It’s been a busy bookish couple of weeks. I got a hold of Mockingjay as soon as it was released, but put it aside in the hope of re-reading the first two books in the series before diving headfirst into book three. Unfortunately that never happened and so I settled down to read my copy of Mockingjay a full week after everyone else had read it. I have to say that I really enjoyed Mockingjay, but was surprised by how much I had forgotten from the previous two books. I hope to re-read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay one after the other someday soon (and am curious to see if my opinion of Mockingjay will change after reading all three together).
At night I’ve been snuggling up with my eight year old daughter to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We are on chapter thirteen now and enjoying a bit of relaxing reading time at the end of our very busy days. Especially now that my kids are back in school (Leah is in third grade, Maya in pre-school) I’ve found that they both need a bit of down time before falling asleep. While my husband is reading to Maya, Leah and I snuggle in bed to enjoy a bit of the magic of Harry Potter.
I’ve also had a few new books come into the house. I eagerly picked up a copy of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, after reading Lesley’s glowing review. I never even considered reading this book before, but I always love Lesley’s reviews and she has convinced me to give it a shot. I also picked up a copy of The Book Theif (I know, I know, I haven’t read it but have always meant to do so) and bought P.S. I Love You with the intention of reading it on my trip to Ireland next month. I was also really excited to get an e-mail from a publisit at Atria Books who told me an ARC of Kate Morton’s newest book, The Distant Hours, is on the way to my house! As my kids would say – SCORE!!
When the kids are in school (and I’m not exercising/grocery shopping/cleaning the house) I’ve been working my way through The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James (which was on my Everything Austen II list). I got to chat with Syrie on Twitter while promoting her newest book Dracula, My Love (which I really enjoyed – you can read my review here) and Syrie has agreed to write a guest post for Everything Austen II and has planned a really big giveaway to go along with it, both to be posted on my blog next week.
Speaking of Austen, have you guys seen the newest blog to hit the book blogging world? Austen Authors is a blog written by twenty Austen fiction writers, some of whom have written guest blog posts for Stephanie’s Written Word (including Lynn Shepherd, Jane Odiwe, Marsha Altman and Marilyn Brant). Please stop by Austen Authors to give them some love!
Lastly, are you tired of taking photos of your beautiful TBR piles, only for them to look dreary once you download them? Check out this awesome post by Natalie, who takes beautiful photos of her books (as you can see above) all using a homemade lightbox!
Stephanie, it’s not always easy to read the books we have, much less reread them, especially book bloggers—because we get so many books!
How wonderful that you are reading with your beautiful children and creating memories that will last a lifetime!
My older son doesn’t want to read Harry Potter and it’s killing me! So, needless to say, I’m very jealous.
On another note, once I had Mockingjay in hand, I went back to the beginning and read the trilogy straight through and I’m so glad I did.
Thank you for the link to Natalie’s light box! AMAZING! Not to mention, simple!
Alison – I wish I had re-read the entire trilogy of The Hunger Games before picking up Mockingjay as I forgot SO MUCH STUFF. Oh well, I hope to read it all again in the future.
Maybe you should try getting the first Harry Potter on CD and play it while your son is in the car (just tell him that you want to listen to it). Maybe he would become interested enough to read the series then!
My daughter and I read Harry Potter a few times together, then we listened to them all on audio. Really those books are such favorites of ours! I’m so jealous of the Kate Morton ARC. I listened to The House at Riverton and I really really liked it. I need to get back to her. Don’t feel bad about The Book Thief (on my nightstand still) and Mockingjay. The kids and I are listening to it on audio, so it is limited to our car time. We are at the end of disc 5 out of 10, so it will be awhile before we finish. It took me awhile to remember who all these people were!
Sandy – Good idea about reading/listening to Harry Potter. So far with each book that we finish I let my daughter see the movie version.
Oh, and about that Kate Morton ARC – I started reading it yesterday and am LOVING IT!! It’s got a gothic, creepy vibe which is perfect for this time of year. I really enjoyed Morton’s The Forgotten Garden and hope to get a chance to read The House at Riverton soon.
I can’t wait for you to read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle! But read The Book Thief first. It’s my all-time favorite book ever. I know you’ll love it.
Thanks for the shout-out.
I hope you enjoy The Book Thief – I was amazed by it, twice! I’m off to read that rev od Edgar Sawtelle now.
I just loved The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen – I look forward to the author’s guest post!
I loved Natalie’s post about the light box and I have favorite placed it with the intention (hopefully) of making one myself. The William Carlos Williams book of poetry has really captured in this photo.
Molly – Natalie is a fun book blogger and always writes interesting posts – let us know if you make that lightbox!!
thank you so much for linking to my post! i love my light box and have been tweaking newer versions over the last week or so.
i’m OCD, what can i tell you.
cheers!
I love reading with the kids at the end of the day. You should of seen when I tried to read a Trixie Belden book with the boys, they were like, no way!!!! Harry Potter is good for all though. I’ll bet Leah is liking these books. Vanessa loved them.