Here are some quotes from books I’ve enjoyed recently. A lot of them are fantasy. Actually, I think all but First Frost is and even that one has magic of a sort. I’m pretty predictable when it seems to reading: romance, dragons, humor, puns, or fairy tales.
“We are all dealt a hand at birth. A good hand can ultimately lose – just as a poor hand can win – but we must all play the cards the fate deals. The choices we face may not be the choices we want, but they are choices nonetheless.”― Brigid Kemmerer, A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Retelling of Beauty and the Beast made into a fantasy series. Some urban fantasy.)
Reluctantly, I pulled out my necklace and showed it to them. Samuel frowned. The little figure was stylized; I suppose he couldn’t tell what it was at first.” A dog?” asked Zee, staring at my necklace. “A lamb,” I said defensively, tucking it safely back under my shirt. “Because one of Christ’s names is ‘The Lamb of God.'” Samuel’s shoulders shook slightly. “I can see it now, Mercy holding a roomful of vampire at bay with her glowing sheep.” I gave his shoulder a hard push, aware of the heat climbing to my cheeks, but it didn’t help. He sang in a soft taunting voice, “Mercy had a little lamb…”― Patricia Briggs, Moon Called (Fantasy)
“A happily-ever-after is never the real ending to a story. It’s where the real story begins.”― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost (Mostly normal, but her books are all gorgeous, lush, and thought provoking stories.)
“Fear is a tool, like anything else. The trick is learning to use it without it turning on you.”― Matt Wallace, Idle Ingredients (Urban Fantasy)
“To dream of something more is the greatest gift one owns. Without them, there is nothing to strive for. No reason to continue breathing. We might as well become the rock and stone beneath our feet.”― Bec McMaster, Heart of Fire (Steampunk Romance)
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”- Frederick Douglass
“We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.”- Alice Walker
“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.”- Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”-Eleanor Roosevelt
“In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.”-Albert Einstein
“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.”-Helen Keller
“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”-Coretta Scott King
“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”- Dr. Seuss
“All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.”- Carl Jung
“I think you’re a fairy tale. I think you’re magical, and brave, and exquisite. And I hope you’ll let me be in your story.” ― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer
“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”-Terry Pratchett
“The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what’s impossible? What’s a fantasy?”- Alan Rickman
“I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children’s stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, ‘Can’t you write anything normal?’”- Octavia E. Butler
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.-“ John Locke
“Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.”- Maria Montessori
“Most adults, unlike most children, understand the difference between a book that will hold them spellbound for a rainy Sunday afternoon and a book that will put them in touch with a part of themselves they didn’t even know existed.”- Mark Haddon
“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”- Arthur Schopenhauer
“You cannot open a book without learning something.”- Confucius
“There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don’t see them.”-Elie Wiesel
“Some books leave us free and some books make us free.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The book sales we normally go to in April were postponed, but I had posts planned already. So you get book quotes! Hopefully they’ll inspire you to get into a good book.
“There was also something about the smell of bookshops that was strangely comforting to her. She wondered if it was the scent of ink and paper, or the perfume of binding, string, and glue. Maybe it was the scent of knowledge. Information. Thoughts and ideas. Poetry and love. All of it bound into one perfect, calm place.”- Alyson Richman, The Garden of Letters
“The room is warm and smells like dust, and just the presence of so many books makes it easier to breathe. It’s remarkable how being around books, even those you’ve never read, can have a calming effect, like walking into a crowded party and finding it full of people you know.”- Mackenzi Lee, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2)
“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”― Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense
“Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home–they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.”- Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.” –Confucius
Just in case you need some more book ideas, here are some of my favorite books in different categories.
Books from childhood
Books with humor and things to try. (Angry Little Girls is absolutely delightful, but has a lot of swearing, just in case you’d like to avoid that.)
Books that caught me off guard/were very impactful. (Room is now a movie as well. The book is tough and made me cry a lot, so I don’t know if I’d watch it.)
Although we are all inside, potentially anxiously awaiting a return to normal life, one of the coolest things that’s come from all of this has been the abundance of resources that are being offered to help alleviate stress and boredom.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, so please feel free to add your own in the comments. If the links don’t work, you should be able to copy and paste them. Please also comment back if you’ve tried any of them! Stay healthy!
Blueprint is a craft and sewing class website that’s being offered for free for two months right now. It used to be Craftsy. I have found a bunch of free patterns on it previously, but have never tried a class.
Joann’s Fabrics has a deal with Creative Bug for some amount of time free. I have no idea if it’s good or not, as I haven’t tried it.
NASA shares their pictures publicly, so those are always fun to look at. I’ve used some of them for Wednesday pictures.
Libby/Overtime is a virtual library app. you will need a library card. (I may have already downloaded 4 books to read and put 4 others on a hold to read later.)
Sadly, only of a literary kind at the moment! But an adventure, none the less. I’ve been thinking a lot about my choice in books, movies, and other media that I choose to consume lately. It’s come up in several different counseling sessions and with friends and colleagues, so I figured it was probably something I should blog about.
This is also sparked by a recent trip to the library, where I think I spent at least an hour, if not a full 90 minutes wandering around book drunk. I ended up with a somewhat eclectic stack of reading materials and pretty much closed down the library. 😉
I was lucky that my parents encouraged reading and didn’t limit too much of what we chose to read. Every now and then, something would be suggested that we not read it yet, or my Mom would have a little chat with me on what I had been reading, but we really were allowed to ramble through all sorts of different literary worlds. Any time there was a new librarian, the head librarian would have to intercede at least once when they objected that my brothers and I had pulled books well above what they thought our reading level was. It’s making me chuckle now, but I remember being very annoyed about the delay in my being able to start reading immediately.
It helped that both my parents are big readers and we had family reading times pretty regularly. My dad is also a published author and a regular magazine column freelance writer. Occasionally, we were even allowed to have reading suppers, where everyone could bring a book and we didn’t have to talk. Although, now I’m suspicious that they really just wanted some peace and quiet…. Hmmm….
Both of my parents pushed us to actually think about what we were consuming media wise and that is a lesson I’ve learned once again after a stint of ridiculously trashy tv. I thought I’d share some of my favorite authors and categories. These are the ones I reach for most often, as they offer a complete escape from normal life. I find, the more I’m helping other people wade through their own messiness and trauma, the less I want to read/watch/listen to it. I need the balance of something peaceful, funny, or just out there wacky.
Today’s authors are in the fantasy and historical romance categories (otherwise known by me as semi-trashy romance.) Disclaimer: I don’t read really thin or plotless romance novels, nor do I read any of them where there is any sort or coercion or confusion about a character wanting to be in a romantic situation. I have been known to completely stop reading any of the author’s works if I come across any of that. Here are some of my favorite authors.
Stephanie Laurens and Diana Gabaldon are probably my favorite romance authors. Stephanie Laurens writes Regency era historical fiction and is a very prolific author. Occasionally some of her later books get pretty formulaic, but her main series about the Cynster Family is pretty good. She writes strong characters and they actually have flaws! That’s my favorite part of her books.
Diana Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander Series, which has been made into a TV shows on Stars. I don’t like the TV show as much. They focus a lot on the traumatic stuff and rush through the healing process and the rest of it. There’s a lot of… um.. intimate moments that are well done in the book, but can be a bit much on screen too. There’s also some sexual assaults. At least in the books, you have a bit more warning and can move past it. This would be one author that makes it clear these are assaults and NOT OK, not someone being gradually “talked into” things. She also deals with the trauma in a realistic way and is not as graphic as a couple other books that I ended up having to stop reading (Looking at you, Jay Green, and your suddenly violent with no warning scenes.) The story is told in a natural way and doesn’t do things for shock value. They are long books and involved time travel, Scotland, and WWII. I adore them. This one is the last one in the series, I believe.
Whenever I’m asked to name my one favorite book, I always laugh, because how in the world are you supposed to pick just one??!! I always start with Terry Prachett’s Tiffany Aching Series though, when forced to choose.
These are in series order from the top down.
The series focuses on Tiffany Aching, who is 11 at the start of the saga. She is just beginning to find out who she is. There is magic in all of his Discworld series and these books focus specifically on witches, although I would argue that their “witchcraft” isn’t really that in the normal sense. Often times, it is simply common sense presented in a different way. But if you are concerned about that, it is something to think about.
They really are appropriate for all audiences though and contain just enough sly humor and really terrible puns that I can’t stop reading them. Forewarning, you will get super attached to characters and very invested in the books. I bawled like an absolute baby, during the last one, and texted my younger brother for emotional support. 🙂 Both my brothers also read Pratchett and I’m pretty sure it was my older brother who introduced me to them. My younger brother once stole my car keys and locked himself in my car with Wintersmith so that he could read it first. That’s how good of a series it is.
Next up is the classic fantasy stack, with a new addition.
You can’t go wrong with Grimm’s Brothers’ Fairy Tales (The bottom). This copy was my Grandma’s book and it’s really pretty inside. Mercedes Lackey has a lot of different series and I love pretty much all of them. She writes a lot of trilogies, which is handy. The two pictured here are from her Elemental Master’s series and her Collegium series.
The Elemental Masters are Victorian England loose retellings of fairy tales. Steadfast has a lot in common with the old fairy tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier. They deal with magic and the theory of elements- earth, wind, fire, and water. I really enjoy them as they do a really interesting job of turning well-known stories on their heads. Each book stands by itself, although some of the themes and characters come back. She writes in a very easy style and really wraps you up in her world.
Foundation is about a magical college and people called Heralds, who basically function as magical based judges/healers/bards, etc, who help keep the peace and solve problems. This series focuses on Mags, who, at the start of the series, is basically a child slave in a mine.
One of the unique things about this series, or really any of the Valdamar series, is the Companions, who appear to be very large, white horses, but as you find out, are much more than horses. They use telepathy to speak to their Heralds and others. There’s all sort sorts of drama, intrigue, and politics. Not enough that you can’t keep up though. She’s one of my authors that I am finally collecting, as I keep running through all the books the library has and getting frustrated when I can’t get the one I need. The book sales we went to last year were a big help in building my dragon hoard of books. I mean.. building my library.
The top book in that picture, called Pocket Apocalypse, is part of an urban fantasy series (Incryptid) about the Price family. They are monster hunters of a sort. They hunt cryptids- creatures that people think shouldn’t/don’t exist. The family is super likable and written pretty realistically for a fantasy novel. I have read some urban fantasy that I have not enjoyed, but these are great little reads. If I have enough time, I can get through these in a day, they move that fast. Sean McQuire is another prolific writer, so I have a bunch more in the series that I am excited to read. I’m allowing myself two at a time to space them out more. 🙂
I told a client recently that “if there’s no dragons, I’m not reading it,” and I think it’s due a lot to the stress of work. Not that I can’t handle it, but with work and everything else happening around the world, it’s nice to be able to relax with something that’s in a completely different time, place, or universe. I’ll show you some more of my favorites later. These were the ones that were close at hand tonight.
I’d love to hear what books you’ve been reading and enjoying lately too! I don’t think there’s ever a state of ”too many books.”
To sum up, I’ll leave you with this quote and bid you adieu.
“Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” — Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” — Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have.” ― Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
“The thing about growing up with Fred and George,” said Ginny thoughtfully, “is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.” ― J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.” ― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Having an injury that prevents me from sewing is really showing me how much I actually need to sew to keep myself on an even keel. I have other hobbies, like reading, marathoning Star Trek episodes, dancing, or finding all the book sales, but sewing is still one of my top three stress relievers. And believe me, I needed the stress relief!
Also, look, the book sale wasn’t my fault. It was to support a Catholic School! Don’t you want those kids to have a good education?! The Husband graciously drove me and found some good books as well.
I found a couple of psychology books, including a Brene Brown book. She’s fantastic and I still haven’t read most of her books, so I was excited to find it.
This book jumped into my bag when I wasn’t looking! Sneaky book!
Amazingly, I have put the books away already! I know, it’s super weird for me too, but we had a game night and needed the table space. Pictures for proof!
Here are a couple of quilts from one of the books. It has only a few blocks, but gives you at least two options for putting them together. The basic block and then a secondary setting option. It’s pretty cool.
We also went to a quilt show and although I was too shy to ask to take pictures of the quilts, there were lots of fabulous ones. It was one of those weird situations where it was all much older ladies and they seemed very confused by why us young whippersnappers were interested. There was a really cool music quilt that someone had made in high school to take to band camp, a really detailed landscape type quilt, fairy houses, and an amazing sewing themed quilt. That one had tons of appliqué and the Husband pointed out that several of the machines pictured on the quilt were “plugged in” across the quilt! It was so cool! I hope that one won first place. I did see a couple of scraps of fabrics that I have in my stash too, so that was fun.
I found a cool book too and some fun fabrics. They had a scrap table where you could stuff a bag for $5! Here’s my scrap haul and the book.
While we were there, I finally found the weighted rotary cutter that I have been looking for. I thought it would be easier on my thumb and wrist for cutting. You barely have to push at all because of the weight of the blade. Now I just have to get better at cutting clothes patterns out with a rotary cutter and I should be all set.
Speaking of which, I have used it already. I made a comment to a friend about working through my mending pile, since most of those things need less cutting and she replied with something a long the lines of “mending your clothes while mending your body.” I really liked that image and am trying to remind myself of it when I get frustrated with the slow pace.
Today, I cut off the elastic waistbands of two pairs of leggings to cut them down a little, and to replace the elastic with a yoga style band instead. They both hit at a weird place and would gradually be up around my ribs throughout the day. Since they are navy blue and grey, I didn’t want to just replace them. I need plain leggings, as well as plain dresses and shirts. So I added navy blue dpb to both for the new waistbands. I didn’t have any grey and it should be covered anyway.
These tea wallets were in my “to be finished” pile, so I sewed and turned them at least, but will have to figure out how much I can hand sew before I can do the buttons. I think I can probably do them one at a time.
Aren’t they adorable? I think I might try to sell them as a teacher set or something. They look so cute together.
I have also made blanket! It’s a very special sewing blanket and it’s surprisingly heavy. The Husband said I accidentally made a weighted blanket after I dropped it folded up on his arm. The pieces were 2 yards each, so it ends up being about a 100 inch square?
It is made with blue background dpb for the sewing machines and a strawberry red french terry on the back. I serged the edges together and am very happy with it. I was originally going to make something to wear, but the pattern is really big comparatively and a couple of other people made blankets with it on the sewing boards. It’s a little too warm still to use it now, but I think I will love it in the winter, as I am always cold.
I made these dog themed pictures for the September celebration of Fancy’s “Gotcha Day” and still need to put paw prints on one and a picture of Fancy on the other. I think they look cute even without the finishing touches though too. The Husband likes them as well.
So there is my recent sewing update! I’m relearning how to work around things and have also been reorganizing the basement, so it’s been a process. A good process that I will be glad to be done with at some point! I have to get back to that part though. There’s fabric in the wash I just remembered that I forgot about!
