Alone in the nights, though, he was so lonely and depressed, spending hours staring up into the darkness, that he felt as if he were falling in upon himself. It was like a sickness spreading within him. He was amazed and ashamed to realize that he felt the need for love.

Emma is a spirited young woman who lives a comfortable, privileged life at home with her father and seems to dote on her nieces and nephews. However, Emma prides herself as an excellent matchmaker and advises her friend Harriet to seek a better match instead of accepting the proposal she's been given.

Backman delivers 'all the feels' with Britt-Marie. After reading this one, I think my new favorite book genre is Grumpy old people (What would have happened if she and Ove had meet each other, OMG, that would have been awesome).

"But she was clearly passionate about tea... "
Jane of Austin, Hillary Manton Lodge

This modern-day retelling of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility was one of my favorite reads of the month. I haven't read many but this one!!! Recommended by the lovely @abibliophilesstyle I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Jane felt like a friend who gets me when it comes to tea.

"Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not? - - How can we live and think that any one has trouble - - piercing trouble - - and we could help them, a day never really try?"--Eliot's cast of characters, their circumstances, their lives, choices, challenges have been so multifaceted and humanly honest I think I miss all of the characters.

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”
Persuasion is probably my new favorite Austen. Anne Elliot was a discerning young woman, although persuaded to give up love in her youth because of inexperience. Anne has a kind heart, she‘s a sensible woman and I really enjoyed her character. I think Jane Austen‘s depiction of Anne was a realistic portrait of a lady!

Every Note Played is like...
🎹 a single key played on the piano
🎹 a note perfectly placed in a musical composition
🎹 the emotional roller-coaster of life as we are jolted out of what's normal and familiar into the devastation that is a terminal illness.

The book is told from Ada‘s point of view, recounting the details of her life in its various chapters. Ada was a lonely child, longing for her mother's approval and curious about the father who died before she ever had the opportunity to known him. There is a bit of a family scandal that surfaces toward the later half of the book, I gasped because I had put the idea out of my mind.

It's seems impossible to pen a review of this poignant, powerful book. As one character mentioned, I never lived through war, I have no idea what is like. Inspired by the actions of cellist Vedran Smailović, Galloway creates a world of fiction based on real events, I was transported to Sarajevo, into the lives of four individuals, living in their once beautiful city plagued by the tragedy of war.

“Everything‘s fine. And, really, I was fine, fine, fine. I have always taken great pride in managing my life alone. I‘m a sole survivor—I‘m Eleanor Oliphant. I don‘t need anyone else— there‘s no big hole in my life, no missing part of my own particular puzzle. I am a self contained entity.” It's apparent Eleanor‘s not fine. You gradually come to understand and know that Eleanor is not fine at all, and maybe, we aren't either.

“You are a very good man, for an old git.” ~

Absolutely, I agree! Major Pettigrew is not without flaws, because let‘s admit, we all have some. But never for a moment did I dislike him or find him dry and bland. On the contrary, he‘s a witty gentleman. If you haven‘t read this book yet, please do. Major Pettigrew was a wonderful read, even more so the second time around. The audiobook was a delightful way to catch up with some old friends.

I love the premise of this book, how much Lisa and Miss Loomis had in common. The target audience is probably middle grade students. The book highlighted the ignorance of prejudice and bullying in children and adults. We might not think adults can be bullies but the author shows how it can happen and is sometimes overlooked, brushed aside and in doing so, someone gets hurt.

The stories in the first half of the book were my favorite, I read them all in just about one sitting. The second half, well, let‘s just say they didn‘t shine with the same brilliance like some of the others, with the exception of Father Abe. That one gave me all the feels, little orphan Abe is adorable. What resonated with me in that story was hope, belonging, love and family. Family isn‘t always your flesh and blood.

"I didn't have the words then to articulate what I was feeling, but on some level I'd understood that tears are neither black nor white; they are the quicksilver of our emotional turmoil and their salt flavors our pain equally."

"No matter what anybody says to you, don't let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change...it's a good one, even if it does resist learning."

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

All for one, one for all---that is our motto, is it not?"

“Ever since that day there has been the old friendly sociability in Cranford society; which I am thankful for, because of my dear Miss Matty‘s love of peace and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us.”

The chronicles & perspective of these women was entertaining.

"You . . . an' me. Ever'body gonna be nice to you. Ain't gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from 'em." ~ Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

Steinbeck has quickly become a favorite, he's simply brilliant. In this short, yet powerful novella, Steinbeck presents complex moral dilemmas. George and Lennie' s friendship, is one you'll remember long after reading this book.

See my IG post for more details because the captions are short here. So let‘s summarize:

Book 1- slow and steady

Book 2- Things get interesting —> probably my favorite part

Book 3- slow and sometimes interesting

Book 4- boring until you get back to the main characters

Epilogue - wasted opportunity - read Part 1 ONLY- stop-don‘t read any of Part 2 (I wanted to scream out loud in misery)

"Life is always more astounding than anyone's imagination... Even with a lifetime of experiences, life takes one by surprise."

How despicably I have acted! I, who have prided myself on discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! Who have often disdained the generous candor of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameless mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet how just a humiliation. Till this moment I never knew myself.

O, my dearest Love! Remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!" ~
?️ Sprinted to the finish line in the latter half of this well known classic with quotable opening lines. I'll admit the beginning was a little slow for me, but when things picked up it was full speed ahead as the layers of the story begin to unfold.

There are men, women and children walking about the streets without the faintest idea of ournightmares. They cannot know what we endured if we ever find anyone to listen. In telling my story, I remember all those who never made it through the musket balls and the sharks and the nightmares, all those who never touched a quill and an inkpot.

"Any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his own temper." - The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

Without hesitation it is one of my favorite classics!! Bravo Wilkie! ?

It was too big to talk about, what had happened. It was like a landscape they could not see all at once; it was like the sky at night, which turned and turned so they couldn't find its edges. It would always feel too big.

"You just gave me hope, Henry. And sometimes hope is enough to get you through anything."

"Hadn't the world already given us challenges enough? We had both been abandoned, exiled in our own way from the loves we had known." -
An unlikely pair of women, one Dutch, one Jewish, forge an unexpected bond of love & friendship, while finding refuge amongst a traveling circus admist the harsh reality of World War II.

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond everything.

I liked the past and present style, the past being shared in the form of letters. That's about it. The characters were selfish and one dimensional. And OMG, the womanizing main character, he was awful too, but the majority of the characters, I just didn't really care for.

For I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can't.
Yet all around you timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog doesn't check it's watch.
Man alone measures time.
Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out."

"Good day sir! and good bye! Good day to you too, ma'am. Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off and tread upon it!" - Aunt Betsey

"He says a million things without saying a word. I have never heard a more eloquent silence."

An Invisible Thread is about an unusual friendship between two different people, but I think it's about much more than that. It had to do with two people who were destined to meet on the corner of 56th Street and Broadway. Every Monday, that mother got to know her son, and that son learned about his mother. And on those Mondays their hearts were sewn together with an invisible thread."

Ellen Tebbits is in the third grade and she feels lonely because many of her friends have moved away, not to mention a major wardrobe issue she tries to keep secret from the other girls in her dance class.

All of us are different and should never forget the gift of friendship. Especially a friend who can show you how to mend a torn skirt with scotch tape.

As Margaret says, "Looking out of myself, and my own painful sense of change, the progress all around me is right and necessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart."

"She had learnt...that she must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it."

My avocation is tea. I am a tea connoisseur.

This is too much. Rhett Butler

This book was outstanding. Not enough character space to capture my complete thoughts. See reviews in part on my IG feed @r3ad3rsan0nym0us

Lavinia, a white orphan, grows up in the Kithcen House with the slaves, a family she's come to know and love, coming to view Belle as a mother, Mamma Mae, a grandmother, Poppa and everyone her family. After the Captian dies, life changes for everyone living on the plantation. Lavinia is taken away from her "family" in the Kitchen House and she dreams of being reunited with them.

"I think the lives of working-class women are often overlooked in history books. I'd like to shed a little light in them." ~ Sarah Havensworth, journalist
"Love, I don't know what you've been through, but I know it ain't pretty. You deserve some happiness..." ~ comment made to Hanna
Isn't it true, all of us have a story to tell? Would you feel cheated if it were never told, because of your upbringing, culture, or social standing, or lack thereof?

Set during WWII, London, starting in 1939, Mary a young woman who doesn't plan to sit by and do nothing as the war starts, has fanciful ambitions of becoming a spy. Instead she's assigned as a teacher of sorts. Initially I found Mary annoying but after getting to know her, she's charming in her own way. I mused at this passage, "What good is it to teach a child to count if you don't show him that he counts for something?

Go to sleep a man. Wake up an insect. Reflections on life. The end.
🎧

Picked this up ONLY because my favorite narrator #RalphCosham narrates & I needed a change from the other book I was reading that day.

Some secrets are like burdens. Their mere release lightens the load one is carrying. ~The Servant Boy

A few of the people still have an unresolved existence as the story moved forward but they just disappeared out of the storyline. Those parts seem unfinished to me in a way. Overall, not a bad book. I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review.

" 'Unless some sweetness at the bottom of the lie,
Who cares for all the crinkly of the Pie?' "
? "Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius."
? "My head was spinning I could think of nothing better to calm it down than the Oxford English Dictionary.

Life is not perfect... for anyone. But love makes such a difference in life that sometimes it is the only thing that seems important. It makes life livable.

Life is short, especially if you are happy. And life is wide; especially if you are old, and still have a chance for happiness. But, you have to watch life as you live it, because life is always deep.

Livin' is like pourin' water out of a tumbler into a dang Coca-Cola bottle. If'n you skeered you cain't do it, you cain't. If'n you say to yoreself, 'By dang, I can do it!' then, by dang, you won't slosh a drop.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

"Standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, "Let there be light!" You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur." ~Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

"He must be getting delirious. He keeps saying the same thing over and over again." ~ Catch-22

There were parts of this book I enjoyed, characters I liked making me laugh at their wit, but it ended up feeling a bit long, not as endearing as the author's first book, my favorite, Major Pettigrew's last stand