This month has been one of waiting. An inordinate amount of waiting: in airports, at bus stops, train stations, in taxicabs; in fact my life over the last few weeks has felt like some fifth level limbo but with extra good books.
Tag: classics
Anne of Avonlea & the Island PLUS TBR Challenge (or 3 birds…one teeny stone…)
<<TBR CHALLENGE 2017: JULY>> Note: Jane at Greenish Bookshelf and Jackie at Death By Tsundoku are co-hosting the Anne of Green Gables series readalong – totes check out their blogs if you want to … Continue reading Anne of Avonlea & the Island PLUS TBR Challenge (or 3 birds…one teeny stone…)
Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery, (or rewards for the backslidden, no matter WHAT Rachel Lynde says…)
Hiya Kittens, You may recall in the land before time, I mentioned a Project Montgomery, starting with LM Montgomery’s classic Emily series…I posted maybe once…or twice, and then life etc … Continue reading Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery, (or rewards for the backslidden, no matter WHAT Rachel Lynde says…)
Ain’t She Sweet, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (or the contemporary: clawing its way back into my TBR…)
<<< TBR CHALLENGE: April 2017 >>> The munificent and benevolent Wendy the Super Librarian’s TBR Challenge this month was Contemporary. Just warning y’all right now —— I ain’t be so … Continue reading Ain’t She Sweet, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (or the contemporary: clawing its way back into my TBR…)
The Tuesday Night Club, Agatha Christie (or the only bookclub I really want to join…)
With the horror that is The Holidays (we capitalise it in our family) receding firmly into the past, I am once again ready to face the world…And this month’s TBR challenge (Bless Wendy of the Super-Librarian fame and her smart January Selection-ing) was Short Shorts.
My Short Shorts came in the form of the venerable Ms Christie’s Miss Marple Complete Short Stories
Emily Climbs, L M Montgomery (or Valancy is lazy + but this is also TOTALLY a historical…)
So this months TBR Challenge (from Wendy the peerless and diamond-like Librarian) was Historical.
I am behind (Like the white rabbit, sans the pocket watch, because mine died years ago..) and Emily Climbs fulfils both my I-am-going-to-read-a-montgomery-a-month, and the TBR Challenge that I have been feeling slightly desperately about.
Project Montgomery: Emily of New Moon (or I want a cat named Saucy Sal too…)
The framing and lens of childhood is a peculiarly unique thing. Thoughts, experiences and world views are constrained by a lack of knowing and conditioned by only a few powerful influences.
Project: Montgomery (or Emilys and Annes; Cobwebs and Dreams…)
‘If it’s IN you to climb you must — there are those who MUST lift their eyes to the hills — they can’t breathe properly in the valleys.’ Once the … Continue reading Project: Montgomery (or Emilys and Annes; Cobwebs and Dreams…)
MIDDLE MARCH. THE END (Or Dorothea is my spirit animal…Rosamund on the other hand….?)
Organised by the amazing Juhi @ Nooks & Crannies. It is finished. I feel like a proclamating tv evangelist (sans all the asking for additional funds to build glass churches…) … Continue reading MIDDLE MARCH. THE END (Or Dorothea is my spirit animal…Rosamund on the other hand….?)
Flamingo Flying South, Joyce Dingwell, (or the best Pet Moppet in the world….)
<<TBR CHALLENGE: August 2016>> Today has been one of those warm, salubrious days, where time seems to slow and stretch out before you in a vast ribbon-like stream. It reminds … Continue reading Flamingo Flying South, Joyce Dingwell, (or the best Pet Moppet in the world….)
Middlemarch Book VI, The Widow & The Wife, (or murderous spouses and scary blackmail…)
I was writing a post on my July TBR – but my manifest guilt over MIDDLEMARCH was holding back my inspiration. Thus, I present, at long last (for the 2.9 % of you that were waiting with bated breath)
Middlemarch Book VI – The Widow & The Wife.
An Independent Woman, Betty Neels (or a secret gift from the cleaning fairies…)
This week I had SO many things I was determined to get through – the least of these being that I would finish the 6th (!) part of Middlemarch and finally post about it.
Alas.
Twas not meant to be.
There I was, grouching over the vacuuming (yet again) when hunkering down to extinguish the ever present (and LARGE) dust bunnies under a bookcase – what did I discover?
Middlemarch Book V, The Dead Hand, (or when you-know-who, finally does you-know-what…)
I have neighbours. Well, actually I have to two seperate sets of neighbours.
One set live in a large yellow brick house with an enormous hedge of trees that cut them off from the road. Practically invisible to the general passerby; their front screen-age is so immense, a battalion from Battlestar Galactica could land on their front lawn, and you would never know.
May BINGO @ Blue Castle (or the month Valancy won NOTHING…not that that’s the point or anything….)
I had great hopes for May…Alas – twas not meant to be. In short: I read books, I filled squares. And NOTHING lined up in a row. It didn’t help that some of the books were so incredibly bad, that really using them as a BINGO square was the only thing that kept me going….
But here are the contenders:
Wodehouse Shorties, (or chocolate box change and escaping the rut…)
I have a rut. It’s comfortable and secure. Located deep in a dell by BlueCastle, it contains THOUSANDS of romances.
Sky-high piles of romances.
In fact so many romances, I have considered becoming a sort-of endangered species-rescuer of romances; whisking them away from their unfortunate situations and perilous existence in op-shops, garages and the back of wardrobes everywhere and releasing them at BlueCastle…where they can roam freely, without prejudice or fear of poaching…
Middlemarch Book IV, Three Love Problems, (or better late than never…)
So very late…BUT for those of you middling along with us marchers…
We are now at mid point. The ABUNDANCE of characters have levelled off and whilst there are all sorts of THINGS happening, we have settled into three main storylines. (a bit of a relief really, I am not sure my character map could fit much more in…)
Middlemarch, Book III, Waiting for Death (or knee deep in the provincial life…)
I have decided. Eliot is like casserole. A long, slow-cooked casserole that fills the house with its smell and impregnates itself into the curtains.
Middlemarch: Book II, Old and Young (Or, not everything is coming up roses…)
When last we left them, the Middlemarchers were fair to middling in their various life choices.
We had met Dorothea and DESPAIRED of her marrying that dull prosy old fart (Casaubon); and had made a tentative acquaintance with Tertius Lydgate.
The Madwoman Upstairs, Catherine Lowell (or Valancy, now forever afeard of attics….)
We are a passionate bunch here at BlueCastle. We love and loathe in equal measure.
Topping the list of most hated include:
Moustachioed heroes. (I may include the recently read Karen Robard Wild Orchid’s Max as my ONLY current exception to this rule.)
Classic Review: Middlemarch, George Eliot (or venturing into provincial life…)
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to read (or re-read) classic novels. You know, those books literati refer to with arched eyebrows and smug smirks, to which I nod knowingly about and bluff my way through, whilst never having ACTUALLY really read. (Advanced English & Cliff’s Notes for the win).
Blue Castle Considerations 
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