so-soMy word, what a book! I can see why this one has never been as popular as Austen's novels. The characters here were not particularly likable or relatable, almost nothing happens, and I didn't particularly hold out any hope for the long-term happiness of anyone haha I am glad to have read this classic, but it is way too long for the amount of story it contains. Never would have made it through without snarky hashtags from @BarkingMadRead !! β¬οΈ
pickDespite my book clearly being written by Martha Reben, Litsy has her last name as Rebentisch. Apparently she changed it somewhere along the line?? Anyway. Martha was diagnosed with tuberculosis (her mother died of the disease) and was sent to various places in the 1920s to try "cures" and eventually ended up in the Adirondacks. After surgery, she was still an invalid, but she decided to take the bold path of hiring a wilderness guide & spendingβ¬οΈ
Final #WeeklyForecast for March! Already! I am done with all my βassignmentsβ for the month, so this week is all about random stuff. Hoping to finish the Heartstone trilogy and maybe work on a Regency romance series that my sister loaned to me...last year π We will see where the week takes me!!
@Cinfhen
Hard as it is to believe, there is only ONE week of March left! Which means next Sunday will be #BookSpin day!! If you are planning to play along for April, it's time to start planning your lists!! Some of you have already tagged me with your lists, so sorry if you are getting tagged again! Just bask in that sense of accomplishment that comes when you're ahead of the curve. π Please remember that I use the same tag list all year, so if you wouldβ¬
pickI genuinely love the Bess Crawford series and was pretty excited to pick up installment 13. However, while the mystery was perfectly good, if rather low-stakes, I was VERY disappointed at the complete lack of progress in the Bess/Simon relationship. It's to the point where the two of them not having an adult conversation is feeling antithetical to their characters. I wish this series would let them get married and then continue with them β¬οΈ
pickI was gifted this book from @magyklyXdelish in a swap back in September 2020, and thanks to the buddy read hosted by @CrowCAH this month, I finally read it! π I actually really enjoyed this P&P variation set in a fantasy world with dragons and other magical creatures. I loved the way various characters were changed (totally here for a happier Charlotte/Collins marriage) and how iconic book moments showed up under different circumstances. β¬οΈ
I've been home a lot this month and my #BookReport reflects it!! I'm checking off a lot of books right now and it's fabulous. Besides the checked books here, I also finished multiple chapter-a-day-books this week - Heartstone, House of Dreams, Travels With Charley, and On the Banks of Plum Creek. Hoping to finish the tagged book today - my grandparents loaned it to me and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm actually quite enjoying it!
@Cinfhen
pickDick King-Smith, most famous for his book Babe the Gallant Pig, was an absurdly prolific writer. I've collected a lot of his books over the years, but somehow haven't read them all, despite most of them being only around 100pgs long. With such an enormous catalog of books, not all of them are winners, but this one was a soft pick for me. Henny is 75yrs old and bored of her life in the old folks' home. One day she runs away, spending all her β¬
pickA few years ago I read another book by this author (A Dark Lure) and wasn't particularly impressed, so this one has languished in Kindle purgatory for quite some time. However, not only was it a #TrappedonanIsland pick this month, @aperfectmjk recommended this one specifically from my group of five, so I decided to prioritize it and am glad I did, as I was completely glued to the pages throughout! The pacing was absolutely spot-on, rotating β¬
pickVery Heyer-ish in tone and humor, this book was a great deal of fun, with a likable heroine and tons of fun side characters. It got a little melodramatic at the end, but I was still here for it. π
Can't wait to hear whether the rest of you enjoy it!! @mabell @Chrissyreadit @julieclair
pickFun, fluffy, forgettable π
#BacklistReadathon @Clwojick
#SeriesLove2023 @TheSpineView @Andrew65
#BirthdayPixieReadathon (bk 10) @Lizpixie
#BookSpinBingo
pickThis was a great choice for March's #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead - I knew snippets of Montgomery's life, and knew that it was hard, but sitting down and actually reading about her struggles and difficulties was really eye-opening (and depressing!). The biography itself is really well-written, geared for a YA audience so the writing is accessible and engaging, and handles some of the harder topics, like the mental health of Montgomery and her β¬
pickI have this thing where I enjoy Steinbeck's writing more than I enjoy his stories, so I thought I would give this one a try, his account of driving a little camper trailer around the country ~1960. First off, this book will definitely make you want to get a little camper trailer and drive it around the country - how fun does that sound??
I overall did enjoy this one, although more in the beginning than towards the end. I liked the scenes where β¬
pickFinished a few days early because I couldn't resist reading to the end yesterday!! I really enjoyed this reread from my childhood. While there wasn't as much βhow toβ as in the earlier books, there were still plenty of adventures. I felt like we also got to see Laura learn some lessons in maturity as well. This book scarred me up on the subject of grasshoppers when I was a kid, and the discomfort is still with me - so icky! I always loved the β¬
My #RandomClassic for April is Life of Pi. Usually, for my classics, I just read one chapter a day until I'm finished, but I did NOT want to spend over 3 months reading this one π Some of the chapters are only a paragraph or two long, so I divided it up to about 10pgs/day. I'm hoping to post a discussion post (along the lines of βwhat did you think about this week's chapters?β every Monday. Tagging those who thought they were interested,but β¬
pickI enjoyed book 2 in the Lucky Harbor book more than the first, although I found the love triangle to be rather unnecessary. There was already plenty of drama just with Tara and Ford working through their past, plus the reappearance of the daughter they gave up for adoption 17 years ago. Still a bit too sexy for my personal tastes, but at least these two had known each other longer than 48hrs!
My #WeeklyForecast is mostly finishing my March βassignments.β I should finish the tagged book today, my final read for the #BacklistReadathon. Next, a Kindle book (so not pictured), for #TrappedonanIsland - In the Dark (Loreth Anne White). The Last Garden in England is for my #TBRbyColor challenge on StoryGraph, and The Five-Minute Marriage is for my Happy Reads group. That's probably as far as I'll get this week, but we'll see!!
@Cinfhen
Not as many checkmarks for this week's #BookReport as I was hoping to have, but on the other hand I got a bunch of stuff done for Grandpa and Grandma this week, and my bedroom ceiling is painted, so it's not like the week was wasted π Finished and loved The Runaways for #LMPBC and Murder is Easy for #AgathaChristieClubR2. Not pictured, but I also finished the #LittensLoveRomance buddy read for March (The Prize). So far I've only finished one β¬
pickI am having a very slow reading week - lots of other projects going on - but FINALLY finished my first book for the #BacklistReadathon !! This wasn't my favorite Shalvis book by a long shot - it's borderline so-so for me. I liked the actual story and the characters, but way too much of this was just Maddie and Jax lusting for each other and acting like it's a horrible betrayal that the other hasn't shared all their deep-dark secrets despite theβ¬οΈ
so-soThis was March's #LittensLoveRomance read, and while it was okay, it wasn't really my style. I just never could particularly like either of the main characters. Nicholaa had kind of ridiculous mood swings, and Royce was never wrong about anything π They had a lot of conversations, but never felt like they were communicating. Not a bad read, but not my favorite.
@StayCurious thanks for hosting!!
Halfway through March! What!?!?
And so here is APRIL'S #ISpyBingo card!! Good luck with this one, friends - there are some challenging squares here! π I have personally yet to score a bingo on my own challenge, but that is quite alright because I have a great time hunting and I'm still working on all the past cards just for fun LOL
Remember, we aren't too hardcore here, so be a little flexible in your thinking π
@Clwojick
In 1957 my grandpa built the house they are still living in now, at the age of 91. He and Grandma were talking yesterday about the adventure of building their own house and I asked Grandpa how he knew what to do. He replied, "I had a book!" and then pulled this one off the shelf. It's absolutely fascinating and full of details, blueprints, and careful instructions. However, I forgot to ask him if they came in under the $3500 mark.
pickAlso published as Easy to Kill, this is another great Christie standalone. For once, I remembered who the murderer was, but that didn't stop me from enjoying this reread - I love watching her plant the clues and red herrings. This one does drag a bit here and there as Luke spends a lot of time hashing and rehashing the possibilities, but still a solid mystery.
pickI just love these comics. I am especially fond of Wallace's parents. And there is an entire storyline with a bowling ball that absolutely cracked me up. This is the fourth collection so you get a little more backstory if you read the other books first, but these are definitely worth picking up.
pickGah, this book is so freaking adorable! I love everyone in it, even the bad guys. The children are fantastically written and I would marry Uncle Ambrose if I had the chance π There are definitely some predictable aspects of this story, and I wish that Lady Alicia's husband and son had been missing for a more reasonable amount of time (30 years is WAY too long), but on the whole this one is just a delight.
My #WeeklyForecast shows a full windowsill as usual π I should finish the tagged book today, my first completed for the #BirthdayPixieReadathon and I am hoping to also squeeze in Murder is Easy, this month's #AgathaChristieClubR2 read. For the #BacklistReadathon I'll be tackling Jill Shalvis - I own the first five books of the Lucky Harbor series, so that seems like a good place to start!!
@Cinfhen @Clwojick @Lizpixie
pickThis one was a soft pick for me, mainly because of the ending (spoiler below). I hadn't read a Fiona Davis book before and mostly picked this one up because I have seen her so enjoyed around Litsy. The dual timelines were handled very well, although I never felt much of a 60s connection, I guess since they were mostly locked in a museum lol Lily annoyed me a lot because she didn't do what I would do, but I still did like her as a person. β¬οΈ
#BookReport - I feel like I've read SO MUCH this week, yet have only checked off four books! That's what happens when I also have EIGHT chapter-a-day reads going π I really enjoyed the Winternight trilogy a lot; The Black Stallion is always a win; and The Magnolia Palace was a soft pick - I just finished it last night. I'm really enjoying all my chapter reads as well (well, mostly). They include:
-Middlemarch: The end is in sight for this one! β¬
I have a long list of classics, both classic classics and modern classics, that I want to read βsomeday.β Last year, I started choosing one a month at random. I read a chapter a day until the book is finished. If, in the meantime, a new month starts, I go ahead and start the new classic as well. It's rare that they have more than 60 chapters, so I don't normally have more than two on the go at a time. ANYWAY I went ahead and drew out my books forβ¬
pickEasily on my Top 10 Childhood Favorites list; I read this one over and over again growing up. I actually owned the beautifully-illustrated Big Black Horse originally, which ends when Alec and The Black make it home, so the first time I read the full novel I was astonished to find that the story continues with the epic match race. Is the story full of coincidences and basically impractical in every way? Yeah, absolutely, but it's still a fabulous β¬
Since I obviously need another buddy read π @AvidReader25 and #BKClubCare are hosting the #OAFKingAlong starting in April... another classic I've been meaning to read, so why not?? #Imayneedhelp #whydoIfindbuddyreadsirresistible
pickWhew, I could barely put this one down!! What a rollercoaster! I was so invested that this book gave me weird dreams last night π I wasn't sure how Arden was going to pull things together in a way that made me happy but also made sense, but for the most part she did. I had a few niggles, but overall this one was definitely a pick.
I have to say that one thing that low-key annoyed me was constantly referring to the various magical creatures asβ¬οΈ
Hey friends!! Feel free to join @Clwojick and myself next week for our third #BacklistReadathon !! Choose an author whose backlist you've been meaning to get to and focus on them for the week!! I'm going with Jill Shalvis this month - I seem to have piles of her books about!! I'm going to (as usual) combine this challenge with #SeriesLove2023 and work on the Lucky Harbor books. Anyone is welcome to join - let us know whose books you'll be reading!
pickAs usual, the color match is better in real life haha
Book 2 of the Winternight Trilogy doesn't let up on the action. Honestly, these books are stressing me out! There were times that Vasya was making 100% the wrong decision and I just wanted to stop her. Also, if someone continually says he hates you and wants you to die and threatens your family, I'm not saying go out and kill him, but maybe stop saving his life?? Geezy, girl, let nature β¬
Well the windowsill seems to be at maximum capacity again! π My #WeeklyForecast includes finishing the tagged book as well as The Winter of the Witch, and then it will be time to tackle some March challenge books. The bedroom project is continuing (you can see the chop saw on the porch in the background lol) so this week will also involve painting the ceiling and organizing under the bed. Today I am painting two more bookshelves!! Never enough π
Okay, so not as many checkmarks this week for my #BookReport as I MAY have gotten embroiled in the tagged 500pg+ book instead π Plus I have agreed to WAY too many buddy reads this month (five! Plus two other classics I am reading on my own at a chapter-a-day pace!) so I have about a hundred pages a day to get through before I tackle my current windowsill book lol
Kingfisher Club just wasn't for me; I couldn't jive with the writing style. I did β¬
pickEarlier this week I went in town to run some errands, errands that would involve waiting about in my car, and - brace yourselves - I forgot my book!!! The ONLY solution was to pick up a random Nora Roberts paperback from Meijer's discount rack, right? RIGHT.
I really enjoyed this one but it's not going to be for everyone. The content was quite dark at times, especially in Part 1, as the main character is abused as a child. It's terrifying and β¬οΈ
Sheesh @Pigpen_Reads - picking books off your list was quite dangerous for my own TBR! π These all sound fun to me - hope you find a winner or two among them!!
As always, thanks for hosting @aperfectmjk !!
Here's the #BookSpinBingo card! First, I put our official numbers (20 & 17 back in the mix. Then I drew them all out & wrote them down as I went, meaning the official numbers are just mixed into the card with the rest! As you can see, 21-25 are both labeled with their numbers & also as free spaces, so you can use them to match however you wrote your list. To score a bingo, just read books (in any order) that are in any row or column!! MORE INFO β¬
Is Litsy attempting to sabotage #BookSpin?? This is the second month in a row that the site has been down on the morning of the 2nd! π But here are, finally, March's numbers!! #BookSpin is TWENTY and #DoubleSpin is SEVENTEEN!!!
My next post will be the #BookSpinBingo card. I am NOT tagging anyone on that post!! If you want to bingo, please just check my profile for the card. This saves me having to double tag everyone/keep track of who wants β¬
I've been doing an amazingly bad job of posting reviews here lately, but I did 21 books, plus stayed caught up with the Middlemarch buddy read!! This is the closest to a cover-all I've had for #BookSpinBingo in a while - I list my challenge/buddy reads, which usually comprise 10-15 slots, then the rest are free spaces that I fill in in order. I hit all my challenge goals for the month, and was only 147pgs shy of my 250pg/day goal for the month!!
It's almost March, which means it's almost time to start a new #ISpyBingo board!!!
If you want to track your reads on Storygraph, or check out what other people are reading for various prompts, the challenge can be found here: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/265c3ab9-c799-4d41-857c-d991e83...
Anyone is welcome to play along - just let me know if you have any questions OR suggestions for future bingo board items!!
@Clwojick
Okay, Group L, here are a few lighthearted reads from my shelves. Have any of you read any of these, or is there one that tickles your fancy??
Please excuse my poor photo editing haha Also I have loads of other Wodehouse and Heyer if you prefer another!!
@inthegreensandblues @Deblovestoread @Maggie4483
#WeeklyForecast already has some March challenge reads!! It has been really working for me to have several challenges that just don't carry over. If I don't get to them, they go back on the shelf for some other month. However, I am not ready for it to already be the third month of freaking 2023. What the heck.
Lots of home time right now, so checking off books between painting the bedroom and other renovation projects!
@Cinfhen
#BookReport - Another week of doing a good job reading a terrible job reviewing π Finished the Chesapeake Shores series (finally!). Read Girls Made of Snow & Glass for #LMPBC (so-so; I found the characters annoying). Tagged book was fun but a little disjointed - I'm still going to read the next one in the series, though! Not the Witch You Wed was a #TrappedonanIsland pick and was just the fluffy, silly read I needed. Just started The Girls at β¬
Still have two slots open for Group L - Lighthearted Fiction!! Join us reading low-angst, happy reads along the lines of (but not limited to) P.G. Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer, E. Nesbit, etc. There are also loads of other groups open if you're interested in a different genre!!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080444aead2ca0ff2-litsy17#/
Unbelievably, March is less than a week away! I know there has been some wintry weather across the country, but here it has been unseasonably (and honestly suspiciously π) mild - one of our warmest Februarys on record!
ANYWAY time to start thinking about your March #BookSpin & #BookSpinBingo lists!! Some of you have already posted yours, so apologies if you're being tagged unnecessarily!!
As always, let me know if you would like to be added β¬
panAs a story, this one was okay, but as an Anne of Green Gables/Anne of the Island retelling, I felt like it failed abysmally. So much so that I ranted at great length on GR, which is unusual for me haha Short version? The characters were simply wrong, especially Anne, who is completely lacking in any sign of imagination or shenanigans. An Anne who is perfectly happy living in a crowded apartment in the city and never talks about being outside? β¬οΈ
The #WeeklyForecast is actually looking pretty reasonable. I am better than halfway through the tagged and should finish it today. Then we will see how far I get through the rest of the windowsill!! We got a bunch of lumber and supplies for the next round of home renovation yesterday, so I will probably be doing some painting again this week. Neverending!! π
@Cinfhen
Okay friends, here are some choices from my shelves. The tagged book is the one I am leaning toward as I have been meaning to reread it for a while. The P&P one I have read before and know that it does not have any sexy times π I have tons of other Heyer and Wodehouse options. The Princess is an old favorite of mine, but it is Christian fiction so I understand if that isn't everyone's jam. Let me know what you think!!
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
#atleastIcansayIvereadit
#MtTBR
#FourFoursin23 - Three-Way Screenplay @lauredhel
#ChunksterChallenge2023 @Amiable 7h