Thursday, November 22, 2018

Thankful for Books

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate!

I have so much to be thankful for - a wonderful husband, our amazing son, close family, good friends... But, as silly as it may sound to many people, I am also thankful for books.


1. Books introduced me to some of my first friends. Amelia Bedelia, Curious George, Amanda Pig, Arthur, Madeline, Spot, Paddington Bear... Too many to count! I learned to love books and reading by hearing my mom read to me about these characters and their adventures.

2. Books taught me to love reading. This sounds kind of obvious. But I'm talking about teaching me to love the intentional act of reading. Of picking out a book and finding the perfect place to enjoy it. Of settling in and losing yourself for hours within its pages. Of surfacing on the other side and being in a book haze for a while where you've got one foot in the real world and one in the fictional world you just left.

3. Books gave me Harry Potter. I mean, I can't not acknowledge this one. It was my first obsession, my first fandom. I was 12 when the first book came out and 21 when the last book came out. I grew up with Harry and all his friends and I still return to that world as often as I can.

4. Books give me worlds to escape to whenever I need to run. Wonderland. Neverland. Oz. Red London, Grey London, White London, Black London. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. And there are always new worlds to discover.

5. Books help me slow down and unplug. If you're like me, you often feel over-scheduled, over-worked, and connected to social media more often than you would like. It's hard to find a moment to take a breath and regroup. But books help me do that. Whether it's downloading a brand new ebook instantly on my phone to read anywhere and anytime I have a spare moment, or putting in my headphones and sitting down to listen to someone tell me a story over an audiobook, or snuggling in somewhere comfy to crack open a hardcover and lose myself in the black text on white pages... books help me recenter myself and find a moment of quiet in a world that often feels to me too loud and demanding.

So thank you, books, for these and many other gifts you have given me. And thank you, authors, for creating these magical words and worlds that give me peace and happiness. I am so grateful.

Monday, November 12, 2018

{ Something Old, Something New } November 2018




{ Something Old, Something New } is a meant to help us focus on the new releases in our TBR piles and also hand-pick some older books that we've been meaning to read.




On my reading list for October 2018 was...

{ Something Old }
Of Monsters and Madness
by Jessica Verday

Publication date: September 9, 2014
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 277
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Suggested tags: young adult (ages 13-17), horror, gothic, retelling



You can read my review here! (2 stars)



{ Something New }
Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft
edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe

Publication date: August 28, 2018
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 405
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Suggested tags: young adult (ages 13-17), short stories, witches, LGBTQ*



My review is coming soon! (spoiler alert: it was great!!)




On my reading list for November 2018 is...

{ Something Old }
A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray

Publication date: December 9, 2003
Available as: hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 277
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Suggested tags: young adult (ages 13-17), historical fiction, gothic



First in the Gemma Doyle series. From Goodreads:
"It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls and their foray into the spiritual world's lead to?"

I'm in the mood for some historical fiction, and this one's been on my TBR for a long time. The spiritualism aspect really appeals to me - a reviewer described it as "gothic fantasy" and as soon as I read that I needed it in my hands. Like yesterday.


{ Something New }

The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

Publication date: November 6, 2018
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 432
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Suggested tags: young adult (ages 13-17), fantasy



From Goodreads:
"Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family's enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate.
"

This synopsis sucked me right in because tbh I have no idea what is going on... but it sounds magical and complicated and I can't wait!



What's on your { Something Old, Something New} reading list for this month? Pick a book that you've been meaning to read but haven't yet (your Something Old) and a new release or soon-to-be-released book (your Something New), read and/or review them, and share a link to your posts here or tweet it at me @PidginPea! I'd love to share your books and reviews when I do my { Something Old, Something New } post at the start of each month. If you'd like to read/review more than 2 books, be my guest! I'm hoping I can do { Something Old, Something New } AND a "something borrowed" and a "something blue" in the future too!

Want to put a { Something Old, Something New } button on your blog? I'd love that! Just copy and paste the code in the box below. I made the button using DeviantArt stock resources from flameshaft, gimei, and spiritsighs-stock and fonts from dafont.com and kevinandamanda.com.