Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club.  All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello and Happy Monday!

I must admit I am not very happy with my lack of reading in January, I can’t remember such a bad month reading wise and I’m not even in a reading slump. I just can’t find the time like I usually do.

I am really hoping my reading increases in February. One of the books I think I would like to read in February is this one.

From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction–a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us.

As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted–no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape–she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

“What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.

Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit. 

Happy Reading

Etsy

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Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club.  All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. The first book I read and reviewed this year was The Box of Delights by John Masefield but I still haven’t read the first book in the series. I’m really hoping I get to read this book before the end of the year.

Young Kay Harker lives in an old house in the country, filled with portraits of his ancestors. His only companions are his unpleasant guardian Sir Theopompus and his governess Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (who, Kay suspects, has stolen all his toys). Life is lonely and dull, until one night Kay’s great-grandpapa Harker, a sea captain, steps out of his portrait to tell him about a stolen treasure that belongs to Kay’s family. The evil Abner Brown is searching for it too, but Kay is helped by the midnight folk: creatures like Nibbins the cat and Rollicum Bitem Lightfoot the fox, and even his lost toys, who will join him on his dangerous quest.

The Midnight Folk is a feast of imaginative story-telling, a glorious cornucopia of pirates and witches, lost treasure and talking animals. Although it was published in 1927, it evokes an older world: houses are lit by oil lamps, and travel is by horse, carriage – or broomstick. Masefield perfectly captures a child’s perspective, from the terrors of tigers under the bed to the horrors of declining a Latin adjective. Yet there is also plenty of humour that adults will appreciate, from Miss Piney Trigger, who swigs champagne in bed and prides herself on having backed a host of Derby winners, to Kay’s lessons: ‘Divinity was easy, as it was about Noah’s Ark. French was fairly easy, as it was about the cats of the daughter of the gardener.’ This mingling of past and present, reality and fantasy, has made this one of the most rewarding and influential children’s books ever written.

Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit. 

Happy Reading

Etsy

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Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club.  All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Happy Monday!

I hope you have all had a good start to the week. I’ve had rather a busy day with teaching but I managed to get some reading done today.

My chosen book today is by an author who is fast becoming one of my favourites. I have added every single book of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s that I haven’t read to my Goodreads TBR.

The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore.

The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. 

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit. 

Happy Reading

Etsy

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Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club.  All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far. I have spent the day reading as sadly I was too poorly to go to school. I’m really hoping I can start to feel better soon as I’m quite fed up of this cough and cold.

My chosen book this week is by one of my favourite authors but one I haven’t read for a very long time. I went through a huge Philippa Gregory phase a few years ago but for some reason it has been a couple of years since I have read any of her books. However, I picked this book up at Sudeley Castle and it has gone straight on my TBR pile and very near the top.

Fleeing rebels in Scotland on Queen Elizabeth’s false promise of sanctuary, Mary Queen of Scots finds herself imprisoned as the “guest” of George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick. Soon the newly married couple’s home becomes the center of intrigue and rebellion against Elizabeth, and their loyalty to each other and to their sovereign comes into question. If Mary succeeds in seducing the earl into her own web of treason, or if the great spymaster William Cecil links them to the growing conspiracy to free Mary from her illegal imprisonment, they will all face the headsman. Using new research and her passion for historical accuracy, Gregory places the doomed queen into a completely new tale of suspense, passion, and political intrigue.

Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit. 

Happy Reading

Etsy

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