: Anne‘s House of Dreams for #LMMReread (+ the short story “The Life-Book of Captain Jesse”) and The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett for #LMMAdjacent.

Discussions are on Saturdays and all are welcome! Let me know if you‘re not tagged and you‘d like to be. (Tag lists for each book are in the comments)

LitsyEvents

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks, @lauraisntwilder, @CogsOfEncouragement, @rubyslippersreads, @kwmg40, @JenLovesJT47

Anne's House of Dreams

BarbaraJean @julieclair, @TheAromaofBooks, @lauraisntwilder, @rubyslippersreads, @JenLovesJT47

The Country of the Pointed Firs

monalyisha Ohh, I should do this. I‘m visiting PEI in June & never finished the Anne series. This is the one I need to read next! ALSO, I bought the SOJ while visiting Maine with my friend last summer. We intended to do a buddy read and never followed through. I‘m so bad at commitment, though! 🙈 2d

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TheKidUpstairs @monalyisha where in PEI are you going? It's one of my favourite places to visit! 2d

monalyisha @TheKidUpstairs It‘s sort of a dream trip with my friend…named Megan! We have a cottage booked in Cumberland. Happy to take suggestions and hear about places you love! We‘re still in the planning phase. 2d

TheAromaofBooks @monalyisha - House of Dreams may be my favorite Anne book, although it's very hard to choose. I highly recommend joining us in reading it if you have time!! Super jealous of your PEI trip - that sounds magical!! 2d

BarbaraJean @monalyisha Would it help with commitment if I only tagged you for the end discussion of each book and not the midpoint? 😆 Would love to have you join in if you can! (Like @TheAromaofBooks this is probably my favorite Anne book… and I‘m also super jealous of the PEI trip 😁) 1d

TheKidUpstairs @monalyisha well, clearly she's an awesome person with a name like that 😉🤣 I'll email you some of my fave spots! 1d

monalyisha @TheKidUpstairs Yay! Thank you, Megan! And @BarbaraJean, go ahead and tag me at the mid-point, too. If I haven‘t started reading yet, it‘ll be a reminder to at least think about it. 😉 (edited) 1d

BarbaraJean @monalyisha Haha—will do! 😊 23h

36 likes10 comments

LitsyEvents

Anne of the Island | Lucy Maud Montgomery

Repost for @BarbaraJean

I‘m having so much fun reading LMM‘s Christmas stories! We‘ll finish those on Christmas Eve, then pick up our regular buddy reading starting 12/29. Above is our #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead schedule through mid-February, including two for #LMMReread, the last bit of Vol. 3 for #LMMJournals, and #LMMAdjacent read: The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett.

See original post at https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2819444

BarbaraJean Thank you for reposting! 1mo

32 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

Anne of the Island | Lucy Maud Montgomery

I‘m having so much fun reading LMM‘s Christmas stories! We‘ll finish those on Christmas Eve, then pick up our regular buddy reading starting 12/29. Above is our #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead schedule through mid-February, including two for #LMMReread, the last bit of Vol. 3 for #LMMJournals, and #LMMAdjacent read: The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. Let me know if you‘d like to be tagged for any or all of the above. All are welcome! ⬇

rubyslippersreads, Daisey, LeahBergen, JenlovesJT47, CogsOfEncouragement, lauraisntwilder, kwmg40, TheAromaofBooks, Roary47, LitsyEvents, julieclair

BarbaraJean I have a list of potential adjacent reads that I need to review, and I‘m planning to post a poll with some of those options sometime in January. In the meantime, let me know if there are any books LMM has mentioned that caught your eye. I‘d love to add in more adjacent reads! 1mo

julieclair Please tag me for Anne of the Island and The Country of the Pointed Firs. 🙂 Thank you for the thoughtful way you host this challenge! 🩵💙🩵 1mo

TheAromaofBooks It really seems like I should be completely burned out on LMM at this point, but I am honestly more engaged than ever in these buddy reads!! Thank you so much for continuing to organize this. I've never spent this much time with one author and it has been so fascinating. I'm not sure I've ever skipped Windy Poplars - I've always read this series in chronological order - so I think it will be interesting to see the original progression. 1mo

BarbaraJean @julieclair Will do! You‘re welcome!! Thanks for joining in! 🤗 1mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks Haha—same! I kinda worried I‘d get tired of this when we started the journals and the re-reads both, but it‘s been so interesting! Thank you for reading along with me all this time! I‘m also really interested to reread Poplars and Ingleside integrated with the journals, and see how they fit when read that way. 1mo

27 likes5 comments

BarbaraJean

The Haunted and the Haunters | Edward Bulwer-Lytton

pick

Another #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent pick from October—I wanted to read this because L.M. Montgomery highly recommended it in her journals. LMM loved ghost stories, so when she described this one in particular, I hunted it down and added it to our list. I‘m a coward about scary stories, so I read it in broad daylight—and didn‘t find it particularly scary. Then the night after I read it, I woke up in the middle of the night, ⤵️

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …was convinced I heard a voice speaking in my ear, couldn‘t stop thinking about this story, and was a leeetle scared of going back to sleep. The story itself was fascinating. I loved the setup: the logical/skeptical/scientifically-minded narrator wants to stay in an actual haunted house, and he REALLY gets what he asked for! Although it gets a little too explain-y in parts, it ends up being an interesting combo of supernatural and not. 2mo

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BarbaraJean

The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance | Nathaniel Hawthorne

so-so

Another belated review: this was one of the #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent picks in October—and it was the slowest burn ever. I‘d read that it was slow & wordy, but man… it was really slow and really wordy. It used lots of gothic tropes without actually feeling gothic, it talked about how creepy the house was but didn‘t feel creepy, and the sinister curse didn‘t feel all that sinister. Hawthorne‘s writing really is beautiful, ⤵️

BarbaraJean Cont‘d) …but I kept waiting for something to happen—and once it does, it‘s kind of anticlimactic. I did enjoy the backstory: the generational curse, the inherited guilt, the shadowy crimes that are hinted at…I wish Hawthorne had brought those stories into the foreground rather than sketching them as the backdrop. I have a feeling that in the end, what I wanted was this same story written by a different author. 😆 2mo

38 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

The Haunted and the Haunters | Edward Bulwer-Lytton

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent

Do you enjoy reading scary stories?

What types of stories are scariest to you—ghost stories, thriller, horror…?

Did you find this story particularly scary?

rubyslippersreads, JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks, julieclair

BarbaraJean I definitely don‘t read horror, and I‘m kind of a coward about scary stories. I do like to read spooky-ish books in October, but definitely spooky lite! I don‘t mind “thriller” stories, but horror is too much for me. And supernatural/demon possession stuff freaks me right the heck out. This one pushed the line for me as far as scary. Funny story: I read it during the day, because I didn‘t want to end up like LMM—too scared to turn out the light!⤵️ (edited) 3mo

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) I thought it was creepy, but not TOO scary, until I woke up in the middle of the night that night convinced I heard a voice speaking in my ear… 😱 3mo

TheAromaofBooks I am not really into scary stories. I enjoy thrillers as long as they aren't too graphic - I'm not a horror fan, but more because I don't like blood and gore. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy reading scary stories if I lived by myself (or with just an elderly grandma like LMM!). I didn't think this one was super scary, but like you I read it in broad daylight 😂 I can picture LMM reading it by lamplight in an old, creaky house and that sounds⬇ 3mo

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) much scarier! 3mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks Hahaha—I hadn‘t thought about reading it in an old creaky house!! 😱 3mo

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BarbaraJean

The Haunted and the Haunters | Edward Bulwer-Lytton

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent

From the setup through to the end, did the plot work for you?

What did you think of the logical/theoretical explanation the narrator inserts before the final resolution of the story?

What did you think of the discovery at the end? Was the resolution satisfying to you?

rubyslippersreads, JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks, julieclair

TheAromaofBooks Overall I liked it, but did feel like parts of it got a little lecture-y. I kind of liked having the explanations, especially the actual story behind the ghosts. 3mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks Yeah, the explain-y part bored me! I kind of wanted it to be more about the ghosts and what had happened to them in life. I thought the conclusion was so interesting—kind of a combination of supernatural and not. I really liked the setup with the narrator wanting to find and stay in an ACTUAL haunted house… and then really getting what he asked for!! 3mo

19 likes2 comments

BarbaraJean

The Haunted and the Haunters | Edward Bulwer-Lytton

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent

LMM often mentions Bulwer-Lytton as an author she enjoys. He‘s famous for the line: “It was a dark and stormy night” and has a bad-writing contest named after him! (www.bulwer-lytton.com/)

Did you like Bulwer-Lytton‘s writing style in this story? Why or why not?

rubyslippersreads, JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks, julieclair

TheAromaofBooks While this one didn't blow me away, I thought the writing was solid and engaging. I liked the narrator and liked the way that he was skeptical in a sense, but did believe that these crazy things could happen. 3mo

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks I thought the writing was solid, too. Having a logical/skeptical narrator who could be somewhat balanced in reporting what happened made the ghost story seem credible/plausible in a way! With the bits and pieces I‘ve heard about Bulwer-Lytton I thought it would be a lot more overblown/dramatic… although maybe if I were to read one of his full-length novels I would feel differently about his writing😆 (edited) 3mo

18 likes2 comments

LitsyEvents

The Haunted and the Haunters, Or, The House and the Brain | Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton

Repost for @BarbaraJean

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead: This week we‘re reading an #LMMAdjacent book—The Haunted & the Haunters by Edward Bulwer-Lytton—with a discussion on Saturday, Nov. 2nd. This is a shorter one: my Kindle edition is 68 pages. All are welcome—let me know if you‘re not tagged and you‘d like to be!

BarbaraJean Thank you for re-posting! 3mo

32 likes1 comment

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