Will I ever not feel sadness upon finishing this book? Decades of reading it and the answer is a firm NO. First off, my BFF Laura growing up will always feel like a betrayal to my little kid heart, and second, it feels so wrong to leave her in a strange new environment after all previous books end with familial hearthside singing. I love this book, but it'll always be a bittersweet ending to me. (Yes, ending. The First Four Years? Don't know her.)

Enjoying a cozy Sunday with some #MiddleGrade titles. It's snowy here in Detroit, at last! Hope everyone is keeping warm and enjoying some down time. #KidLit #CurrentlyReading

I've been really wanting to read these as companion pieces, and January seemed like the time to do it! Though the two books are not about the same events (Laura's "Hard Winter" was 1881, while the Children's Blizzard came seven years later), they seemed like great books to read in tandem. Also curious to know if there are any other "Little House" kids who LOVE The Long Winter as an adult? No? Just me...? #CurrentlyReading

This YA love story between two girls at a Scottish boarding school was somehow exactly what I wanted to read in this moment. Amelia leaves her Texas home for a school in the Scottish Highlands only to meet and fall in love with a fellow classmate- who happens to be a princess. So much about this was utterly ridiculous (Scottish royal family?!) but I don't care one bit because it was sweet and fun and silly and don't we just need that sometimes?

I've been in NYC for the last few days, mostly to see some great theatre, but I've also had the chance to visit a few cool bookish sites, too- the Drama Book Shop, 1804 Books, the Argosy Bookstore, and the JP Morgan Library (pictured). I have too many thoughts about Morgan's life and his unending thirst for acquisition to try and get into it here; but this visit did inspire me to finally pick up the tagged book about Morgan's personal librarian.

I've been waiting two years to see this musical and I finally got to go today and THIS happened?!?!? The composer playing the lead, singing his own story, and entire company coming together to make sure the show still went on was one of the most incredible things I have ever experienced in the theatre. I am overwhelmed and grateful and gonna be re-living this for quite some time. #SeeMoreTheatre

I really should not have bought this but I'm also a million percent not sorry in the slightest! #BookHoarder #PemberLittens #NewIn

Add my voice to the chorus of absolute raves- this book is a stunner; staying up till 2 am to finish it on a work night is probably a huge mistake but also the only correct decision. This historical YA coming-of-age novel weaves together themes including McCarthyism, immigrant experiences, first love, and LGBTQ life pre-Stonewall without ever being heavy-handed. And the San Francisco setting is beautiful, too. A complete knockout, top to bottom.

Looked back at my 2022 "Books Read" list and here are my faves of the year! At the Pond and No One is Talking About This both moved me in really specific ways, and the Herzog was a gorgeous fever dream. Typically I wouldn't include a re-read in a #YearInReview post, but reading Wuthering Heights with the #PemberLittens was so much fun and truly one of my favorite reading experiences in a long time. Can't wait to see the stories to come in '23!

Finished my last book of '22, and it was a bit of a gut-puncher. Lenni, age 17, is a patient in the Terminal Ward of a Glasgow hospital, and Margot, a fellow patient, knows most of her years are behind her. Together the two have lived a sum total of 100 years, and as they meet and become unlikely friends, we get both of their stories, including the many heartbreaks, both earthshaking and banal, of one life lived long and the other cut too short.

I finished this book while sitting next to my husband, and when I turned the last page, I threw my hands in the air and crowed, "This is the exact kind of bonkers story I wanted it to be!" So, success? ? Others may disagree, but I always find a sense of surrealism in Herzog's work that I'm drawn to time and time again, and this book is no different. A quick read, compelling and bizarre, and even more enjoyable with a good drink. #BooksAndBooze

Not me spending the next three days frantically returning to the books I stalled out on in '22! Today I finished off this one which I started with the #PemberLittens. I side-eyed the Austen chapters, adored the ones about Charlotte Bronte, yawned my way through Eliot/Stowe, and perked up again with Woolf and Mansfield. All in all, uneven reading with some unsubstantiated claims, but I appreciate the perspective on these legendary female authors.

I think I've enjoyed reflecting on reading this collection more than I enjoyed actually reading it. Some of Baer's lines really struck me; others felt trite. And I'm wondering about my inclination to dismiss the work out of hand- is it because I just didn't vibe with it on the whole? Or is it because I'm conditioned to think that middle class motherhood is not the stuff of Great Art? 👇👇👇

I'm intrigued by pretty much all of Herzog's work, but it was this forward that really did it for me. I am both amused and totally drawn in by this kind of self-serious artistic nonsense, and am digging in tonight with equal parts skepticism and wonder. #CurrentlyReading

So glad that I got in a final #PersephonePick before closing out the year! This one was really lovely; Jane's ambition, determination, and self-advocacy radiated off the page. I wasn't feeling the romantic entanglement of the last third, but I was all about the somewhat cliffhanger ending- though could Jane end up anywhere but on top when all is said and done?? Thanks for letting me tag in, #PersephoneClub; it was a pleasure!

Wrapping gifts and enjoying an annual holiday #audiobook. Usually I go for the Tim Curry version, but this one is growing on me!

Thought I might join in with the #PersephoneClub at last, but Tom had other ideas. Oh, well, maybe later? #BookThief #TomKitten #CatsOfLitsy

I mean, it's not too much to ask, is it?? #PenguinClassics #Clothbound

A fascinating '20s time capsule on cooking and hospitality. Though the recipes ranged from utterly mystifying to downright revolting (so much aspic! So many hard-boiled eggs shoved through a sieve!), the prose is lovely. For instance, on weddings: "...goblets of sparkling drink, delicious fragrance of rosemary, lavender, and cedar wood...music, laughter, and the love of friends. What an hour to remember later in the silence and the starlight."

"Oh, you want this book? Gonna have to go through me first." #TomKitten #CatsOfLitsy

OH, HELLO THERE, this cast is spectacular. #CurrentlyReading #CurrentlyListening

Oh look, it's me and the 100+ books that have been sitting on my shelf unread for a literal decade... #ImTheProblemItsMe

Hey there, Litsy! It's been a minute! Life has continued to get in the way of my reading this year, but I'm working on getting back to my #TBR. I managed to plow through two entire books this weekend- a first in many months! And I can't wait to dig into this beauty tonight. I love the rainbow pages - and all of Rainbow's characters. Can't wait!

I hate John Thorpe with a burning rage all the time, no matter what, but chapter 13 really drives it home. Completely disregarding Catherine's wishes, going behind her back and making her look hella rude to a friend? UM, NO. Scottish Twitter insults are really the only words I can find to encapsulate my true feelings for John "Human Trashcan" Thorpe. #PemberLittens

For anyone who missed the original:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tLrk7mUdla0

Catherine is sure a little rain won't stop her from seeing the Tilneys today, but then nobody's favorite blowhard John Thorpe arrives with Isabella and James, swearing up and down that he saw Henry driving out of town. He convinces Catherine to come out to Clifton with the gang and she grudgingly agrees. Though once they've hit the road, who is that glaring from the sidewalk? Eleanor Tilney with Henry beside her! DAMN YOU, THORPE!

More Tilney wit today as he and Catherine dance and talk of Bath. Catherine becomes every undergrad who has ever studied abroad, like, "Bath is SO great, I know I'm only staying 6 weeks but I could seriously live here, when I get home I'm only gonna talk about Bath!" Luckily Henry finds her naïveté refreshing and not exasperating. Bonus: Cath arranges a walk for the next day with Miss Tilney and Henry; a win for literal-minded girls everywhere!

This book is an eternal "Pick" for me. No matter how many bonkers details emerge as I read it into adulthood, despite St. John's cold and paternalistic tendencies and Rochester's manipulations and the general dreariness that permeates every bit of it, I love Jane and I love this book. BUT- I will never understand why it ends with a joyful exultation of St. John's death?! Oh, Charlotte. You wouldn't be a Brontë if you didn't leave me wondering.

STOP, I cannot...! 💀💀💀 #PemberLittens

OK, I know that comparing horrid Isabella Thorpe with our queen Carrie Fisher is gonna garner me some side-eye. But Isabella in today's chapter is my favorite type of chick- fangirling over a good book (in this case, The Mysteries of Udolpho) and then dunking on men who don't like her friends and who ogle women in public spaces. OK, so she still goes out of her way to get their attention later (c'mon, girl!) but she so very nearly had it there...!

Jane takes off to find Rochester after hearing his voice calling to her on the wind (peak Gothic Novel activity here). She comes across Thornfield, now a burned-out ruin of its former self, and gets the story out of an inkeeper: Mrs. Poole succumbed to the ol' gin and water one night, and Bertha stole her keys, busted out of her cell, and indulged in some arson. The fire blinded Rochester, who's now living in seclusion at Ferndean- go, Jane, go!

Chapters 4 & 5! Turns out the Allens have an acquaintance in Bath after all- Mrs. Thorpe, an old friend of Mrs. A's! She presents her favorite daughter and also her two other daughters, and Catherine gets a friend crush FAST. She and Isabella become instant BFFs, calling each other by their first names and reading novels together (tbh this is #friendgoals). Here Jane launches into a passionate defense of novels and it is scathing and glorious.

After she rejects him, St. John gives Jane the cold shoulder for a bit, but eventually he tries again to talk at her until she reconsiders his work-based sham "marriage" plan. Our girl isn't having it, though, and even St. John's sisters are like, "yeah, no" about the whole thing. Then one night after some fiery reading from Revelations (kill me now), Jane feels her "no" become a "maybe"...but then she hears Rochester 's ghost voice from afar!

Buckle up, folks, because today St. John offers Jane quite possibly the WORST proposal in literature. Worse than Darcy's "inferiority of your connections" and worse than Rhett Butler proposing at Frank's actual funeral, this asswaffle is like, "I will never love you, and I only want you for the work you'll provide." Jane gives a rager of a comeback with "I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, and I scorn you when you offer it." ???

Mrs. Allen keeps lamenting their lack of society in Bath but does ab? so ? lutely ? nothing to change things. Luckily the Master of Ceremonies (wtf) steps in and introduces Catherine to a sharp, witty, "near handsome" gent named Mr. Tilney. Our man Henry shows up and shows out, hilariously lampooning vapid small talk, making a fair case for equality between the sexes, and showing a deep knowledge of muslin. Henry Tilney, the man that you are!

Plot twists! Today we discover that Jane's uncle has died and left her a fortune! AND she and St. John are actually COUSINS! In spite of these events, which come straight out of the kind of novel Jane Austen warns us about in Northanger, I find this chapter really touching. Jane wants to split her cash equally with her new-found family and stay with them. This, she says, "was wealth indeed!--wealth to the heart!" Cue my cheesy weeping here.

Catherine takes leave of her fam with no fuss and makes it to Bath drama-free. Sure, she's there with empty-headed Mrs. Allen (Austen's description eliciting a belly laugh and a "damn, Gina!" from me), but there are no highwaymen or bad storms on the way. Once arrived, the high point of the evening is two dudes benignly commenting that Catherine is pretty. I'm fully living for Jane's dry snark and the utterly pedestrian situations she's created.

Jane has semi-befriended Rosamund Oliver, the rich girl who bestows charity all over the village and also bestows heart eyes on St. John whenever she sees him. Jane can't figure out why dude won't just marry her and in trying to get to the bottom of it, we get one of my favorite wackadoo St. John moments: he tells Jane to take 15 and keep talking about Rosy's love for him, and in Charlotte's words, "he actually took out his watch" to time her. !!!

We're off! I'll be reading the annotated edition this time around, and I'm excited to get some new insights. This first chapter is among my favorite short sections of Austen's writing- I love her snark toward so many literary conventions of her day (and ours!), poking fun at foundlings, wards, and orphans, and giving some serious side-eye to the Manic Pixie Regency Girl and instead creating prosaic, everyday Catherine. Can't wait to keep going!

Jane takes St. John's awful job teaching a bunch of rough moor kids and reflects on being surrounded by "ignorance, poverty, and coarseness"; but at least she's not living in unearned luxury, having traded in her good morals! This is a mindset my austere Baptist upbringing completely prepared me for so I have to say I'm Team Jane on this one. St. John swings by and talks at Jane about doing God's work and my GOD, can he just go to India already?!

Don't mind me, just weeping in spite of myself. Sondheim, you mad bastard; thank you. #SeeMoreTheatre

Jane has been living it up with the sisters Rivers (if you count learning German and reading books as "living it up" which I ABSOLUTELY DO), but soon they're going to leave for their own governess positions and Jane realizes that she needs her own job stat. St. John swoops in- he might be a bleak, disappointing Calvinist, but he does have a job for her, even though all it promises is "poverty and obscurity." Jane being Jane says, "Sign me up!"

After the Great Wife Reveal, Rochester proposes the following: leave Bertha with Grace Poole (she'd be game for the mad cash), send Adele off to boarding school, and flee to the south of France to live in a sham marriage. Jane gets where he's coming from but is ultimately like, "No can do, bro, I've got this deeply rooted sense of morality and self respect!" Then after a night of horror dreams, she straight up runs away; probably a good move, TBH.

I loved getting to this part of the book! This famous quote is a classic for a reason- Jane is so strong and so brave in this moment, and I will love it forever. This print lives on my wall and always makes me smile, all hail Jane, all hail Charlotte. #PemberLittens

Got all caught up on some Jane Eyre audio today, which means I got to the weird-ass chapter where Rochester dresses up like a fortune-teller to try and get at Jane's true feelings. The whole thing is so utterly bizarre that I can't help but love it, and it's so on-brand for the specific level of Brontë bonkers we're all here for. #PemberLittens
📷: obscurelittlebird on Tumblr

I know we're on Jane Eyre right now, #PemberLittens, but every time I see this making the rounds on social media, I absolutely screamlaugh. Someone find the woman who wrote this tweet and give her an award. Or, at the very least, some hot applesauce to throw in an enemy's face. #Brontussy

More than a little anecdotal but still an affirming read. My own "Big Friendships" (pictured!) have been defining and sustaining in my life, and I guess I picked up this book hoping to find a mirror- and I certainly did. I also appreciated that though this was mainly the story of the two authors, they acknowledged the other friendships in their lives, and the ways in which the primacy of their own relationship ebbs and flows through the years. ❤️

Delightedly getting caught up with my old friend Jane and feeling very nostalgic about it. I read Jane Eyre for the first time in 8th grade and fell totally in love with it; somehow I keep reflecting on myself at that age and the ways in which reading this story of a plain but strong and determined girl sustained and inspired me. I'm also reflecting on this gorgeous new edition to be released in November- want it desperately! Don't need it at all!

Bring 👏It 👏 On 👏 These are my main goals in life, honestly. #AnneShirley #AnneWithAnE #LucyMaudMontgomery

Finished the Charlotte Brontë section last night and LOVED it! I tend to fall into the trap of believing that the Brontës were totally secluded, isolated weirdoes, what with their strange goth stories and made-up fantasy worlds. But of course they had friends and acquaintances (well...maybe not Emily), and reading more about Charlotte's life outside of the parsonage was a welcome reminder. And who else thinks that Mary Taylor is a total BAMF??

The memes of Florence Pugh in Venice are all top-tier, but this one takes the cake, no doubt. 😭 #JusticeForAmyMarch