I had a hard time with this book. It did not hold my attention well through long sections, then something rather bizarre or violent would happen and I‘d get caught up in the story again for a while. It also took a long time to get the characters straight.

When I finished, I did listen to a podcast episode that discussed a few aspects and gave me a bit more to think about. (Link in comments)

#audiobook #LMMAdjacent #1001books

This year I‘m listening to an audio devotional leading up to Easter. It‘s a good length most mornings to pair with a news podcast on my drive to school. Today I completed the Lent portion before church and moved on to the first for Holy Week.

#Christian #audiobook

It‘s been a good but busy week and weekend.

#DaiseysJoys #5JoysFriday Sunday Edition

I‘m a bit late starting, but I got caught up listening to the first few chapters of The Mill on the Floss while taking a walk with Luthien today. I‘m not sure what I think of these two siblings yet, but I‘m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

#HashtagBrigade #audiobook #1001books

Parts of this book were bleak and I was almost constantly listening with a slight feeling of dread about what might be about to happen, but I also enjoyed it. It actually ended on a more hopeful note than I expected through most of the story. I felt it described the setting of 1860s New Zealand and the gold rush very well.

#ReadTheWorld #ReadingTheWorld #NewZealand #audiobook #1001books #TBRTakedown

A day late this week, but still worth acknowledging

💛 A weekend with my family
💛 Helping Dad clean up a field and burn brush piles
💛 Plants continuing to green up and bloom for spring, even if it‘s turned cooler again
💛 Fixing my dishwasher
💛 Pets, of course

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

March 2025 #BookSpinBingo

March was a busy month, so I only finished a few books. I‘m also currently in the middle of several reads.

#MonthlyStats #ReadingStats #DaiseysReadingSummary

💛 Pets!
💛 Our HS quiz bowl team placed second in their conference tournament.
💛 My daffodils are blooming!
💛 Wild ramps are coming up.
💛 A weekend with my family

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

I finished this over the weekend, and then I almost forgot to review it. I found some parts interesting, but overall I‘m just ambivalent about the whole thing. I will be curious to see if our book club discussion gives me any greater appreciation for it.

#LitsyBookClub #audiobook

lissom: thin, supple, and graceful (adjective)

#WeirdWords #WeirdWordWednesday #FellowshipOfTolkien

Happy Tolkien Reading Day! After recently reading Tolkien‘s work on The Fall of Arthur I decided to revisit a bit more of his poetry today in the tagged book with supper tonight. I love the story of Beren and Luthien, and the parts that were written as poetry are especially wonderful.

Anyone else reading a little extra Tolkien today?

#TolkienReadingDay #JRRTolkien #FellowshipOfTolkien #ReadAndEat

Saturday night #BooksAndBooze

I‘ve reached the part of this book where I just don‘t want to stop, but I also don‘t want to get too far ahead of the chapters on the schedule for March.

#ShardlakeBR

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

This one reads slower than the previous one to me, but I‘m still thoroughly intrigued.

#ShardlakeBR

For the most part I really enjoyed this one. There were so many interesting characters, and I enjoyed seeing Nicholas grow. I also appreciated how the different storylines came together for both him and his uncle in the end.

#WhatTheDickens #1001books #audiobook

I have personal copies of books I will only loan out selectively, but for the most part if someone borrows a book and doesn‘t return it, I‘ve learned to let it go. Having a middle school class library has taught me to be much more relaxed about this. The tagged series tends to come back in the worst shape or sometimes not at all, but it‘s also a series that gets more reluctant readers reading and that‘s the real goal.

#SundayFunday

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

Chiasmus: a figure of speech in which the grammar of two parallel phrases is inverted

#WeirdWordWednesday #WeirdWords #FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

I‘ve been listening to a lot of other things lately and realized this weekend that I really should try to wrap up this audiobook before I start The Last of the Mohicans. I listened this afternoon as I enjoyed the beautiful weather and passed the halfway mark. Spending several hours with the story this weekend also helped me become more invested in some of the characters than when I listen to shorter sections at a time.

#WhatTheDickens #audiobook

From “Speech and Silence in The Lord of the Rings: Medieval Romance and the Transitions of Eowyn”

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

After finishing The Fall of Arthur this morning, I pulled this book from my shelf this evening. In the introduction, the description of this essay relating Eowyn to a female medieval knight seemed a perfect complement to my earlier reading. It‘s a truly interesting analysis of Eowyn‘s character development from court lady to acting lord of Rohan to shield maiden and finally to wife and healer.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

I finished this book with breakfast this morning. As with many of these incomplete works by Tolkien, it‘s a combination of fascinating and frustrating. They always leaving you wanting to know and be able to read more. I‘m so grateful to Christopher for putting the work into sharing this, but I only recommend it to serious fans of Tolkien‘s writing process or readers interested in various versions and retellings of the King Arthur legend.

I thought this quote about how Tolkien viewed language and the change in it over time interesting.

“Our language now has become quick-moving (in syllables), and may be very supple and nimble,
but is rather thin in sound and in sense too often diffuse and vague. The language of our forefathers,
especially in verse, was slow, not very nimble, but very sonorous, and was intensely packed and concentrated — or could be in a good poet.”

Reading Tolkien‘s commentary about Old English Verse this morning. I really do enjoy this poetic style.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

💛 Sourdough cheeseburger focaccia
💛 Enjoying a HS conference band concert
💛 My team had 2 mostly successful nights of matches to start their Scholar Bowl/Quiz Bowl season!
💛 The pets, featuring LaGata this week
💛 A Friday night out for supper with friends

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

This book was a fascinating read. There were times I was a bit confused by the different timelines, but I was always curious to know how they would come together. It has some wonderful descriptions, and I felt so much for these characters. We also had a great book club discussion about it.

#LitsyBookClub #1001books

This was a wonderful short read for today! I‘m very much an introvert and frequently time to myself is my happy place, so I found several aspects of this story very relatable. I also loved some of the things it had to say about happiness and contentment, and I laughed several times over the absurdity.

#quote #KindleQuotes

This is my favorite line so far in this section, “The Evolution of the Poem.” Even after works were published, they weren‘t always safe from further revisions by Tolkien.

“As a rule, indeed, no manuscript of my father‘s could be regarded as ‘final‘ until it had safely left his hands.”

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

I haven‘t had a lot of reading time this past week, so my priority was finishing The History of Love. Now that it‘s done, I finally settled in to start “The Evolution of the Poem” this evening with supper. Also, crazy Missouri weather was in the 60s yesterday and back in the 30s today, so it was chili for supper again.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien #ReadAndEat

February 2025 #BookSpinBingo
I read some interesting books this month and continued some long reads/listens as well. I finished History of Love and enjoyed it, but I‘m also still thinking about it a bit before reviewing.

#ReadingStats #MonthlyStats #DaiseysReadingSummary

My photos are a bit food centric this week, but there were lots of joyful things.

💛 I went to town for a few groceries and tried a new to me local place for supper, and it was delicious.
💛 I made sourdough oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies to have in the freezer.
💛 Luthien ran for hours and came home happy but muddy.
💛 I made a strawberry cake for a carry-in meal at school.
💛 We had a full week of school!

##5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

From the reading for February 22 of A Tree a Day comes this fun but weird word!

epiphyte: a plant that grows upon another for support only, not as a parasite

#WeirdWordWednesday #WeirdWords #NaturaLitsy

Saturday night supper and a book

#ReadAndEat #LitsyBookClub #1001books

I haven‘t used my NetGalley account much lately, but I saw a review of this book & had to look it up. This is a story of a warrior woman bent on vengeance for her husband‘s execution by the king of France. Jeanne de Clisson was a real noblewoman turned pirate during the Hundred Years‘ War. I came to agree with her friend that she followed the course of vengeance too long, but I also loved her story of strength against powerful men of her time.

The section about the unwritten poem and notes were interesting and similar to what I expected. However, I was hoping for more in the connections to The Silmarillion. I think I was looking more for character comparison rather than about sailing into the west. I‘ll be curious to hear what everyone else thinks.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

💛 A long weekend full of pets and books
💛 Baking on cold, snowy days
💛 Getting caught up on grading
💛 Simple snack lunches of sausage, cheese, and crackers
💛 Reliable heat during cold weeks

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

I recently read and enjoyed Kuyatt‘s Good Different, so when I saw this on NetGalley I had to read it as well. V is artistic and autistic, and she‘s not quite looking forward to spending a summer with her very particular grandma Jojo. Then she realizes there‘s a ghost in the walls and starts to learn secrets about women in her family who weren‘t allowed to be their true selves. Must she also conform or will she break the patterns of the past?

This book has a strange story of a woman marrying a snake, and when he arrives he is escorted by paranymphs. This word makes sense for someone accompanying a bride or groom, but it‘s an unfamiliar one.

#WeirdWordWednesday #WeirdWords

These are my current long reads, and I‘m enjoying each of them in their own way.

I got a lot from my previous read of #Genji, so I thought I would reread for the #Reading1001 yearlong read this year by listening to the Washburn translation. It‘s interesting how I‘ve forgotten so many details, but then hear sections that immediately seem so familiar.

#CurrentlyReading #NaturaLitsy #WhatTheDickens #NoPlaceLikeHolmes #1001books #audiobook

I downloaded this a few nights ago when I needed a new ebook to read a few pages before bed. Set in Albania during a time of transition after communism, it was strangely compelling with its mix of storytelling. There‘s a contemporary story of Mark and his girlfriend in the changing city combined with his remembrances of stories and strange dreams. I found it interesting, but in the end I didn‘t quite understand it.

#1001books #Reading1001

Sunday morning book and breakfast

This is the essay I‘m the most intrigued to read, but I also expect to be frustrated by wanting more. After reading several of Tolkien‘s incomplete works, I know kind of what to expect. This includes commentary about Tolkien‘s nearly indecipherable notes and just enough detail to make you want to know more when it‘s impossible.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien #BookAndBreakfast #BreakfastWithTolkien

I‘m loving the language in these pages and am thoroughly intrigued by how the separate stories are going to come together.

#LitsyBookClub #1001books

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

This was not the easiest essay to read, but it was fascinating. I found it really interesting how the versions focused on different aspects and diverged from each other. I had to slow down for the Middle English excerpts, but I could decipher almost all of it.

How‘s everyone else‘s reading going?

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

A few pages of Tolkien, about his poem in comparison to Arthurian tradition, with LaGata tonight.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien #CatsOfLitsy

This is a dark story, and although I appreciated it, it did not have the same impact on me as the other Zola novels I‘ve read. In this story of lust and guilt, there were strong feelings of dread, but I didn‘t really have any sympathy for the characters due to their choices.

#1001books #audiobook #TBRTakedown

This was often a tough book to read, about a 13 year old Nepali girl sold into prostitution in India. McCormick does an amazing job of describing how horribly Lakshmi is treated while also refraining from being excessively explicit. Lakshmi faces these circumstances with her mother‘s words that to endure is to triumph and never fully gives up hope.

#YA #FoodAndLit #Nepal #India

I finished Canto V this afternoon, and thankfully I knew this was a very incomplete poem when we started. It feels to me like the story is really just getting started when Tolkien‘s work in progress ends. I would have loved to have read more of the story in this poetic style. Onto the essays tomorrow.

#FellowshipOfTolkien #MedievalTolkien

💛 I spent a day with my family cutting up pork and making sausage.
💛 I canned pork, pork broth, and peach BBQ sauce.
💛 One of the jars of pork didn‘t seal, so I got to try it in a carnitas taco.
💛 My math classroom door is decorated for February.
💛 The pets, of course

#5JoysFriday #DaiseysJoys

I enjoyed this story of a JH aged competitive girls‘ soccer team. The relationship between the sisters who rely on each other when Mom is busy or distracted by a new boyfriend was fantastic, and the team relationships felt very relatable as well. I did feel like things wrapped up a bit too easily at the end without as much detail as I would have liked, but that‘s my adult opinion.

#MiddleGrade #GirlsInSports #audiobook #TRS2024