This was a fun YA romp for me. I read it in like three hours. It's an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, modernized and set at a prep school for gifted students. It was super fun to dissect all the references!

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING. I spent the entire weekend reading it, I couldn't put it down, couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't seem to read it fast enough. I can't tell you anything without spoiling it.
However, trigger warnings for a lot of things, mainly excessive drug and alcohol use and physical abuse.

"There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady."
Amazing, absolutely amazing. It was very nice to read Salinger without dismissive literary criticism over my head. I need to read all of the Glass family stories now!

I've read a lot of "untold women" books lately, particularly about women in science. This one was exceptional, although more for the story of Oak Ridge than for the stories of the women in it. The women profiled's lives never intersected with each other, which was unique among the "untold women" books. All in all, it was a captivating and interesting book, focused on, though not revolving around, the central women.

This was a fun, quick read. Charming and remarkably engaging. I can imagine a Hamilton/Burr-like relationship between Mütter and Meigs. I would highly recommend if you're not too squeamish.

Prufrock was good, the other poems decent when comprehendible, and in English, though I could make out most of the French. I gave up on the literary criticism because I don't have the background nor the will to appreciate it. I think my expectations were a bit high because of Mary Karr's introduction about how The Waste Land would change my life. It didn't.

I have no bug books so...Rita Skeeter will do
#sizzlinsummerbooks
day 5: bugs

Some red, white, and blue on the cover of The Great Gatsby! Happy 4th!
#sizzlinsummerbooks
day 4: red/white/blue

Holmes and Watson!
#sizzlinsummerbooks
day 3: besties

"To take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them"
#sizzlinsummerbooks
day 2: oceans
(seas, oceans, same thing)

Here's the incredibly large stack of books I currently have out from the library. It would be lovely to finish them by the end of the summer but we'll see.
#sizzlinsummerbooks
day 1: tbr

I'm about to go stargazing in a protected dark sky site!!! I've been looking at star charts all day! 🌌🌠

"Dissent-even a cranky, erratic, eccentric, old-fashioned version of it- was not disloyalty but at the heart of an American democratic identity."
-this is actually from the introduction, written by Michael Meyer

i was at some dunes today and there's literally sand everywhere. theres was even a bit on the cover of my book -_-

reading at some high altitudes on vacation!!!

new book. it's the summer read for school though. i usually dont read school books on paper so im trying it out this time since i got the book for free.
happy sunday!

"It is alchemy that takes the sounds of the city and turns them into music."

Dava Sobel's writing is phenomenal, per usual. I was a little unsure about the play in the middle, but she sucked me right in and I was sad to read the end of it (Sobel fictionalizes some events in Copernicus's life through a short play because there is no record of what actually happened. It is as accurate as possible, though).
All in all, superbly researched and written.
Do you have any favorite space books?

"[The House Committee on Un-American Activities] put Joe in the crosshairs and he took the microphone and he turned the tables on them. He roasted them....He castigated them thoroughly and let them know that they were complete idiots and beggars at the table of art."

"I was really looking for a language of music that was rooted in the grammar of music itself. I was working in a very foundational way, building the language of the music that I was going to be working with for the next ten years."

"I've been working with Mr. Philip Glass on music technique. My impression is that he is a very unusual person, and I believe that someday he will do something very important in the world of music."
-Nadia Boulanger on Philip Glass-she wrote a recommendation to try to renew his Fulbright. She never told him of her efforts.

This is absolutely hilarious.

"'Philip,' he said, 'I am following in the footsteps of Beethoven and Bach. But really, they were such giants, and their footsteps were so far apart, that it is if I am leaping after them.'"

"Fritz Reiner, the famous Hungarian conductor, was fascinating to watch. He was somewhat stout, hunched over with round shoulders, and his arm and baton movements were tiny-you almost had to look at him with binoculars to see what he was doing. But those tiny movements forced the players to peer at him intently, and then he would suddenly raise his arms up over his head and the entire orchestra would go crazy."

The first of a series of quotes I marked from Words Without Music, and possibly my favorite one.

1. Ohio
2. @booknerd_reads tweeted something about it. I was considering making a bookstagram, but wanted to avoid solely ya and artsy pictures. Here I am.
3. The Book Thief. Amazing stuff.
4. I have never had a pet turtle but I wish I had.
@saguarosally #welcomelitten

Words Without Music was an incredible book. I checked it out of the library solely because I liked one composition of Philip Glass's, but I had no idea he was as powerful a writer as he is a composer. Glass's voice is so well-defined, and he reminds me somewhat of both Holden Caulfield and Douglas Adams. I strongly recommend to music fans.
Intro to Philip Glass's Music (my favorites):
Mad Rush
Metamorphosis
The Hours
Études
Music in 12 Parts