The Beatles Book Tag

My friend and very favorite blogger, The Orangutan Librarian, recently created The Beatles Book Tag. Little known fact, The Beatles are my all-time favorite band, and my favorite song in the whole world and all styles of music is a Beatles song. So I was so excited to get tagged and would have tagged myself if she didn’t. *smiles*

Rules:

1. Tag back to the original creator Orang-utan Librarian (me)
2. Thank whoever tagged you
3. Tag people and keep it going!

Love Me Do

A book with a character you wish would love you

It’s pretty hard to go wrong with The Orangutan Librarian’s original answer, Mr. Knightly. I would also be okay if Faramir came knocking on my door.

Favorites February: Emma Volume 3

Synopsis

Emma and Frank Churchill plan an outing for the Highbury group to scenic Box Hill for a picnic. Tensions between Emma, Frank, Jane Fairfax, and the Eltons come to a head as a result of this party, and Emma is finally forced to confront the shortcomings of her character. And Harriet’s new love interest helps Emma to recognize her own feelings…

Why I Love This Book: Volume 3

• Ah, the love story. I was so invested this time through, so able to catch on to the little details, I was practically swooning.
• Jane Fairfax is a very interesting character, and I love seeing her fleshed out in this volume.
• Seeing everyone, even Mr. Knightly, thoroughly abuse Mrs. Elton is so satisfying.
• In some ways Volume 3 in soooo cringy, because all of Emma’s flaws come to their climax. But seeing her learn and grow is one of literature’s great character arcs.
• I just adore how Mr. Knightly loves Emma so much that he’s willing to move to Hartfield, something unheard of in that day and age. ALL THE FEELS!

Sorting Hat Sunday: Emma

Emma laughed gaily. She was surrounded by friends and family, and she was the queen of the carriage. Though she was only a first year, see how they flocked to her? Frank, Jane, Isabella, John, George, they were drawn to her like a moth to the flame.

The Hogwarts Express zipped along at a marvelous speed. What a wonderful way trains were to travel! Emma made note to send her father an owl that evening so that he too could delight in the wonder of the train. Besides, it would be a comfort to him to know that they had been so comfortable on their journey. Nobody was foolish enough to open the windows at this speed, so there was not a draft to be found on the whole train.

“Isabella, John, what are you whispering about over there?” Emma called, delighting to see her sister blush. She had teased her to no end about John this summer, though Isabella had admitted nothing.

Her best friend, Anne, elbowed her hard. “Be nice, Emma!” she whispered. Emma rolled her eyes. Anne was just afraid to rock the boat. Emma had nothing to fear. She could do no wrong.

---

Emma

I don’t think there can be much doubt here. Emma is extremely dedicated to keeping the status quo and making sure that the upper classes of Highbury stay upper class, and that the lower classes know their place. She sees herself as the center of the Highbury social circle and is willing to be not very nice to keep herself there. In particular, her wish that the Coles would send her a party invitation just so she could refuse it is very telling.

Sorting Hat Says: SLYTHERIN!

Favorites February: Emma, Volume 2

Back again with another Favorites February! This week I’m taking a look at the second volume of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Emma. Emma is considered by some book critics and historians as the “perfect novel”, and a lot of the things that make the novel so great come into play during volume 2. I hope you enjoy, and as always, play along in the comments!

Synopsis

Frank Churchill finally comes to Highbury, meeting all of Emma’s expectations for an amiable young man. Could she be falling in love after all? The only way to find out: a ball! Mr. Elton also returns with his new bride, both ready to spite Emma at any chance.

Why I Love This Book: Volume 2

• The real actual problems with Emma’s character are more deeply explored and less superficial.
• Mr. Knightly starts to really come in to his own as character with a personality.
• The satire is sooooo biting.
• Especially on the re-read, catching the sub-text about Jane Fairfax.
• Maybe this makes me a snob, but I feel like a lot of the finer points of this volume hinge on a working knowledge of society of that era, and I feel like such a smarty-pants for catching it all!

Burnout Solution Check-In

So way back in June I wrote a post about how I was getting burnt out on YA, mostly because I was reading sooooooo much of it. I’ve always been a reader who prefers lots of variety, and tend to read any old thing that catches my interest. But since I started blogging I’ve been reading lots of YA books.

My solution that I devised for myself was that I separated my books into loose “genres”, and read one from each before I could do any repeats.

The good news: it’s going GREAT! I’ve read so many AMAZING books this year, and several of them are books I probably wouldn’t have ever picked up if I hadn’t started this process. In particular I’ve read three SciFi’s that I’ve loved, and a couple really good mysteries, which were genres I’d definitely been neglecting. I’ve been very happy with each and every book I’ve picked up in the last six months, and I’ve felt so refreshed. It’s nice knowing every single book is going to be a change of pace!

The things that need to be improved: since I was primarily focused on reading more genre fiction, everything else got sort of lumped together. Historical fiction, chick-lit/contemporary, literary fiction, they all got kind of thrown together. The result is that I’ve read exactly zero literary fiction since then. And while it’s not my favorite genre, there’s a couple of literary fiction novels that have been sitting on my tbr for years, and at this rate I’ll never get to them! I also haven’t read a lot of historical fiction, and that IS one of my favorite genres.

Ranking Austen

Since Star Wars Episode 8 came out about a month ago, I’ve seen TONS of lists ranking the Star Wars movies from worst to best, favorite to least favorite, whatever. Oh my gosh, it’s so much fun, and I just had to do it too! Which led to a LONG list ranking my favorite Marvel movies (lots of unpopular opinions there!), and then led to me talking about all the bookish rankings I could do.

Oh my gosh. Ranking books and movies is my new addiction.

So, for absolutely no reason at all other than this is what I WANTED to do on a Sunday morning while I’m stuck in bed having braxton-hicks contractions, my list of Jane Austen novels from most favorite to least favorite. Enjoy!