Anne of Green Gables

Some cozy book recommendations for Spring

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

I have been wanting to put together a list of cozy reads for Spring but then I realized something – I’m not sure if what I see is cozy is what others would see as cozy.  Also, they are cozy for me, but do I only read them in spring? I don’t know. Not really. Unlike others who share such book recommendations, I don’t have a book I read each spring. It’s not something I do for whatever reason. I have re-read a couple of these books but not in spring.

Anyhow, I’m going for it anyhow before spring is gone (though it’s so cold out, my area thinks it is winter!) and recommend some books I feel fit spring and some that you could really read any time.

(Note: There are affiliate links in this post that I could monetarily benefit from. That’s not why I wrote the post though. The links were an afterthought.)

First up is A Light in the Window by Jan Karon from The Mitford Series.

Really anything from The Mitford series fits for cozy reading in my opinion. Sure, there are some tough topics in the books, but they are mixed in with enough light humor and sweetness to make it easier to take in.

I enjoy this one because it chronicles the romance of Father Tim, an Episcopalian priest, and his neighbor, Cynthia Coppersmith.

It’s such a sweet romance that leaves you rooting for this older couple who are finding love in their golden years. It is nothing like the romances out there in the world today. It is a sweet, gentle story of friendship that blossoms into love. No kisses or swooning or cheesy physical descriptions of them checking each other out.

“Oh, Timothy, how could you not have loved someone all these years? Loving absolutely seeps from you, like a spring that bubbles up in a meadow.”

 “Maybe you can convince me of that, but I doubt it. I find myself self-seeking, hard as stone somewhere inside. Look how I’ve treated you.”

“Yes, but you could never deceive me into thinking you were hard as stone. You’ve always betrayed your tenderness to me, something in your face, your eyes, your voice …”

“Then I have no cover with you?”

“Very little.”

 “ ‘Violet only wanted a friend,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘but every time she tried to have one, she did something that chased them away.”

~ A Light in the Window

Throw in a bunch of other quirky and fun characters and I can’t help but to be charmed by the world Jan has created in the pages of this book and the entire series. There are 14 books in all.

The Cat Who God Sent by Jim Kraus is another cozy read for me.

This is the story of a pastor Jake Wilkerson who is disillusioned with his job when he meets a cat named Petey who seems to always be in the way and leading to situations that make Jake think differently about life. The story takes place in a tiny little town about an hour from where I live and close to where my brother lives, which I didn’t know when I first picked up the book. I have a copy of The Dog That Talked to God too by him, but I haven’t read it yet.

Book description:

Jake Wilkerson, a disillusioned young pastor who is an expert at hiding his fears, takes on a new assignment at a small rural church in Coudersport, Pennsylvania–which is a far piece from anywhere and full of curiously odd and eccentric people. His first day on the job, he is adopted by Petey–a cat of unknown origins and breed–but a very sentient cat who believes that he is on a mission from God to redeem Jake and bring him back to the truth.
Jake must confront his doubts early on when he meets Emma Grainger, a single woman and a veterinarian who dismisses all Christians as “those people.” Then, Tassy, a young runaway with a secret, arrives at the door of the church looking for a place of refuge. How does Jake deal with this runaway and his interest in Dr. Grainger? More importantly, can Jake rekindle his faith? Petey does his best to lead all people to the truth, in a most subtle and feline way.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is a book I associate with spring, I guess because she arrives at Green Gables in spring.

Most people are familiar with this book, even if you haven’t read it. On the off chance someone has no idea what the book is though, it is a book about a young orphan girl who comes to live with an elderly couple in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The couple think they are adopting a boy to help them with their farm, but instead, they are accidentally given a girl who enchants them and enriches their lives.

Anne is a girl who daydreams her way through life. She loves to read, pick flowers, imagine grand situations and think the best of everyone. She has had to use all of those things to help her deal with a difficult childhood where she was in foster care and treated horribly by those who took her in. Those who did take her in mainly did so to have her as someone to either care for their children or do their housework.

I read this book to Little Miss last year, and she really enjoyed it. I’m making my way through the series of books (there are eight) but I gave up on book four, Anne’s House of Dreams, because the cute and humorous moments that were in the original dissipated by book four.

Any of the Cat Who books are cozy reading to me, but I picked The Cat Who Wasn’t There because it was on my shelf and I remember that being one of the better ones. The books are written by Lilian Jackson Braun and there are a few duds in the series, especially toward the end.

These books are the story of Jim Qwilleran, a retired newspaper reporter who moves to a small town called Pickax in Moose County, up toward the Canadian border after he founds out he has inherited a wealthy woman’s entire fortune, even though they weren’t actually related.

Qwill writes a column for the local paper and lives in a barn that has been turned into a house with his two Siamese cats. He frequently finds himself wrapped up in various mysteries that occur in the town. The series starts with Qwill living “Down Below” which refers to the city or anything south of this rural area in the north. I’m guessing this town is based in Minnesota or Michigan, but I don’t know that it’s ever really made clear what state it is in. Qwill used to work in Chicago, I believe. It’s Down Below where he acquires his cats. Koko, the male, is the one who “helps” Qwill solve crimes by conveniently knocking over plants or pawing at books or finding clues, or simply acting weird around a suspect. Yum-Yum is there mainly for comic relief. She’s a sweet kitty who often “steals” items from visitors so she can bat them around for fun later.

She was kidnapped in one of the books and I swear I almost had a heart attack. These are very light reads so I figured she would be fine but I just couldn’t stop reading until Qwill had her safely in his arms again.

Back to this particular book, which is about Qwill traveling to Scotland with other regular characters from the book. During that trip one of the people who comes with them as a guide (not a regular) is murdered and the crew returns to Pickax sad and in need of finding out who killed her. Koko wasn’t on the trip but even he gets in on the sleuthing when Qwill returns home.

There is also a little bit of romance in the books between Qwill and the town librarian, Polly Duncan, but like A Light in the Window, it is not a romance about kisses and physical description. It’s more like a friendship romance.

For a list of all of the 29 books in the series see this site:

https://quotes.pub/the-cat-who-books-in-order

I have been reading through the All Creatures Great and Small books by James Herriot over the last few years and they are cozy reads for me.

There are eight books in the main series, but Herriot, whose real name was actually Alfred Wight, also put out collections of short stories, and then other books were compiled with the original stories and photos so online there looks to be 19 different books by Herriot. I only own one in paperback. I own six of the eight main books about his beginning years as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in ebook form.

 I like how each chapter is a little story all its own. I read a chapter here and there when I do read the books and it is like escaping into a little cocoon of comfort. Right now, I am reading The Lord God Made Them All.

I cannot tell you which each book is about because they all sort of blend together in a collection of stories about his life and job. The one I am reading now takes place after he was in the war. He’s now married with his first son and is no longer living in the same house as Siegfried Farnon, whose real name was Donald Sinclair. I don’t like the writing style in this book as much as the others because he seems to be slipping between past and present tense at times, even in mid-sentence, but the stories are still entertaining.

For spiritual books I enjoy in Spring, there is Gracelaced, a devotional book by Ruth Chou Simons. The art and words inside the book are beautiful. I only picked this up last year but I can tell it is going to be a favorite of mine in the spring when the flowers are blooming but also all seasons when I need to look at some beautiful paintings of flowers.

A children’s book I enjoy reading with Little Miss in spring is Share, Big Bear, Share by Maureen Wright, who is a local author to us.

The book is about Big Bear’s need to share his stash of blueberries with his friends and I guess blueberries often grow in the summer, not the spring, but for some reason the book feels spring-like to me.

I’m sure there are other books I enjoy in spring but haven’t thought about for this post. They’ll just have to wait for next year.

Since I got this idea after my friend Erin and a YouTuber we watch posted their favorite cozy spring reads, I thought I’d link to their suggestions as well.

Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs

Darling Desi

And one bonus one

Forgotten Way Farms

Anne Shirley quotes and loving it when my daughter “gets” a character I “get”

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

I love it when someone besides me understands a literary character who I love and it’s even better when that someone is my seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

I’ve mentioned before on my blog that Little Miss has been making me read the Little House on the Prairie books again and I’m not really enjoying reading them again because, well, they are a bit tedious at times and Ma drives me bonkers (she’s so rude and well, racist, at times. I still don’t think the whole series is racist, however, and I definitely think children should read them or have them read to them to learn more about life in the 1800s). I’ll write about Ma and her idiosyncrasies in a future post.

Recently I had convinced Little Miss to let me read Anne of Green Gables before bed instead, but sadly she seemed unable to fall asleep while I was reading that book, mainly because, as she said, “It wakes my brain up too much.”

I read the dialogue in the voices of the characters when I read to her, and I’ve watched the Anne of Green Gables movie (Canadian version only) so many times that I was really getting into it. I made Anne a little bit too hyper, but that’s how she is. Little Miss told me that she was too into the story to fall asleep and asked me to go back to Little House because it was “boring enough for me to fall asleep to.”

Earlier this week I had simply had had enough of Ma and told Little Miss I could read Anne but dull it down a little.

“I can make it boring,” I told her. “Make Anne sound boring. Less bouncy.”

She gasped. “No! You can’t do that!  You have to read it with Anne’s bouncy voice because Anne’s bouncy voice is what makes Anne, Anne!”

Oh gosh! She gets it! Anne’s personality is what makes Anne Anne and that’s really the point of the books, but especially the first one. The theme is that Anne is dramatic and silly and swoony and, well, wonderful, and Little Miss gets it!

I’ve really enjoyed reading the Anne series these last couple of months. It’s been comfort reading for me. While reading, I have written down or snapped photos on my phone of several quotes I have enjoyed the most. I thought I’d share some of my favorites here for you today.

“Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor–which is simply another name for a sense of the fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that simple little prayer, sacred to the white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God’s love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.”―  Anne of Green Gables

“Having adventures comes natural to some people”, said Anne serenely. “You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.” Anne of Avonlea

“Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that perhaps, just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a jackknife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge did crumple up I’d want to see it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There, we’re over. Now I’ll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.”
―  Anne of Green Gables

“Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads.” — Anne of Green Gables

“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.” – Anne of Green Gables

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.” – Anne of Avonlea

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” – Anne of Avonlea

“Yes, it’s beautiful,’ said Gilbert, looking steadily down into Anne’s uplifted face, ‘but wouldn’t it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been no separation or misunderstanding . . . if they had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other?” – Anne of Avonlea

“When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts…it’s like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.” – Anne of Avonlea

“Whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed…that nothing ever came up to your expectations. Well, perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don’t always come up to your expectations either…they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.” -Anne of Avonlea

“It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I’ve often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,” — Anne of Avonlea

“There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves–so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.” — Anne of the Island

“I am afraid to speak or move for the fear all this wonderful beauty will vanish just like a broken silence.” — Anne of the Island

“That’s one of the things we learn as we grow older — how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at twenty.” — Anne of the Island

“People told her she hadn’t changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn’t.” — Anne of the Island

“There is a book of Revelation in everyone’s life, as there is in the Bible.” — Anne of the Island

“Never write a line you’d be ashamed to read at your own funeral.” — Anne of the Island

“I’m going home to an old country farmhouse, once green, rather faded now, set among leafless apple orchards. There is a brook below and a December fir wood beyond, where I’ve heard harps swept by the fingers of rain and wind. There is a pond nearby that will be gray and brooding now. There will be two oldish ladies in the house, one tall and thin, one short and fat; and there will be two twins, one a perfect model, the other what Mrs. Lynde calls a ‘holy terror.’ There will be a little room upstairs over the porch, where old dreams hang thick, and a big, fat, glorious feather bed which will almost seem the height of luxury after a boardinghouse mattress. How do you like my picture, Phil?”

“It seems a very dull one,” said Phil, with a grimace.

“Oh, but I’ve left out the transforming thing,” said Anne softly. “There’ll be love there, Phil—faithful, tender love, such as I’ll never find anywhere else in the world—love that’s waiting for me. That makes my picture a masterpiece, doesn’t it, even if the colors are not very brilliant?”

Phil silently got up, tossed her box of chocolates away, went up to Anne, and put her arms about her. “Anne, I wish I was like you,” she said soberly.” — Anne of the Island

Sunday Bookends: Keeping it low, blooming flowers, quiet books

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

This week we had some difficult news about someone we knew so we laid pretty low and tried to focus on our mental health. I wandered my yard and took a lot of photos of our flowers, which I shared in a post earlier this week.

Last Sunday Little Miss and my dad planted some gladiolus bulbs around the garden.

Friday Little Miss learned how to ride her bike without her training wheels, and she spent almost all day yesterday riding it.

We really didn’t do much else this week because I preferred to hide away from people. Little Miss’ friends who were visiting from Texas left to go back this week and that left us both down. I’ll miss those little girls running up from their great-grandma’s to play with Little Miss every afternoon and them playing together until the light outside was almost too dark to see their hands in front of their faces.

Remember when I was complaining all winter about it being too cold out? Well for two days this week the temperatures were lower (in the 60s!) and I loved it! On Saturday it was spring weather and I was all for it. I loved curling up under the covers with a book and wearing my sweater. I’m not a fan of hot, sticky summer weather so if it is like that in July and August for us, I’m sure I’ll complain a time or two about it on here.

What I/we’ve Been Reading

I am reading quiet books for now.

I am reading The Heart of the Mountains by Pepper Basham on the Kindle.

I am reading Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery in paperback.

I usually read a Kindle book at night when all the lights are off and a paperback during the day.

This week I will be reading Pepper’s book slowly for a book tour that isn’t until late July and Anne’s book slowly because I enjoy taking my time with it.

I am also hoping to start a mystery book of some sort this week or next but I am not sure which one yet.

Little Miss finally let me read Anne of Green Gables to her instead of The Long Winter from The Little House series at night this past week. It’s been a nice break (since this is our second time through the series), but I have discovered she doesn’t fall sleep as fast when I read Anne. Anne speaks very quickly and excitedly and because I do all the voices, Grace gets into the story even more than the other books.

“You speak very fast, and it wakes my brain all up,” she told me Friday night.

I read The Long Winter after that, and she dropped off to sleep in five minutes. Anne might have to be a book we read during the day if this continues.

What I’m Watching

The Husband and I started Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Friday night. It is based on an Agatha Christie book and is a mini-series. We are enjoying it so far. We have two more parts to finish.

My husband either had to work or go to play practice every night during the week so we didn’t watch much else together. I actually didn’t watch much alone either. I had a hard time focusing on anything for very long.

I did rewatch some of As Time Goes By, which is a British sitcom I’ve watched a few times now.


What I’m Writing

I wrote some blog posts to distract myself this week and also worked a little on Mercy’s Shore.

What I’m Listening To

I listened to some Jack White music this week. I needed something different than what I had been listening to. Jack White is a bit too weird for me sometimes, but I love his guitar work. I wouldn’t say I’d recommend listening to him all the time but when you feel a little pissed off at the world (for lack of a better way to explain it right now) it scratches an itch.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.