Happy book birthday! This one is a gem, and a perfect read for summer.

Independent bookstores should be celebrated everyday, but today's a good excuse to visit your local (if you need an excuse). Here are a few more:

Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? This one is as good inside as it is out.

". . .I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of a mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

On #internationalwomensday, may we seek to hear their anonymous voices.

Hey, remember that one time that Sam Gamgee threw an apple at Bill Ferny's nose when he taunted the Hobbits and Strider as they were leaving Bree?

That was awesome.

The first cold weekend of fall, and I can resist visiting with an old favorite, especially when it reminds me of how evil can be overcome in the long run.

After a long week at work and a bad head cold, all you really want is to curl up with an old friend, am I right?

Nothing makes me feel as validated as when my HSBC English teacher tells me she loves a book I recommended . . . and she LOVES A Gentleman In Moscow. it's no surprise: she has impeccable tastes.

"I've been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine so men say that I'm intense or I'm insane . . ."

A little assigned reading for election season, and the Hamilton fans among us.

For #Recommendsday, I offer you The Mathews Men, by William Geroux. For fans of military history, high seas adventure, and flat out good non-fiction alike.

Time travel books are my drop-everything-and-read genre kyrptonite, so I've read my fair share, from Stephen King to Connie Willis. This? This is one of the best I've ever read.

To introduce myself to the Litsy community, what else but my Penguin Drop Cap initials? A is Austen, my favorite author. M is for Melville my favorite author to grind my teeth through.