This reread was a challenge to myself to see if my initial reading of the character Fanny Price in Jane Austen’s, Mansfield Park, would change. In that first reading I found her moralizing tone and timidity quite tedious. Although I have softened that assessment—she remains one of my least liked of Jane Austen’s main characters. …
Continue reading Mansfield Park (1814)- Round Two!, Jane Austen
This book has three “this is you, Laurie,” going for it:1. Medieval scholarship-I majored in Medieval history.2. Tarot cards-I use them as well as oracle cards.3. The Cloisters-A branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) and the only museum in the US exclusively dedicated to Medieval art; it is a favorite experience …
Whoa, it's been a long time since I did a Spin! They are such a good way to commit to at least one book off the tbr. The rules for the Spin are here if you are not familiar with the Classics Club. In a nutshell, you make a numbered list of 20 books from …
This is one of those books that is so completely character driven that you can't put it down, because you have become totally invested in their lives. There are three main stories that overlap and take place at this magical coffee shop hidden at the end of an alley. I say magical, because the coffee …
Continue reading Days at the Torunka Cafe, Satoshi Yagisawa, (2022), translated by Eric Ozawa (2025)
Sometimes I wish we didn't categorize books. For the longest time I refused, almost viscerally, to read Horror. Fear, gore, unsavory hideous characters is what I thought. Then, while participating in a reading challenge of New England authors, I forced myself to read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, by the (in my mind) notorious, …
Continue reading On Reading Horror, Especially HP Lovecraft #MondaysBookishMusings
One of my favorite discoveries from last year's Victober is this short story of the witch hunts that plagued early America. It's chilling and realistic in the way it treats all the parties concerned. I was impressed that Gaskell knew so much and created such a sad and compelling story. ....there was much to tell …
"Remembering Hilda as she used to be, was doubtless more satisfactory than seeing her as she must be now—and, after all, Alexander asked himself, what was it but his own young years that he was remembering?" Willa Cather's first novel is a sobering view on the inability to let go of the old and live …
I hope that somehow this proximity to Jane’s life will help me understand my own. This was the perfect nonfiction book to cap the 250th celebration of Jane Austen's birth and my re-reading of her various books, short stories and juvenilia. The Premise Lori Smith is at a painful and difficult time in her life. …
Who is this impassive man? We seem to know him well, here in our city, and know nothing of him but what is credible and fortunate. Yet hither he comes, year after year, to this gloomy banquet, and sits among the guests like a marble statue. Ask yonder skeleton–perhaps that may solve the riddle! This …
Continue reading The Christmas Banquet, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
I posted a story on Instagram today about Sense and Sensibility being my comfort book. I didn't realize this is the date of Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Then I saw all the tributes and want to share mine. If Jane Austen knew when she started writing as a young girl that not only would she …
Classic Laurie 