It took me FOREVER to read this! It was off and on for over 2 years and then a couple of months on audio (it‘s a long listen!). But in the end I really enjoyed it. I‘m glad I read it.

I didn‘t take a picture of us reading it or the book I got from the library.

I read this as a child and loved it. I had 2 rather random and specific recollections about the book but otherwise remembered very little. I remembered that Mrs Frisby had to move her children and her home elsewhere to the “Lea” of the stone. I also remember the Shrew (a hysterical neighbor).

I read it out loud to my son and we loved it.

I thought that the Litsy community might be interested in this Kickstarter campaign. The tagged book is another previous project by the same publisher/product designer. Obvious State makes all sorts of literary art projects.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obviousstate/she-a-visual-ode-to-visionary-...

It‘s the end of the year and the end of the Mount TBR Challenge! Comment here below or post and tag me using the hashtag #MountTBRchallenge ! I‘m sure everyone has done well!

I helped Andrea create this wonderful Chapbook by funding it thru Kickstarter. I followed along, Andrea posting the poems as she discovered/uncovered them. It was an exciting thing to witness. I love how these poems look on the page & you do feel like they were there just waiting to be found. In recipes!! Love it! The poems are brief, but surprising &full of feeling. Revealing themselves &our inner lives as we navigate the erasures. #poetrymatters

First, let me thank everyone who entered my #2x2giveaway with a recommendation of a book with a major musical element. My TBR stack has grown so much!

Second, let me apologize for setting the wrong date as the deadline for the giveaway. If you‘ve been waiting anxiously for me to announce, I‘m sorry! Life got in the way!

And finally, congrats to @Lindy , who the RNG has chosen as the winner!! Send your email addy to divadianepoetry at gmail !

Last day to enter my #2x2giveaway!
I want to thank you all for that milestone!

Here‘s what you do:

-Post (tagging me and the hashtag) or comment below about your favorite book with an important musical element. Can be the subject, the character(s), Fiction or non. Especially singers and vocal music for this!
- open internationally
- prize: 2 books from your stacked list and maybe some goodies from Book Depository.
- closes Oct 3.
#2x2giveaway

I apologize for it being soooo long since I posted about #MountTBR and our challenge! I‘ve been very busy with life, but it was more because I was afraid to post and miss a certain number of Litfluence for a giveaway! 🤪Silly I know but there you have it! You are all invited to try for my #2x2giveaway till Oct 3.

How‘re you doing with our #MountTBR challenge? Gaining on your declared goal? How many in Sept. were from your TBR? Post anew or here.

This lovely little chapbook of poetry by a friend of mine just won the 2018 Elgin Award in the chapbook category given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. I‘m so pleased.

Check it out: https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781938900242/a-catalogue-of-the-further-suns....

#poetrymatters

Reposting this:

With this milestone I want to thank you all!

Here‘s what you do:

-Post (tagging me and the hashtag) or comment below about your favorite book with an important musical element. Can be the subject, the character(s), Fiction or non. Especially singers and vocal music for this!
- open internationally
- prize: 2 books from your stacked list and maybe some goodies from Book Depository.
- closes Oct 3.
#2x2giveaway

1. I just love Anne. I missed out reading these books when I was a kid and I think I would‘ve learned a lot from her and been much freer.
2. Fave: Green, Least Fave: none. Except I can‘t wear Orange!
3. Berries with granola and yoghurt. And CoFFeE!!

4. I‘m creative, but not artsy/crafty (no patience really). I‘m a professional singer and I write poetry.
5. My blood sugar monitor (I have Type 1 diabetes), sugar tablets, my phone.
#humpdaypost

I have been afraid to post, for fear of missing this Litfluence number! 22,222 was my goal for doing another #giveaway. 😁

So here‘s the deal, repost tagging me and using hashtag #2x2giveaway with your recommendation for a book (fiction or non-fiction - your choice) with a prominent musical element. A musician character (with preference for singers!), a book about music, or by or about a musician (again think singers).

Closes on 3 October!

Anywhere, anytime, anything, interrupted, infrequent!

Those are my 5 words for @Mitch ‘s #50kreadinglifegiveaway (Thank you!). They may seem contradictory & they are. I always have something with me to read & will do it anywhere and anytime. Sometimes that means I‘ll read anything (cereal boxes, anyone?), but if a book holds my interest, it doesn‘t matter what it‘s about! I do NOT have enough time to read & constantly get interrupted.

I am so thrilled with this package, @Itchyfeetreader !! Thank you so much! From the great historical postcards from Penguin, to the Raspberry Fool chocolate, with gorgeous metal bookmarks, perfect book plates (I was running out!), 3! books that sound so interesting (especially the tagged one!! How perfect: a musician and dragons!!) and a printed recipe BOOK. A book guys! I‘m overwhelmed. I can‘t even. 😊

So this just arrived by Special Delivery from @Itchyfeetreader my 2nd/2 for the #feedareader swap! Can‘t wait to open it!!

Stay tuned!

July - I mean, JUNE Reading stats. It was a stellar month for reading. 8 Books is something of a record for me. And they weren‘t all poetry chapbooks either!! Not chunksters, but not super short either!

It‘s been a while since I posted a check in, but we‘ve just closed out 6 months of the #MountTBRchallenge, June just ended AND it‘s Monday, so I thought it was due!

How‘s the hewing of #MountTBR going?!?

I‘ve read 35/70 for my Goodreads challenge, 30 of which were TBRs in the loosest sense (at least a month “old” or having a deadline (bookclub or library due date). Only 16 in the strictest sense (pre-2018).

How about you? Comment or repost!

I really enjoyed this short YA novel, which had basically no romantic intrigue, about a 15 year old boy and his dad blundering into a cyber-fantasy world through their computer and getting separated. It turns dystopian at that point when Ian finds himself captured and enslaved by a people enslaved by a malevolent dragon. From then on he‘s on a quest to free himself and find his father so they can go home. There are a lot of loose ends, though.

I just had to finish this book in a rush. It grabbed me and I could barely put it down. So, instead of doing things like housework or actual work, I sat in the garden for lunch reading and continued until I was done.

What a great book.

I feel like this should be required reading for all teens to illustrate why we should err on the side of kindness and how our indifference, and behavior and especially deliberate cruelty can affect another.

Thank you @PagesOfKate so very much for all the goodies, the lunchbox book and the excellent food-themed books! Can‘t wait to dig in. Oh wait, I‘ve already sampled the goodies! #foodimentarywatson !!!

Thank you @wordslinger42 for organizing!!

All ready to take to the post office on Monday @PagesOfKate !! I‘m sure it‘ll be with you by Friday!

Thanks for a fun swap @wordslinger42 ! #foodimemtarywatson

I don‘t know why it took me so long, but I finally found a decent bookshop nearby! I went in an spent an hour just staring at the Fiction shelves. I love that they don‘t break it up into genres!

1. INCLUDING Harry Potter by a looong shot (risking excommunication here, I know), my favorite series is Robin Hobbs‘ Realms of the Elderlings
2. Alias
3. Nope
4. Côte de Boeff imported from France!

@jesshowbooks #Friyayintro
5. Not really, he preferred to read summaries of books rather than the book itself.

•💙💚
•🌷🌼🌺🐝🐣(Spring)
•🚀 🦄 🦖🦕🐲☄️🌈🛰 (SF&F)
•Reading, and now gardening
•🥜 🍫 🍿 Nuts, chocolate, popcorn
•☕️ 🍷 🥤 Coffee (mostly I drink decaf), Wine, Hard Cider, Diet Coke, (diet) Ginger Ale.
•Book plates

@PagesOfKate Fill this out for me too, please? 😘
@Tiffy_Reads #gettingtoknowyou

#friyayintro @jesshowbooks - Very late, but whatevs.
1. Green and Blue
2. That 70s show
3. Chemical Letters, by Octavia Cade - poetry around the Periodic Table. Very cool. Should be required reading for all Chemistry Students
4. Mayo, Ketchup, lettuce, tomato
5. Well, we had a BBQ, played golf, sang U2 at church, fellowship lunch, hand washed the car. Fun WE.

I‘m reading this to my son. We started it last week actually and are almost 100 pages in. I thought I‘d read this 16 or so years ago, but I remember zippo. But really, nothing. We‘re enjoying it.

I‘ve stalled again on Vol. 1 of Otherland, so I checked Audible once again, because I couldn‘t believe there really wasn‘t an audiobook version of it already and lo, and behold! It comes out on July 17, so I pre-ordered it, using one of the credits that‘ve been piling up. I‘m sure I will finally be able to put this to rest as an audio book. @GrilledCheeseSamurai

Ice Cream
Both? Depends!
Drumsticks
Both
Salty!!!
Books? Either!

1. I came home from Italy and found this enormous cucumber!
2. I have! It was so much fun to meet some Littens in London and do a walking tour of some bookshops. Thanks to @Mitch !
3. Pasta
4. A dark blue/green or Teal
5. I‘ve read 40 of them. And I have 14 others physically on my shelf waiting to be read!

I spent some time reorganizing my book shelves and now they are relatively tidy and beautiful!!

I really enjoyed this slim volume. It is pleasant and easy to read. I would‘ve finished it in about a day (& I‘m a slow reader), but I had to get off the plane!

I expect it helps to know a little bit about Taoism to start with, otherwise you might be slightly put off by how the author describes how “wrong” all the other approaches to life are. I found it quite humorous & it‘s delightful to discover just how Tao Pooh is. That‘s why we love him.

I don‘t know what made me wait so long to listen to this because I really enjoyed it.

It‘s quite emotional at times & it seems like an impossible situation. Now that the immediate threat has been resolved I have to listen to the next one immediately!

I listened to it & I don‘t care much for Carolyn McCormick‘s delivery, but it‘s not awful & much easier to take at x1.25 speed. She is good at giving characters their own voice, in a subtle way.

Congratulations on reaching 10k @LiterRohde ! I‘ll agree that the Littens are especially wonderful!

I chose The Wave in the Mind, by Ursula K LeGuin at the risk of being redundant. It is no secret that I love UKL‘s work and I find it all incredibly inspiring and moving. I‘ve hoarded many of her books and delayed reading them so that I would continue to be inspired by her afresh after her death. Now that it‘s come to pass, I‘ll be reading them.

This feels like a failure month, but I‘m nearly finished with 2 other books (an audio book and the Famous Five I‘m reading to my son), so in actual fact it‘s not been too bad. PLUS, I managed to read some poetry. I have been sadly slacking on that front!

I think most people know I‘m a huge fan of Ursula K. LeGuin and I think I‘ve interested a couple people here in her work.

There‘s a kickstarter that just started to publish her last collection of poetry “So Far So Good.” The publisher is Copper Canyon Press and they are a non-profit poetry publisher.

Go here to support them: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/896286441/ursula-k-le-guin-a-poets-legacy

I‘m loving this book. There‘s a lot of wisdom in Pooh.

... and Boys!!

How are we all doing? I‘ve stalled completely, it seems, reading The Doctor and the Diva, which is not on my TBR. But I did make good progress on my audio book (Hunger Games #2 - Catching Fire 🔥) before leaving for Italy (for half term break). I brought a few books to read because I anticipate getting a lot of time to read while here. 😀

And you?

How‘s everyone doing on their quest? If you like comment to this post how many books you‘ve read from your #MountTBR and how many books total YTD.

Me, I‘m indulging in a book I just bought and that has never been on any of my TBR lists. 😱I‘ve read 25 of my goal of 70 total. 18/40 from TBR.

How about you?

@SamHeartCoffee - you are so generous to send me 2 books! And a letter. As my pen pal, and seeing how expensive it is to mail a package like that from the States, I hope you don‘t think that it is required! I‘m humbled (and a little shamed) by your generosity! BUT, I am so excited about both books! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! It was fun to learn a little bit about you - I will write back soon!

Look what came in the mail today!! My book from our first round of the #LPMBC back@from @jhod !! Jessica, your generosity is humbling! I ❤️ mint & this is delish (I‘m eating a piece right now!)! The stationery is just my style! Thank you!

I can‘t wait to thumb through the book & read all of your amazing comments and insights. I‘ll take a couple of pictures & post about it again. I‘m delighted that you all enjoyed it! @Balibee146 @samharnold

@cobwebmoth is doing a wonderful giveaway: to enter by anyone, anywhere should repost about it, &choose what you want to win - a gift card, a box of goodies or 2 books from Book Depository. So awesome!

Our giveaway girl lives in Ohio, & I live in the U.K. I‘m going to choose a gift card (for Amazon.co.uk if that‘s ok?) so I can get myself a box of goodies & she doesn‘t have to pay shipping! I need more books like I need a hole in my head! 😊

This is YA novel set in nearish future Australia after an apocalyptic viral infection has killed just about everyone. The MCs are a set of twins about 15 years old.

I loved the surreal dreamscape of the Changeland, where teenagers transform and where anything could happen.

Because the 2 main characters are a set of psychically linked twins, and they are on alternate quests to save one another, there‘s a bit of repetition. Good first novel!

I couldn‘t resist starting this one right away. I got it on a recent unsupervised trip to the charity shop. It‘s new to me and sounded good. It‘s obviously not a from my #MountTBR, though. 😬

Mistakenly went into the charity shop. I came out with all of these!! Got a nice hardcover of A Clockwork Orange (a favorite) a few that have been on my radar for a while (Americanah, A Child Called ‘It‘, Sabriel, Never Let Me Go) and a couple that caught my eye (the tagged book, A Monstor Calls)!! Way to blow the book buying ban for #MountTBR , Diane!

Thanks for this giveaway! If it‘s ok, should I win, I‘d like you to send it to my mom in Montana. I‘ll be visiting her in August! #IronDruidGiveaway @wanderinglynn

1. With my son‘s school having an Inset Day (teacher training day), the weekend sort of started today! Yay! I got to sleep in (sort of), despite my husband forgetting that I didn‘t have to get up early. Grill party this evening, movie date tomorrow and LEGOland on Monday.
2. No clue what cake pops are, but glazed donuts are the best!
3. Nope 😱
4. Recording Nursery rhymes this morning!
#friyayintro

#trivialthursdays @GarthRanzz

1. Any of the original 3, although I have liked all of them from the past few years. I should add that we have a ton of them (my husband‘s collection) most in Italian but plenty in English.

2. Princess Leia, of course!

3. Sure, why not. I‘m not much of a comic book reader though.

And while we‘re at it (in anticipation of tomorrow): May the fourth be with you!!

#7favesin7days

Day 2 - kept forgetting to do this!

I loved this book. I listened to it (on recommendation) and the narration was indeed excellent. It‘s only a little difficult to grok the hard SF info dumps while driving! 😂 They were few and far between and actually not tedious as that sort of info in a novel can be sometime. No, this book had an excellent balance of Hard and Soft SF elements. There were some shocking things that happen and really a lot to think about. Definitely one to reread.

#readingresolutions @Jess7 #memory

This is on my #MountTBR and has been for quite a while. Mostly because I have to read previous books in the series before I can read this one. It won an award (the Hugo maybe?), I think, and I love this series and the author‘s writing. Definitely fun, with a bit of food for thought thrown in for spice.