Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Please be sure to visit other posts in the link-up and support each other!
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
What’s Been Occurring
I am putting myself on a book buying ban in March and April.
I have so many books that I need to read right now. All of the books I chose for my spring hopefuls list are paperback books so that will help me work through that pile.
Also, I think my cats are traumatized by how it was 52 degrees yesterday and today we have snow on the ground. One climbed onto me in bed this morning for cuddles (or her laying on me even though I need to move and then hissing at me to lay back down) and the other reached up to be picked up while I was trying to used the bathroom. I did pick her up and looked down to see the other cat now at my feet. I’m guessing the teenager cat was out in the snow playing with it.
It makes me think of this poster I want to get for our bathroom:
I mentioned on the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot that Little Miss was sick last week. We aren’t sure what she had but she had stomach issues to start then two days of a runny nose and done. So far, no one else in the family has had it.
It was super hard to see her so down and quiet and miserable.
We didn’t go to see my parents all week to make sure we didn’t give them anything but hopefully we can resume seeing them this upcoming week.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
In Progress
Last week I continued reading Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.
I added one of The Hardy Boys books — The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon and a Mildred Wirt Penny Parker book, Whispering Walls. Mildred was the original first author of the Nancy Drew books, if you don’t know that.
They are both quick and light reads, which I need right now.
Up Soon
I’ll be writing a separate post about my hopeful spring reads later this week, but for now I do know I plan to read A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse, The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie after I finish these books (or while I’m reading Return of the King since it is my slow read).
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are still reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy and listening to The Green Ember by S.D. Smith (though we aren’t fond of the narrator – he is very dramatic and makes the female rabbit sound like a drama queen.)
The Husband is reading Welcome to Pawnee by Jim O’Heir.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched more of The Puzzle Lady and All Creatures Great and Small. I also watched The Bride Came C.O.D. with James Cagney and Bette Davis.
Today I am watching the sermon online and if my YouTube farmer has a video today I’ll watch that.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
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 of your weekly wrap up below!
If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
We’ve been reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and this week we are discussing chapters 11 to 23. You can find the discussion on Chapters 1 through 10 here.
An original copy of The Blue Castle.
When I first read this book, the chapters we are discussing today were where I really fell in love with the book, and it wasn’t any different this time. I fell in love with the story and book again in these chapters. There are so many swoonworthy moments in this book it makes me question how our dear Maud was not called one of the greatest romance writers in history.
In these chapters, we see Valancy Stirling finally spread her wings, leaving behind her family to take care of a dying woman and also finding love. All of this is to the horror of her family, of course, but Valancy ignores her family and doing so feels amazing to her.
The family dinner is where her rebellion really kicks in as she levels mouthy comebacks after mouth comeback at her aunts, uncles, cousins, and mother.
It’s a sight to behold – or a chapter to read and laugh at in the least.
Something has snapped in Valancy, who believes she is dying of a heart condition. She decides she has nothing to lose, so she goes full bore on saying what she wants when she wants.
Her uncle Benjamin is always making silly jokes that he expects everyone to laugh at. When Valancy doesn’t, he is offended and calls her disrespectful.
“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin. “When I am dead you may say what you please. As lon as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”
Valancy (whose nickname is Doss, which she hates) says, “Oh, but you now we’re all dead. The whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t — yet. That is the only difference.”
It goes on like this throughout the night, her comments becoming more and more biting and caustic and her chest starts to hurt so she goes to bed.
This is the first time we really start to see Valancy rebel beyond simply cutting at a rose bush that was given to her but never bloomed.
Then the local drunk comes by to make repairs in the house and when he tells Valancy about his dying daughter and how he needs help caring for her and the house, Valancy jumps at the chance. It will get her away from her family, but she also feels it is the right thing to do.
“’Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said. ‘And it’s a shame and disgrace that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.”
For years, there have been all kinds of rumors about the dying girl. One was that she had a child out of wedlock, and that child died as punishment for her sins. The other rumor is that Barney Snaith, a free spirit whom Valancy has already met, was the father.
Valancy goes to live with Abel and Cissy, and her mother about dies from the shock and scandal of it all.
It is at Roaring Abel’s house that Valancy learns more about herself and what she is actually capable of, but also bonds with Cissy, who she knew in her childhood. At the Stirling home, Valancy was always told that she was too weak or sickly to do. At Abel and Cissy’s, she cooks food and cleans, but most importantly, she gives companionship to Cissy.
And she also gets to know Barney Snaith more because he often stops to see or bring treats to Cissy to help cheer her up.
It is in these chapters that Valancy realizes she’s fallen in love with Barney.
Her family keeps trying to bring her home, even sending the pastor, their greatest weapon. She almost caves to him but then ….
“Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home with him — and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her fate — typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She eyed it as a fascinated bird eyes the snake. Another moment —
‘Fear is the original sin,’ suddenly said a still, small voice away back — back — back of Valancy’s consciousness. ‘Almost all the evil in the world has its origins in the fact that someone is afraid of something.’
Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.”
I just love this part. I love the idea that she was afraid and did it anyway. She stood her ground and refused to go back home and become oppressed and sad again. She got a taste of the wind, a feel of it under her wings, and she was never going back.
This makes me think of all the years I tried to please people and make everyone happy, and how I slowly stopped doing it and caring what others thought. It isn’t that I didn’t care about people, but I realized I didn’t have to do everything everyone wanted me to do. I felt a freedom to be myself and to ignore disapproving words or looks.
This has been even more true in the last couple of years as I have stood up for myself in various situations and walked away from situations I would have put up with a lot longer in the past.
I love this line: “She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again.”
She was afraid, even of all the new freedom she had, but she owned that fear, had chosen that fear, had allowed her soul to waken up. She wasn’t about to put it all back to where she had been before — with no choice and no life of her own.
Dr. Stalling is, of course, appalled that Valancy will not go back home simply because he tells her to, but there are better things in store for Valancy.
Love is in store for Valancy.
She has already started noticing she feels different around Barney, but those feelings are growing.
“Valancy was conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face. Their eyes met — Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness. Was one of her heart attacks coming on? But this was a new symptom.”
***
“Good evening, Miss Stirling.”
Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Anyone might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave thm poignancy. When he said good evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt a this vaguely, but she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot — it must be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!”
Then Valancy takes her biggest step of freedom yet by going to a late-night party with Abel. She gets a bit more than she bargained for, though, and is completely relieved and smitten when Barney comes to rescue her from some very handsy men.
When Barney’s car runs out of gas as they are fleeing, Valancy has even more time to process her feelings for him.
I love the passages Montgomery writes about Valancy’s love for Barney. To me, they are more romantic than most romance books of today.
“Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had a lightning flash.
She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday, she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing, said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that though apart from him — thought in which he did not predominate — was an impossibility.
She had realized, quite simply and fully that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.
She was no longer unimportant, little old main Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant — justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.”
Whew!
And what is fun about this book is that there is even more to come.
What did you think of these chapters?
Of Valancy refusing to go home and the reactions of her family to these refusals?
Let me know in the comments.
This cover is so ridiculous if you’ve read the book. At least to me! This makes it look like some ridiculous romance book and it is much more than that. Also, that dude looks nothing like Barney is described.
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
I recently saw a YouTube video where a booktuber suggested reading just 12 pages a day of a classic to make it feel less daunting for readers who don’t usually read classics.
There are a couple of reasons he suggested this tactic.
One: it gives you time to read slowly and truly immerse yourself in the story.
Two: it helps you pay attention to the writing, the words connected together, the style of that particular author.
Three: Gives you time to write notes about what you are reading or underline a quote that really stands out to you. This gives you time to really think about that quote or section that really stands out to you.
Four: It gets you off a device. Stops you scrolling on “the attention hog” that has trained you to keep scrolling through 30-second to 1-minute clips. Doing this mentally and physically fatigues us. The makers of social media know how to addict us but our mind biologically loves to dwell on things, to feel like it is learning something and this is done better at a slower pace. Reading instead of scrolling releases the brain from repeated dopamine hits.
Five: Creates a sense of patience, self-control, and a “stick-to-it” attitude. As humans we feel a sense of pride when we push through something and accomplish what we set out to do.
Six: It helps to quell comparison to other readers that we need to do; the fear-of-missing-out tendency, the desire to “have read” certain books. We want to be able to say “I have read…” but don’t want to sit and really read something well. Reading this way, we can focus on reading well — taking our time to really take it in and not worry about rushing on to the next book. Those books will be there when we are done with this one.
Extra tips: Doing this at night can help you feel like you don’t have to rush and “get through” your allotted pages before you have to do something else. You can do this with other books, not just classics.
What do you think of reading some books this way? Yay or Nay? What say you?
Source: Tristan Reads Classics. Video: The One Tip You Need More Classics and Enjoy Them.
If you want a fuller explanation of what Tristan was talking about, you can watch his video here:
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Once upon a time I said I wanted winter to come so I could curl up with a book under a blanket or watch an old movie…also under a blanket.
I still like curling up under a blanket but I’m over the gloominess of winter now. I would enjoy some green, but, alas, after warming temps this past week, Winter is reminding us it isn’t done yet as I just learned Friday night that another winter storm is headed our way today into tomorrow.
Blah.
Hopefully it will drop off the snow and go because I have plans this week to help my parents, possibly see my brother, and maybe even sneak off to a bookstore.
I started a nostalgic clip account on Instagram a few months ago (Nostalgically Thinking) and this past week I shared clips of Canadian Figure Skater Kurt Browning as I reflected on how entertaining he always was but never won and Olympic medal. I was thinking about that because of all that was going on with figure skating phenom Ilia Malinin. He didn’t win an individual gold but he’s already done so much to entertain and project the sport into astounding levels that I don’t think it matters at all. It certainly didn’t with Kurt who I always loved to watch and never even knew if he won an Olympic medal.
On Thursday, I shared Kurt skating in “leather” pants to Brick House — one of my favorite routines of his.
Last night, before bed, I noticed a comment on my reel from kb.on.ice.
“Pants and the song sold it. The pants were plastic actually.”
Screenshot
I knew it was really Kurt because I’d found his account a couple of days before and, yes, I was a bit giddy seeing that comment.
I was so excited but remained calm as I told my kids about it and I give them credit – they didn’t role their eyes. They told me how nice it was, after I explained to them who Kurt Browning is, of course.
When I was in high school, I was obsessed with watching figuring skating but especially Kurt, Brian Boitono, Elvis Stojko, and Scott Hamilton.
My brother bought me tickets to Stars on Ice for the 1996 tour when it came near where we lived, which was shocking because nothing exciting ever came near where we lived.
I am so old that I remember almost none of it! I wanted to dig out the program and an old journal to remember who was even there before I finished this post but I looked all afternoon and some of the boxes with old journals were way back in the back of our bedroom closet so I finally gave up.
I was very certain Kurt Browning was there so I texted my brother to ask if he remembered who was there and he didn’t even remember he took me! Haha! I remember he gave me the tickets as a Christmas gift and I was so excited.
I will write more on my blog later this week about the show and my love of ice skating, if I can find the journal, photos, and program.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
Last week I finished Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie. It is a Hercule Poirot book and I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of humor in it from Poirot and the mystery was very good.
In Progress
Right now, I am still making my way through Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. They are my slow reads.
I am also reading Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain.
Up Soon
I can’t wait to start Murder on the Orient Express since I’ve seen the movies but have never read the book. I’m also looking forward to reading another P.G. Wodehouse and Miss Read this spring. I’ll be making my list of spring hopefuls this week. Spring….and I barely got through my Winter reads! It’s insane to think of spring already being here.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are enjoying The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy and are tying it into a history unit about World War I.
The Husband is reading the latest Robert Galbraith (Rowling) book.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched some of the figure skating at the Olympics, a new British mystery show called The Puzzle Lady, and All Creatures Great and Small.
I am watching my James Cagney movie – Angels With Dirty Faces — with The Husband tonight because he’s been too busy before this to watch it with me and wants to see it too. So my Winter of Cagney post is going up late this week.
I will be watching another Cagney movie — The Bride Arrived COD – later this week.
This afternoon I am watching East Side of Heaven (1939) with Bing Crosby.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
Erin and I also host a Drop-In Crafternoon once or twice a month. This is where we meet with other bloggers on Zoom and do some crafts while we chat.
We have two scheduled for March. The first is Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. and the second is Sunday, March 22 at 1 p.m. If you are interested in taking part you can learn a little bit more about it from Erin’s original post about our Crafternoons and by emailing her at crackercrumblife@gmail.com or me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or leave a comment below.
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.
If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
This week’s prompt was: Books for Armchair Travelers (Submitted by Laurie C @ Bay State Reader’s Advisory)
I have not read a lot of travel or adventure or even non-fiction books, but I do have a list I want to read so I thought I’d share that list today.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
I actually had this book in my Libby at the end of last year, but ran out of time to read it. I’ll try again this year.
Description: The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America—majestic mountains, silent forests, sparkling lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way—and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
2. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
I will be reading this one in March for the Christie 2026 Challenge.
Description:
“The murderer is with us—on the train now . . .”
Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.
Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.
3. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A relative recommended this one.
Description:
The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives. They find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will be complete.
4. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
I’ve always wanted to read this one but have never got around to it.
Description:
At the age of five, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi is fascinated by his long beard and bushy grey eyebrows. She loves her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up amongst the goats and birds. But one terrible day, Heidi is collected by her aunt and is made to live with a new family in town. Heidi can’t bear to be away from her grandfather; can she find a way back up the mountain, where she belongs?
5. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mays.
I’ve seen this movie but have not read the book.
Description:
Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.
6. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Description: To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck’s goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.
With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.
7. My Life in France by Julia Child
Description: Here is the captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found “her true calling.” From the moment she and her husband Paul, who worked for the USIS, arrived in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn’t speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. She teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book on French cooking for Americans. Filled with her husband’s beautiful black-and-white photographs as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Bon appétit!-
8. All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou
In 1962 the poet, musician, and performer Maya Angelou claimed another piece of her identity by moving to Ghana, joining a community of “Revolutionist Returnees” inspired by the promise of pan-Africanism. All God’s Children Need Walking Shoes is her lyrical and acutely perceptive exploration of what it means to be an African American on the mother continent, where color no longer matters but where American-ness keeps asserting itself in ways both puzzling and heartbreaking. As it builds on the personal narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name , this book confirms Maya Angelou’s stature as one of the most gifted autobiographers of our time.
9. A Room with a View by E.M. Forester
I have seen this movie but thought I should read the book some day.
Description:
“But you do,” he went on, not waiting for contradiction. “You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it …”
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.
Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?
10. Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan
I have read this one and enjoyed it.
Description:
Over the course of her long, prolific career, Agatha Christie gave the world a wealth of ingenious whodunits and page-turning locked-room mysteries featuring Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and a host of other unforgettable characters. She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha’s millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them, if you did?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.
If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Our family tried to go to a 120-year-old tradition of riding a homemade wooden sled down a hill on a track made of 13-inch blocks of ice yesterday but the wait was 3-hours.
We opted for food at an inn and tavern instead and left the waiting to others.
The Eagles Mere Toboggan Ride is held only if the Eagles Mere Lake freezes enough that the fire company can cut the blocks to build the slide.
It doesn’t happen every year so we have to take the chance when we can but it’s been so severely cold that we made the mistake of waiting.
Since the weather is warming up, this weekend was probably the last chance.
It was a nice day despite the kids and husband not being able to go down the historic slide. What? You didn’t think I was going down that thing, did you?
They walked around town on their way back and stopped by the little bookstore I love to visit. I was waiting in the car, though, and didn’t know they were visiting it and when we drove by later, finding a parking space was impossible. So I didn’t get to go to the bookstore, but Little Miss and The Husband picked up a couple books for me.
Then it was on to the tavern for an amazing lunch while taxidermy animals looked down on us.
If you would like to know more about the toboggan ride, you can watch this video:
What I/We’ve Been Reading
In Progress
I am reading Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 26 Challenge.
I am also reading The Blue Castle, Return of the King, and Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain.
Up Soon
How To Seal Your Own Fate by Kristin Perrin.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy together and listening to The Green Ember by S.D. Smith.
The Husband is reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
I don’t know if I need a life or if my life is okay but my big thrill this week was when my Blu-ray of Angels With Dirty Faces — a movie with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart from the late 1930s — arrived in the mail. The icing on the cake was that The Husband was just as excited to see it and warned me I can’t watch it without him.
I am watching it for next week’s Winter of Cagney.
The husband and I watched an episode of Kate and Allie last night. I forgot about that show.
I watched White Heat for the Winter of Cagney and will write about it Monday.
I am listening to Shakespeare. The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brenden O’Hea because I found it more interesting to listen to than read.
Some Housekeeping
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
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.
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It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
As I am starting to write this post on a Saturday night our WiFi is out so I am using the unlimited data on my phone plan to draft this. Our internet company thinks the severe cold is our issue. (Update: It came back this morning and they still think it was the nasty cold).
This weekend’s weather here is taking the cake for this winter.
When I woke up this morning it was -6 without the windchill. The feels like temp was -30F (0 Celsius).
That temp continued to drop throughout the day.
Today our high will be 8F.
Obviously, we are staying hunkered down at home today.
We have three cats, Scout, Pixel and Cass and it is driving them crazy right now that they cannot go outside. We live in a semi rural area, so we normally let them outside in our backyard for a little bit, and they explore between the house and our wood pile and a little bit beyond and then they come back in. Scout is the hunter and sometimes we’ll disappear for a day and warmer weather coming back on occasion with a dead bird mouse or other animal.
Pixel is our home body. She mainly sits on the back porch and watches to see what scout does. Cass is new to us after being dropped off near our property the day before Halloween last year. So I’m not totally sure of his habits just yet, but he seems to be more like a hunter like Scout..
The bitter cold weather we have been having for the last month has meant keeping the cats in more than usual though. This is driving them absolutely insane and they pace in front of the door or smack each other around and have all out cat fights. I like winter in some ways because it means I can stay inside and write or read but right now I am ready for some warmer weather if only to get these cats out of the house and out of my hair. It would be one thing if they just enjoyed curling up but these are roaming cats and for them just to sleep all day isn’t really an option. They do sleep a lot, however.
I needed to slow down yesterday and have a good cry.
Another friend of the family passed away, and I realized I’d been telling myself I didn’t have time to sit down and cry about it.
Yesterday was his funeral and the severe cold and the possibility of me coming down with something kept me from going.
I busied myself throughout the day and then, right before dinner, I thought about how he is gone and I won’t see him again and I let myself have a good long cry.
I don’t like to break down and cry because I worry if I do I won’t stop and I’ll fall into a very deep depression. The problem is that I also sink into a deep depression if I hold in my sadness so it’s probably better to let some of the pressure off with a good cry instead.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham last night.
It was very good but different than I expected with a lot more cerebral and deep descriptions and a more artistic ending than I thought it would have. There was also very little sleuthing with the guy I thought was the main character – Albert Campion – but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I will eventually post a review of it.
In Progress
I am still rereading The Blue Castle (I will have a post up Monday for anyone reading along with me) and am also reading – for the first time – Return of the King by JRR Tolkien.
I just started a Murder, She Wrote because I want to read something I don’t have to use my brain for a lot. Ha!
This one started out a bit more bawdy than other ones I’ve read and I’m not sure what I think of that. We will see how it goes.
Up Soon
I am still rereading The Blue Castle (I will have a post up Monday for anyone reading along with me) and am also reading – for the first time – Return of the King by JRR Tolkien.
I just started a Murder, She Wrote because I want to read something I don’t have to use my brain for a lot. Ha!
This one started out a bit more bawdy than other ones I’ve read and I’m not sure what I think of that. We will see how it goes.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are still reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
Last week I watched Love Me or Leave Me with Doris Day and James Cagney and episodes of Murder, She Wrote and All Creatures Great And Small.
Today I am going to watch my farmer on YouTube ( Just A Few Acres) because he’s finally back with a video.
I am listening to Shakespeare. The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brenden O’Hea because I found it more interesting to listen to than read.
Some Housekeeping
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
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.
I’m surprised more people don’t talk or write about Agatha Christie’s non-fiction books, especially Come, Tell Me How You Live, which reveals so much of her witty sense of humor.
Of course, she only wrote three non-fiction books — this one, her autobiography, and The Grand Tour, a collection of her letters and photographs from her 1922 tour to promote the British empire.
Christie writes this book under her full name of Agatha Christie Mallowen, with Mallowen being the name of her second husband and she’s wrong in her introduction.
I don’t read non-fiction often so I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this one but when the opening pages describe Agatha looking for outfits she can wear on her husband’s archaeological dig in Syria and the clerk lets her know they might not be able to accommodate her larger size, which Agatha handles hilariously, I knew I had to keep going.
As Agatha says in the intro of this book, “This is not a profound book. It will give you no interesting sidelights on archaeology, there will be no beautiful descriptions of scenery, no treating of economic problems, no racial reflections, no history. It is, in fact, small beer — a very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings.”
This book does actually include some beautiful descriptions and a few interesting sidelights on archaeology.
Agatha started writing this book before World War 2 and finished it afterward, sending it out into the world to be published.
As I mentioned already, the book begins with Agatha looking for traveling clothes. Her humor immediately kicks in.
“Shopping for a hot climate in autumn or winter presents certain difficulties. One’s last year’s summer clothes, which one has optimistically hoped will “do”, do not “do” now the time has come. For one thing, they appear to be (like the depressing annotations in furniture removers’ lists) “Bruised, Scratched, and Marked.” (And also Shrunk, Faded, and Peculiar!). For another — alas, alas that one has to say it! — they are too tight everywhere.
So, to the shops and the stores and:
“Of course, Modom, we are not being asked for that kind of thing now! We have some very charming little suits here — O.S. in the darker colors.”
I’m guessing O.S. means oversized because Agatha then writes: “Oh, loathsome O.S. How humiliating to be O.S.! How even more humiliating to be recognized at once as O.S.!”
If I have done my math right, Agatha would have been around 45 at the time this trip was taken.
She and her husband, Max, traveled to Syria and Iraq. Max was an archaeologist and Agatha actually met him on an archaeologist dig in 1930, years after divorcing her cheating first husband, Colonel Archibald Christie.
What’s so fun about this book is how Agatha writes about different she and Max approach situations in life, with her being a bit more high strung and him being laid back and acting like everything will turn out all right. Agatha was about 15 years older that Max, I might add, which I did not realize while I was reading the book. I read that while I was researching for the review. No wonder he seemed so aloof and laid back. He was still young and a bit naïve in some ways.
In addition to sharing details of her marriage, Agatha also writes about the quirky men who travel with her and her husband.
I would not be surprised if some of the people they worked with or met along their travels popped up in Agatha’s mysteries.
Mac, her husband’s architect assistant, gets the bulk of the secondary character playback throughout the book and it is hilarious. His full name was Robin Maccartney.
Mac is extremely serious, a perfectionist, and also lacks any sense of humor.
Agatha and Max traveled off and on between 1935 and 1936, with stays in Syria long enough that they had a house remodeled for them to stay in. Mac, an architect by trade, has been designing blueprints for Agatha’s bathroom.
“I ask Mac that evening at dinner what is fist architectural job as been.
“This is my first bit of practical work,” he replies. “—your lavatory!”
He sighs gloomily, and I feel very sympathetic. It will not, I fear, look well in Mac’s memoirs when he comes to write them.
The budding dreams of a young architect should not find their first expression in a mud-brick lavatory for his patron’s wife!”
Agatha shares some of her most savage lines in the book when she is writing about Mac, who almost seems uptight and perfect to be human at times.
It isn’t until he can’t light a gas lamp that he has a meltdown which Agatha says reveals his humanity.
“I steal a glance at him when another five minutes have gone by. He is getting warm. He is also looking not nearly so superior. Scientific principal or no scientific principal the petrol lamp is holding out on him. He lies on the floor and wrestles with the thing. Presently he begins to swear… A feeling that is almost affection sweeps ove me. After all, our Mac is human. He is defeated by a petrol lamp!”
Agatha writes that from that point on, Mac is one of them, someone who can easily get frustrated and swear about it.
Agatha did take her typewriter and some manuscripts with her and writes about working on a book while there. One of their friends, Louis Osman, an architect and member of the archaeological team, who was affectionately nicknamed “Bumps” by the group, and who Agatha simply calls “B” in her book, came into her office one day to chat, but she wants him to leave because she’s in the middle of writing a murder scene.
“He goes into the drawing office and talks to Mac, but, meeting with no response, he comes sadly into the office, where I am busy on the typewriter getting down to the gory details of a murder.
‘Oh,’ says B. “you’re busy?”
I say, ‘Yes,’ shortly.
“Writing?” asks B.
‘Yes’ (more shortly).
‘I thought, perhaps,’ says B wistfully. ‘I might bring the labels and the objects in here. I shouldn’t be disturbing you should I?’
I have to be firm. I explain clearly that it is quite impossible for me to get on with my dead body if a live body is moving, breathing and in all probability talking, in the near vicinity!
Poor B goes sadly away, condemned to work in loneliness and silence. I feel convinced that, if B ever writes a book, he will do so most easily with a wireless and a gramophone turned on close at hand and a few conversations going on in the same room!”
Agatha also tells about the women of the middle east and how they want to get to know her and learn more about her. I was surprised to learn in this section that Agatha had had a series of miscarriages over the years, which may be one reason she and Archie only had one daughter.
There are some parts of the book I found a tiny bit slow but so much of it was so fascinating that I didn’t mind a little bit of slowness
I really enjoyed Agatha’s recollections and her thoughts about the faith of the people compared to the faith of the people in England.
I also found it interesting to read her views on public education, which would probably surprise people today.
After sharing about watching some of the village children play and experiencing every day life she wrote:
“I think to myself how happy they look, and what a pleasant life it is like the fairy stories of old, wandering about over the hills herding cattle, sometimes sitting and singing. At this time of day, the so-called fortunate children in European lands are setting out for the crowded classroom, going in and out of the soft air, sitting on benches or at desks, toiling over letters of the alphabet, listening to a teacher, writing with cramped fingers. I wonder to myself whether, one day a hundred years or so ahead, we shall say in shocked accents: ‘In those days they actually made poor little children go to school, sitting inside buildings at desks for hours a day! Isn’t it terrible to think off! Little children!’”
Have you ever read this one or any of Agatha’s non-fiction books?
