Classic Remarks: Favorite Couples

This week Krysta and Briana at Pages Unbound are hosting the discussion: Who are some of your favorite classic couples?

Thank you, Krysta and Briana, for asking who are “some of” my favorite couples. Because I could just tell you all about Elizabeth and Darcy for a whole blog post, but I’m assuming that isn’t what anyone wants to read, lol.

No surprise that most of my favorite classic novels have great romances at the center of them. The only question will be whether I can keep this list to a reasonable length…

Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy

Is there anything more cliche? But I admit, Pride and Prejudice is probably my favorite book in the whole world. I love watching Elizabeth fall in love with Mr. Darcy. I love watching Mr. Darcy pretend to be indifferent. I love all the ridiculous characters. I love how they become better people for one another. But mostly I love Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. *sigh*

The Last 10 Books Tag

I saw this tag earlier this week on Kristin Kraves Books, and I like that it’s not organized the way tags often are. I’m going to do my best to really tell you about the LAST, and not just my favorite that you’re probably tired of hearing about.

Last Book I Gave Up On

I actually rarely give up on books. I can probably count the number of books I’ve DNFed on two hands, and they’re probably all classics. In 2019 I stopped halfway through The Wind in the Willows, not because it was terrible, just because I didn’t care enough about it to keep reading and there were other things I was more interested in. I see why it was charming for the time it was written in, but I didn’t feel particularly like being nostalgic for a time period that was only good for the landed gentry…

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Classic Remarks: Favorite Time-Period

This week Krysta and Briana at Pages Unbound are hosting the discussion: Do you have a favorite time period for classic literature? 

DEFINITELY. As in, it’s not even a contest. I love Romantic literature. In particular I tend to enjoy French Romantic literature more than English, but as long as it isn’t Dickens I’ll read pretty much anything from the time period.

The Romantic era is a pretty big umbrella that covers a lot of different literary styles. It lasted from approximately 1790-1850. That means that both Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters are Romance authors, and they’re just about as different as they come. I’m sure I could google characteristics of the Romantic era, but I personally associate Romance novels with being long, melodramatic, and emotional. Some of the novels that epitomize Romantic literature for me are Jane Eyre, Les Miserables, and Great Expectations.

What I personally love about Romance novels is the feeling and emotion they are written with. Since mot of the classics I read in school were from the Romantic era or later, when I was first introduced to the Classical era through Tom Jones or Candide, I was surprised at how … aloof the novels seemed. In Romantic novels you get to really know the characters, their thoughts and feelings. This is taken to the nth degree by Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre when she wrote *gasp* in the first person.

folklore Book Tag

Star at Star is All Book Up created this tag waaaay back when the folklore album first came out, and I saw her posting about it all over her Instagram but I was catching up on the tags that I was tagged in literally a year ago. So I’m only just now getting to it!

Full disclosure, I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about folklore. All of Taylor Swift’s albums sound so different, but post-rock isn’t my favorite style. Still, I said the same thing about both Reputation and Lover, so I’m sure I’ll come around. 🙂

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a book you grew out of

I don’t usually grow out of books, I’m usually capable of reading a book from my past self’s perspective, especially my kids’ books. But I definitely don’t care for Eragon and the rest of the Inheritance Cycle as much as I did in my teen years. Part of it is because the last two books were so lackluster, but also I think because I’ve discovered SO MANY great books since then. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Eragon, just not as much as I used to.

Discussion: Do Big Books Intimidate You?

Today’s discussion post is brought to you by bringing home Lonesome Dove from the library and THEN realizing it was written in 1986! YIKES! 600* pages of 20th century American writing? Good luck to me…

*Did I say 600? It’s closer to 900.

So I notice a lot on social media, especially Bookstagram, that a lot of people talk about how intimidated they are by long books. This is often cited as the reason for purchasing but not reading The Priory of the Orange Tree and Jane Eyre in particular. And I get it, those books are long. I know a lot of people set massive reading goals for themselves, and it can be hard to read 20 books a month if one of them is 800 pages long. Even if that isn’t you, long books can be scary. What if you don’t like it? What if it’s long AND slow? What if it takes you forever and you have to give it back to the library before you’re done? What if you lose interest halfway through?

Personally, it’s never been much of a deterrent for me. Maybe it’s because I read The Lord of the Rings in 7th grade and therefore became immune, lol. Also, people don’t have any problem reading a series that goes on for 6+ books, and that’s a lot more to read. I just see my long books as a whole trilogy wrapped up in one convenient package! Also, it doesn’t get worse the longer it goes on, so double plus!

But, on the other hand, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m terrified of the idea of Lonesome Dove. I usually love long classics, but I’m not a huge fan of 20th century literature. And I’ve never read a Western. So I’m not sure if I’m going to like it, and it’s a really long book to slug through if I don’t…

Bookish March Madness 2020: Final Four

Is it in bad taste to continue this series after the actual March Madness tournament has been cancelled due to Covid-19? Or is it comforting to have something goofy and light? I hope the second, because here I am.

For those of you just tuning in, this March I’m celebrating my apathy for basketball but my love for brackets with a “tournament” pitting the top 16 books from The Great American Read against each other. What is the point? 1) To declare the ULTIMATE WINNER of the BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME 2) Because I really like brackets. Making a buzzfeed bracket (or whatever the current favorite site is…) didn’t appeal to me, so here we are.

These are my Final Four favorite books. There was some heartbreak last round (saying goodbye to The Lord of the Rings and Little Women), but this round will bring in some VERY difficult choices. All the books remaining are books I truly love, and they are all quite different from one another. It’ll be like comparing apples and oranges, but I will suffer through it. (For the record, apples are better.)

Bookish March Madness 2020: Elite Eight

*cue exciting music*

[in deep announcer voice] LADIES AND GENTLEMAN! Weeeellllcome to Booooookish March Maaaaadness!!! *wild cheering*

Okay, maybe not, but hi there! Thanks for reading again! Or, for those of you who are here for the first time, welcome. I’m making some room in your basketball filled social media feeds with some bookish content.

This week, it’s down to the Elite Eight! These books from PBS’s Great American Read have survived one round, but who will be the ULTIMATE CHAMPION?!?! (aka my personal favorite)

Bookish March Madness 2020: Sweet Sixteen

*singing* I don’t know anything about basketball, except that MY TEAM BEAT BAYLOR. La-la la-la la-la laaaa.

Sorry it’s out of my system I think. *cough* Baylor sucks *cough*. Hem, on to books now, shall we?

As an antidote to the annoying phenomenon that is seeing your social media fill up with people who don’t know anything about sports talking about “their bracket,” this month I’m hosting my OWN March Madness tournament. The top 16 books from The Great American read will face off in a match to the DEATH to see which will be MY FAVORITE BOOK. Why? I don’t know, because brackets are fun. *shrugs*

Feel free to give me your thought on the match-ups in the comments. Am I right, or wildly wrong? Did I not do justice to your all-time favorite book? This wouldn’t be sportsball if we didn’t end up in an almost-fist-fight for our team!

So here we are with Week 1, the Sweet Sixteen. [insert generic sports-buzzer-sound here]

To Kill a Mockingbird vs. The Help

Oh, you guys are going to hate me. I read To Kill a Mockingbird maybe five or six years ago and I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Like, I get why it’s a super important book and everything, but I just didn’t really connect with Scout. Her overly simple way of seeing the world frustrated me. And maybe that’s the point, but there it is. On the other hand, I ADORE The Help. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it’s just one of my favorite pieces of historical fiction. Which is saying something, because I love historical fiction. I was so inspired by the women in this book, especially Aibileen.

and the winner is… THE HELP!

The Productivity Book Tag

YOU GUYS. I am ALMOST caught up on my tags. I only have two left, and one of them is the summer bucket list challenge or something, so it’s probably going to have to wait until next summer anyway. I CAN DO THIS!!!

Whew. Okay.

Meeghan at Meeghan Reads tagged me in this one back in July. I’m not sure what inspired it, and lets be honest, it’s an unusual theme, but as someone who is SUPER into productivity I am not going to complain. Let’s get this show on the road! (And go follow Meeghan if you don’t because she’s the bomb dot com!)

Rules

• Answer the prompts
• Tag some friends
• Link back to this post, and be sure to mention the creator (Sam @ Fictionally Sam)
• Have fun!

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Planning – A book that is completely thought out

There are a couple that would fit nicely here (Harry Potter, anyone?), but I just finished re-reading World War Z for the first time, and I was blown away by how well Max Brooks thought the whole thing through. Like, things most people would never even THINK about were fleshed out in detail! Military strategy, virus spreading, cultural impact, whiteout effect. It’s all there. This book is brilliant, and I don’t even like zombies. Definitely a must-read monster book!

Do I Have That Book? Tag

I saw this tag on Kristin Kraves Books forever ago. She always does the most interesting tags! She didn’t tag me, but it was just such an interesting post that I saved it! And then … never got to it. So here we are! This should be interesting because I have a lot of books, but not that much variety. Well, let’s see what happens, shall we?

1. Do you have a book with deckled edges?

Oh, thousands. The first one that comes to mind is Eragon, which I was absolutely obsessed with in high school. Personally I’m not that in to deckled edges (GASP!). I like to play with the pages while I read, and that’s a lot harder to do with deckled edges. But I’m not going to complain about them either.