jane austen

BOOKENDS: What I Read in June 2024

- Meg

I feel like June was a decent reading month. It started off slow because I did not enjoy The Warm Hands of Ghosts as much as I thought it would which was disappointing because I adored her Winternight Trilogy, and it put me in a reading slump that lasted until about the last week and a half of June where I read/finished up the rest of these. I listened to Pride and Prejudice narrated by Rosamund Pike on a trip to visit my mom, and I loved revisiting that familiar story this way. I devoured Yellowface in a single sitting while waiting for an oil change, and I kicked myself a bit for putting it off for so long. I enjoy Kuang’s writing so much. The historical romance was solid, and I’ll definitely be checking out more of her writing in the future. I want to read all of the Best American SFF, and I reread 2015’s edition and thought the entries were solid still after almost a decade! The Amazon Original Stories are great for me at getting out of reading slumps too because they’re short and I can usually read one or two in a sitting, so that helps get me out of a slump and get my reads for the year number up, especially when I feel like I’ve been slacking a bit.

WHAT I READ

💖 purchased/owned | 🌠 library/borrowed | 🔮 review copy | 💞 reread | 👻 dnf

🌠 The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden
💖 Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
💖 The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015, ed. Joe Hill
🌠 The Long Game, by Ann Leckie (Kindle Unlimited)
🌠 Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach, by Nnedi Okorafor (Kindle Unlimited)
💖 Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
🌠 Slow Time Between the Stars, by John Scazi (Kindle Unlimited)
💖 Dreaming of a Duke Like You, by Sara Bennett

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Books On My TBR Published Before I Was Born

- Meg

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly discussion hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl (and formerly hosted by The Broke and the Bookish), and this week’s topic is “books on my TBR published before I was born.” These are all books I own, so I just looked at my nightstand and TBR cart for inspiration! Some of these were part of my challenge last year that I never completed, but that’s okay! I’m already a little more organized this year than I was last year.

  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – I am that English major who has never read any Woolf…
  • The Shining by Stephen King – The only King I’ve ever read is On Writing, and I’m definitely changing that this year.
  • And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie – I want to read more of her mysteries, and I found a little mass market at the thrift store the other day!
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell – I feel like one should read both 1984 and this, so I want to get to this one this year.
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – I’m trying to read the rest of Jane Austen, but I definitely wasn’t feeling the last one I tried to read.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – I read the abridged version of this, and the movie that came out a while ago is one of my favorites, so I should definitely read the unabridged version!
  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell – This is another one where I loved the mini series but have never read the book!
  • The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin – Le Guin is one of my favorite writers, and I’m working on reading all of her work.
  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck – Another one where I feel like a bad English major, but I just read Of Mice and Men a couple years ago, and now it’s time to read this.
  • If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin – The two other books of his I’ve read have been amazing, so I want to read this one before I watch the movie.

What is your favorite book published before you were born?

 

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Books I Want to Read Again

- Meg 6 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly discussion hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl (and formerly hosted by The Broke and the Bookish), and this week’s topic is “Books I Want to Read Again” and even though there are so many new books to read, sometimes it’s a joy to revisit something you’ve read before and find something new in it (and be comforted because these are almost all comfort reads to some degree).

  • Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I try to read it about once a year. I don’t actually remember the last time I read it, so it’s definitely time for a revisit.
  • Emma by Jane Austen – Even though this is on my 2020 reads list and a challenge I’m not likely to finish any time soon, I’ve been wanting to revisit this ever since the movie came out earlier this year.
  • Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – I last read this forever ago and meant to revisit after the TV series, but I’m in the mood for something funny and this should do the trick.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien – I used to read this once a year in the fall but I haven’t done that in about five years or more. With the release of these new covers, I’m ready to dive back into Middle Earth.
  • The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot – I didn’t realize any of these were getting rereleased for their TWENTIETH anniversary, but I ate these like candy when I was younger and I’m happy to see them out in print again.
  • The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald – If you don’t read Fitzgerald in the 2020s, who are you? The parallels of the two decades are interesting, and I’m curious to revisit this after seven years according to my Goodreads!
  • The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien – I last read this sometime in the midst of the film trilogy’s release and I remember nothing about it. With the extended universe series coming out at some point, I want to revisit this (and with the shiny new cover).
  • Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas – I am working on finishing series that I started, bought the books, and never finished. But I don’t really remember what happened in the first five books to truly pick up the most recent one I haven’t read. I remember these being fast, fun reads though!
  • Truthwitch by Susan Dennard – This is another one of those series where I read the first book, continued to buy the next installments in hardcover on release, and then just never read them. The next one comes out in the near future, so I want to get caught up!
  • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – I told myself I wouldn’t read the second book in this trilogy until the third book was announced, and the third book came out this year, so it’s time to dive back into this brilliant view of the Tudors.

What are you looking forward to rereading?

 

FIRST LINES FRIDAY: Emma, by Jane Austen

- Meg

Hello, Friday! First Lines Friday is a feature on my blog in which I post the first lines from a book I am interested in reading, either a new release or a backlist title! For the next several Fridays, I will be featuring titles I am going to hopefully read as part of my 12 Decades/12 Months/12 Books challenge (#12decades12books). I last read Emma during my master’s program in England in 2013 (where has the time gone???), but with the release of the film this year, I want to revisit it and see how my opinions and views have changed since I read it last.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father, and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses, and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.

Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr Woodhouse’s family, less as a governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.

Have you seen Emma.? What is your favorite Jane Austen adaptation?

The Delicate Art of No; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

- Meg

fbmreview

The Delicate Art of No; Pride and Prejudice by Jane AustenTitle: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Published by Penguin, Penguin Drop Caps
Published: December 12th 2012
Genres: Fiction, Classics
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Buy: Bookshop(afflilate link)
Goodreads

A is for Austen. Few have failed to be charmed by the witty and independent spirit of Elizabeth Bennet in Austen’s beloved classic Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth’s early determination to dislike Mr. Darcy is a prejudice only matched by the folly of his arrogant pride. Their first impressions give way to true feelings in a comedy profoundly concerned with happiness and how it might be achieved.

You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say.

As a forewarning, this review of Pride and Prejudice will be entirely personal in nature, meaning I’ll be referencing the book’s plot and its parallels to something that recently happened to me.

This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I tend to reread it once every year or so because reading it makes me happy. This year, I read it right in the midst of all of the Valentine’s Day marketing and goopy, lovey stuff. I don’t particularly read much in the “romance” genre, and Jane Austen is about as traditionally romance-y as I get. Every time I’ve reread Pride and Prejudice, it resonates so much more with me because Austen can paint with such skill these true-to-life renditions in her cast of characters, and because two hundred years later, people like Jane Bennet, Caroline Bingley, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, and Mr. Collins still exist.

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