Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Classics Club Spin 18 #ccspin

Update: The spin was #9. My selection...drumroll, please...Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen! Perfect for Austen in August!


The 18th Classics Club Spin! My last one didn't go well. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. UGH! Read all about it here.

Here's what you do...list 20 books from your Classics Club list before August 1. The Club will choose a number randomly from 1 - 20 and that number is the one you will read from your list. Fun! The challenge is to read that book by August 31.

Here's mine:
  1. Emma, Jane Austen
  2. Roxana, Daniel Defoe
  3. The Diary of Anne Frank
  4. Cheri (with The Last of Cheri), Colette
  5. The Collector, John Fowles
  6. Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot
  7. Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell
  8. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
  9. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
  10. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
  11. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
  12. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
  13. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
  14. The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
  15. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  16. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  17. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
  18. Roderick Hudson, Henry James
  19. The Princess of Cleves, Madame de Lafayette
  20. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
Since my reading schedule is already crammed full, all of these pretty much scare me. lol



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Saturday, July 28, 2018

Reverse #Readathon Opening Survey and Reading Plans


Late start. My son had his first varsity football scrimmage tonight and it was in a town an hour away...and we got lost! Hoping to read all night because I have plans tomorrow for a movie and I have to get my car oil changed. I'm pretty tired so it may not go as planned.


1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? 
Nashville, Tennessee
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I don't have much of a stack. I really want to finish The Terror (I have less than 100 pages to go) and then read all of To Kill a Mockingbird (I'm about 40 pages in on it already).
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
This came on me so fast, I really didn't plan snacks. Probably just my normal popcorn and Crystal Light lemonade. I live dangerously.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'll use my standard internet bio. lol 
Mom of 2 boys, avid reader, writer, book blogger, cat lover, owner of a massive library, Freethinker
5) This is our VERY first Reverse Readathon! How does it feel in your time zone?
I'm in central time zone. I have to say, I like the night starting time. Then again, I am a night owl.

Happy Reading!



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Thursday, July 26, 2018

#CatThursday - #Cats in #Art (31) #Impressionists


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) 
The Boy with a Cat (detail)

Cats, Orovida Camille Pissarro (1893 - 1968)

Cat Sleeping on a Bed, Claude Monet

Woman with a Cat, Edouard Manet

Cat (detail), Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863




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Thursday, July 19, 2018

#CatThursday - #Books and #Cats (2)


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.

It's a readathon month over at my blog, Seasons of Reading so a good time to share more cats and books. Really...what could go together better? 










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Thursday, July 12, 2018

#CatThursday - #Authors and #Cats (74) Natalia Ginzburg


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.

The second Cat Thursday of each month is Authors and Cats Thursday. Each time I will feature an author with their cat(s), pictured with a cat(s), or guest posts by cat loving authors who also (sometimes) write about cats.



Natalia Ginzburg (July 14, 1916 - October 07, 1991) was an Italian novelist, essayist, translator and playwright, who has written of her unconventional family and its opposition in Turin to Fascist oppression. Ginzburg's novels are a mixture of reminiscence, observation, and invention. Much of her fiction is written in the first person in a plain style, and constructed almost entirely of dialogue.
She published her first novel under the pseudonym Alessandra Torninparte. -via Goodreads


Prolific author of The Little Virtues, All Our Yesterdays, Voices in the Evening, The Manzoni Family and many more...and very obviously a cat lover. 





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Friday, July 6, 2018

Donna Russo Morin's Gilded Summers - #Review


My thoughts
I love historical fiction because it speaks of bygone eras and social norms we find unfathomable today. Gilded Summers perfectly illustrates the lives of women in the 19th century and how little rights they had at the time. Even more enlightening is the idea that women of privilege had even fewer rights because of the strict social constraints of their set.

Pearl, born into a life of privilege, and a card carrying member of the Newport elite, does the unthinkable by befriending her lady's maid. Pearl and Ginevra become fast friends, as they both share dreams of a different life from what they are destined for, and what is expected.  Pearl soon learns of the scandal and undesirable behavior behind the scenes of the privileged set. Ginevra learns that a kind word or gesture from those in high society often leads to much more menacing behavior underneath. These revelations culminate in a shocking denouement.

I have long been a fan of this author. She knows how to vibrantly tell a historical story while still staying true to the historical side of things. Her passion for the Newport area shines through in her words. Gilded Summers is an insightful glimpse into an age and place where women, even women of power, were merely objects and ornamentation. It is also an inspiring story of two women who chose to buck convention and live lives of their choosing; women who pioneered the way for the women of future generations.


GILDED SUMMERS:
A Novel of Newport’s Gilded Age


Pearl and Ginevra grow up in the era known as the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island. One lives above the stairs, the other below.

Surrounded by Astors and Vanderbilts, Pearl fills her days with teatime and shallow friendships, yearning for something more. A chance meeting with Mary Cassatt sparks her secret desire to be an artist. Meanwhile Ginevra, fresh off the boat from Italy, finds her own dreams out of reach as she joins the unwelcoming household as a servant and seamstress.

Kindred souls, the girls become fast friends but must keep their friendship hidden from Pearl’s controlling mother. Every summer, they meet in a hidden spot beneath the weeping beeches to talk of art and life, and their struggles to break the barriers of their lives.

Soon, the two young women must decide who they want to be in this world, and survive what it takes to get there…even if it includes murder.

"Gilded Summers by Donna Russo Morin is a lush and evocative novel of the distinctive period known as Newport’s Gilded Age, a period brought vibrantly to life in this powerful work. Ginevra and Pearl, unique in their own way yet equally sympathetic, are captivating from the start and never let go. The passages and chapters are exquisitely and uniquely intertwined, like the young lives of its characters, sewn seamlessly with the mounting mystery and suspense. Vivid descriptions evoke the setting and period with such mastery, one feels like a ‘fly on the wall,’ living there with these young women who are so well crafted and developed. A genuine ‘can’t put it down’ novel, a triumph by a masterful writer!"
-Anne Girard (Diane Haegar) author of Madame Picasso

"A wonderful peek at the Gilded Age of Newport, RI, filled with the Astors and Vanderbilts and a bit of mystery. 4 Stars!"
-Barbara Khan, Baer Books Blog

AVAILABLE NOW in print, ebook, and audio formats.


About the author
Donna Russo Morin is an award-winning historical fiction author. Donna has dabbled as a model and actor, working on Showtime's Brotherhood and Martin Scorsese's The Departed. Branching out with her storytelling skills, Donna is now a screenwriter. A graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Donna lives on the south shore of Rhode Island close to the ocean she loves so very much. She is the proud mother of two sons, Devon and Dylan, her greatest works in progress.

Visit her website at www.donnarussomorin.com
Friend her at http://www.facebook.com/Donna.Russo.Morin, and follow her on Twitter at @DonnaRussoMorin.



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Thursday, July 5, 2018

#CatThursday - For the love of...toilet paper? #Cats


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below. 

Arya is the toilet paper destroyer in our household (and sometimes paper towels). Do you have one in your house?








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