Remember this (relatively) neat and tidy picture from a few weeks ago? Things have changed a little around here. Part two of the Laura Ingalls Wilder class has begun, meaning I have five Laura books to re-read plus her daughter Rose’s Young Pioneers (Something I read just a few months before thinking up May B.
I know it played into my story in some way. Curious about finding parallels.).
I finished Fish in a Tree and You Are Not So Smart
(both so good!) and have added in Amherst
(because I can’t pass up an Emily Dickinson book, especially one that deals with a key storyline in Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds, which I read a few years ago.
). Then there’s Bone Gap
, which has gotten such amazing buzz (and was super quick to show up in my request queue).
My younger guy requested a new Agatha Christie to read together. So I added A Pocket Full of Rye to the pile. This is the same kid who made me that wonderful paper airplane.
The purple notebook is full of notes I took while reading You Are Not So Smart and will perhaps, perhaps be used in some sort of future novel. Who knows? The stickies I used to mark quotes have been transferred to You Are Now Less Dumb , since I’m sure there’ll be more I’ll want to write down. One, of course, is decorating my paper airplane because it’s extra pretty that way.
There are three pens stashed up there because I’m always convinced I won’t have one when I start on the Sunday crosswords. I suspect the pencil is left over from picture book drafting (because I can’t draft in pen and I refuse to work a crossword that way).
So now you know what’s going on in my little corner of the reading world.
Oh Caroline! This post fills me with bookish glee. I wish I’d clued in earlier on the Laura Ingalls class. Also THANK YOU for featuring AMHERST, because that looks like a must read. (I’ve not read Lives Like Loaded Guns, but White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson was so lovely. Need to read that one again.) And you’ve also piqued my interest with YOU ARE NOT SO SMART. Yay!
Started YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB yesterday, after realizing it’s overdue and can’t be renewed. So good. If you like Malcolm Gladwell, you’ll love these books.
Blew through AMHERST last week. GUNS talks about the friendship between Emily and Higginson and hints that it was perhaps epilepsy that kept Emily inside and shut away from everyone else. So interesting!
I believe you can still sign up for Laura. Join me!
I can totally relate to that!
You’ve got paper airplanes, too? 😉
Books and sticky notes — my life in a nutshell. Love the paper airplane. (I knew something was missing from my desk!)
This same kiddo left a rubber rat on my desk a few years ago…
Have you read Rose’s Old Home Town? It seems to be a fictional version of Rose’s teen years. I recognized at least one story from Laura’s Pioneer Girl that inspired Rose–the story of the girl whose mother kept interfering with her beaus so the daughter would take care of her in her old age.
No! Young Pioneers is the only book of Rose’s that I’ve read. Still haven’t dug into my copy of Pioneer Girl. That’s for this summer.
I am taking the LIW class too! Read Pioneer Girl in February.
I saw a comment you left last week (one very observant and very smart) and I wanted to jump in with “Hi, Carin!” Just didn’t feel right. 🙂
Did you like Pioneer Girl? I haven’t started in yet.