Bought flowers and a fancy cupcake to celebrate my 500th book (since I started tracking what I read)!!!!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Thirty One: Happy National Hot Chocolate Day!!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Nine: National Puzzle Day. My current read, puzzling out how Shakespeare became Shakespeare; and my newly begun puzzle, puzzling out why Puffins are so darn cute.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Eight: Favorite Fictional Siblings. I love all the stories about the Glass Family, but my favorite is the relationship between Franny and Zooey. Even though they were very different they had deep understanding of each other and what they needed to be okay.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Seven: Bookmarks. I love book related ephemera and these are some of my favorite bookmarks from my collection. Caricatures of famous people/authors from Literary Luminaries.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Six: Beautiful Spines. Love this collection by Coralie Bickford Smith. I want them all!!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Five. Kings & Queens. Sharon Kay Penman wrote a great series of historical fiction novels about my favorite monarchs Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. A fascinating period in history and a fascinating family dynamic!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Three: National Pie Day. Marionberry for the win!!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty Two: White & Gold.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty One: National Hugging Day. Circle of Friends.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twenty: What the Dickens? David Copperfield has long been my favorite Dickens. I admire David's strong affection for and unbreakable loyalty to his friends and chosen family. His goodness in the face of heartbreaking reversals of fortune is something I aspire to.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Nineteen: Ship from Different Books. This may sound crazy, but hear me out: I always thought the dazzlingly clever and witty Viola from Twelfth Night merited a bit more than the mopey Duke Orsino. What if she had a partner as verbally gifted as herself, such as Mr. Tilney from Northanger Abbey. Wouldn't they be charming together?!

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Sixteen: #bookrainbow

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Fifteen: National Hat Day.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Fourteen: Time Travel Books. This is my "K" choice for #litsyatoz challenge. I haven't read it yet but it sounds fascinating. A woman keeps getting pulled back in time to save the life of her great grandfather, a white plantation owner who enslaved her ancestors.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Thirteen: Black & White Books.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Twelve: Recreate a Book Cover.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Eleven: Favorite Fictional World. Highbury seems like the perfect little English village. I would love spending my days there visiting for tea and reading the latest novel, and my only worry would be avoiding Miss Bates when she has a letter from Jane Fairfax.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Ten: Book Spine Poetry.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Nine: Book Title that describes your current mood. #whatkindofdayhasitbeen

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Eight: Pick a Fictional BFF. I think Anne Elliot from Persuasion would make an excellent best friend. She is intelligent, loyal, brave, deeply thoughtful, takes wonderful care of people even when they don't deserve it, keeps a cool head in a crisis, and loves poetry and good conversation.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Seven: Build a Book Snowman. It's too cold to go outside!

Baby it's cold outside! So I'm cuddling up with a good book!

Congrats to @BookishMarginalia on her BookRiot mention!! That is seriously cool!

So glad to hear about the Russian Literature Challenge by http://achaemenids.blogspot.com/2016/12/russian-literature-reading-challenge.htm.... I have had Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov in my sights for years!! Will be participating!

Happy National Trivia Day!! I am a killer at Trivial Pursuit y'all.

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Three: Favorite Shakespeare. My current favorite Shakespeare is As You Like It. The character of Rosalind is so funny, intelligent, and mischievous. One of the things I love best about Shakespeare are his complex female characters. Viola, Beatrice, Cleopatra, Juliet, Katherine, etc., all convince me that Shakespeare must have loved smart women, or at least loved writing them :)

#catesbookstagramchallenge Day Two: Fave Sci-Fi. This is my current favorite sci-fi for it's strong Firefly vibe, fantastical creatures, and adorable personalities. Couldn't put it down, didn't want it to end!

First book of the year! First book of the #litsyatoz #abecedarian reading challenge! Let's go 2017!

Fa la la la la la la la death.

I am committing to the #litsyatoz challenge for 2017! #abecedarianTBR. Thanks @BookishMarginalia !!

'Tis the season to read The Secret History.

Rainy day read.

I get incredibly excited whenever a new book comes out in this very well-written and extremely charming series that features Jane Austen as a real life sleuth solving crimes in between writing masterpieces. They are all great, but my favorite is probably the second in the series, Jane and the Man of the Cloth. Stephanie Barron does a great job at capturing Jane Austen's voice and the history geek in me loves the historically accurate detail.

One of my favorite books about girls who love books.

Next up.

Sneaky nighttime reading part deux; Leviathan edition.

Night time reading with The Girls under the covers.

Juicy dish about the private lives of the Caesars. Oh how power corrupts...

Peter Stuyvesant, historical buzzkill, gets his comeuppance in caption form.

Dietland made me righteously angry while making me love it and marking off a square on my Books On The Nightstand summer book bingo sheet. Such a multi-talented book! #botns #bookbingo

Really great audio book with an up and coming narrator. I see big things in his future.

Listening to the audiobook and really loving her reading. Great for introverts!

I love Connie Willis excessively.

Wonderful reading on this audio book by Louis Gossett Jr. Been trying to come up with a compact sentence to describe this story but its scope seems beyond words, or at least beyond my skill with them. Unforgettable.

I made poor sleep choices last night. But once I started I didn't want to stop. It was just so good! #thebookwinsagain

Excited to start this one, I've heard great things. Mostly from @Liberty!

Re-reading one of my old favorites for book club (Guess who got to pick this time?!). Forgot how much I love the writing and the strong Heroine. Having a great time!

I am strangely and worryingly drawn to stories about serial killers. And I am probably the last to find out that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are going to film this story. Must See!! This is a great read/listen so far.