We enjoyed this nonfiction book together after the younger boys stopped to pick some pumpkins with my hubby 🎃♥️✨
listening 🎃~
Mostly to Book/Journal Tube or The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. The rustle of dried cornfields is so gorgeous and the leaves crunch and caw of the crows, just perfect. ✨
watching🎃~
I watched a little Star Wars with my kids, but still wanting to try A Little Princess from 1995?, and been craving The Sound of Music lately for some reason.
Collaging is a messy and delightful process!
reading🎃~
Hilarious spot in My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell! Seen any live Dissenters in the wild? 😉😅🤣Sweet autumn picture books I read with younger kids! And maybe a teenager, too! 🎃✨
noticing🎃~
All the GORGEOUS-ness everywhere! I’m in the process today of finishing up my essay/collage for Sword & a Song , so I was soaking up inspiration here, from books, from back issues, and from 🍂 autumn splendor!
Trying out my stamps ✨Favorite Korean pop stars birthday! 🎂 😅✨Little fingers practicing ✨Loving this picture book! ✨
What are you listening to, watching, reading, noticing? ✨🎃♥️🍁🍂
Dear Readers~ 🍁Long day of catch up on to-dos and fighting a head cold, but oh, the gorgeous autumn colors! 🍂The weather is sublime, and pockets of lovely can be found if I just look hard enough. Planting tulips and daffodil bulbs brought me so much joy, while listening to The Pickwick Papers! I love that bit of hope and color to look for after the long, dreary, frigid Wisconsin winters. I squeezed in some listening while driving to and from grocery shopping, also!
How has your Saturday been? I’m hoping to make some chicken, veggie, and rice soup soon with lots of onion and garlic. Maybe it will scare away these head colds? 😅✨
Good morning, friends! I’m snuggling into my sweatshirt as we woke to a chilly, but gorgeously sunny morning here! What a gift! ☺️☀️✨
I have a massive pile of library checkouts that I may or may not get to due to my Victorian reading focus this month. I thought it would be fun to share what’s in my PL basket.
Mainly, I have a lot of Sci-Fi choices leftover from Sci-Fi September. I still don’t feel totally sick of Sci-Fi, so may try to see if any of these in photo above catch my fancy! I’m most interested in Green City Wars and Scion, but my 19 yo read Scionand said it was a bit brutal and had language. I’m surprised because I’ve loved James Islingtonso much and hadn’t run into language before. Have you read any of these? How are they?
Cozy mysteries ✨
My second pile is cozy mysteries! I know, I know, not high literature, 😂 but just the right light reading for me, when I need a break from heavy reading or the chaos around me. 😂Think Hallmark with a side of murder. 🤣📚✨I’m most interested in Autumn at Cat Cafe! 🥰🐈⬛🎃☕️
My friend created a Victober bingo, so I made her grid with washi and stickers! So fun! 🤩 Crafting!
I bought a pack of these charming bookmarks (penpals I hope to send one your way!) and I decorated my first one for Victober on front, other reading possibilities on back. I need to add 2026, so I can keep them as a memory! Maybe I should make ones for the past Victober’s that I participated in!!! I think this is my 4th or 5th official year of participation?! It’s the 11th year this wonderful Booktube readathon has been happening! 📚🎃🐈⬛✨🍁
To-Dos! ✨Rock paper weight 😂✨
My Moleskine Daily Pocket to-do is almost filled! My 2027 version is on its way! The one quibble I have is the Monday start, otherwise I loooove these. The paper is buttery and I love how they fit in my hand and the monthly and daily set up! The spines have held up to my heavy abuse.
How’s my beginning Victorian reading going? Good! I had listened to The Importance of Being Earnest a couple of days before October and that was a perfect, lighthearted choice to get me even more excited. I found this free audiobook of The Pickwick Papers and so I’ve started tandem reading and listening and it’s just as ridiculous and full of wordsmithing wonder as I remember. Yes, I had read half years ago! 🙃😂
It would definitely fulfill the prompt for Travel and Adventure. Dickens and I are fickle friends, so we’ll see if I can stick it out! I may have to just listen 🎧 while cooking etc.
I’m absolutely loving Poems of the Past and the Present by Thomas Hardy on my Kindle. Some obtuse literature/history/places mentioned, but I’m finding it very readable! This would fulfill birthday month author as we are both June born! I thought I would enjoy his poetry due to his lush writing in the novels I have read of his. I’m hoping to attempt The Woodlanders, too. A friend gave me a gorgeous old copy of it years ago, but it’s a bit fragile so may read it on my kindle.
I also picked up at 39%? with Uncle Silas as I had started this years ago. Honestly, the first part of this book draggggggged for me. But I have it on good authority, that the next part is better and gets the sinister, atmospheric plot going! So far, the main character Maud? is traveling to live with an estranged uncle to fulfill her father’s will conditions. 😳😬
I’m 5 chapters into my local friend’s bookclub read of Dr.Wortle’s School! It’s very easy to read and I like the story. Haven’t fallen in love with any characters yet, though. You could definitely use this for a Character who Has a Secret 🤐 prompt! It’s a nice, short Victorian novel, too, which can be a relief. 😅
Reading Autumn 🍂 ~
whole worlds
leaf by –
my eyes,
heart cries
tumbling in,
passing my kin‘s
by-gone sighs
rustling, flitting
let my soul sink in.
~A.M. Pine♥️🌲
Damp treasures 🥰♥️✨
How’s your reading currently? Creating anything? What’s new with you?
Here’s a look at my upcoming (October + Victorian Literature = Victober) Reading Possibilities! I also added a few more hopefuls. I usually don’t have such a specific pile of books to read because I’m a mood reader. Only Victober is special enough to warrant a special TBR plan! 😍🥰♥️There are specific prompts/challenges and I’ll try to hit those, but mostly attempt what I’m excited about!
Dark brown Box headings are the prompts for this year which I believe is the 11th Victober!
I’ve already begun Dr.Wortle’s School with my local friend’s bookclub. I’m very interested in Daniel Deronda, too!
I really want to get to this one sooner than later! If I can get an audiobook in from library, I’d love to finally get to this play! My Kindle is FULL of Victober goodness and I’d love to tackle a couple of these! I have even MORE hiding in there. 😍😫😂👀
I’m not going to add any buddy reads other than my local friends and maybe attempting to finish the group read! {I started Uncle Silas a few years ago, so hope to finish it!} I’m pretty full with outside commitments, so need to keep reading open.
I’d loooove to read this! It’s on my 50×50 list and Gaskell is legitimately an interest to me. She is my favorite Victorian author. In fact, many of these books are on my 50×50 list!
Hawthorne isn’t technically a Victorian, but he was writing in America during Queen V’s reign.
Many more lovely things to choose from on the stacks!
Other reads I’m very interested in for October! I have an ‘unread’ Ray Bradbury on my 50×50 list and I think The October Country would be a great listen. I bet an audiobook would add even deeper enjoyment to these creepy short stories.
I also have an ‘unread’ LM Montgomery collection from my shelf on my list. I think this one would be perfect! 🤩
A friend recommendation specifically for October!
Another friend or two? let me know that the newly translated Book 2 is now available at public libraries! I can’t wait! I’m a huge Kiki’sDeliveryService fan! Book and film!
I’m hoping to bake a special meal/treat for the family today and put out a few autumn decorations! We can’t do too much with remodeling, but it will be fun to a little charm. Maybe we could watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is one of my fall favorites! Or one of the less creepy episodes of Over the Garden Wall. 🤣
Happiest Autumn, friends. 🎃🍂♥️🥰 we have a play and an apple orchard/pumpkin patch visit on the schedule. What are you excited to read, watch, do in autumn? 🍂
I saw some book questions on an Instagram account called PensandPoison (I like SOME of her stuff, she’s a bit too clickbait-y for me) recently and have been having a lot of fun thinking about my answers. I think she answered them using all fiction, but I’m using everything to answer! I adapted these questions for me. It is a lot of questions and as usual, I can’t have just one answer 🤣, so I’ll be breaking this up into parts! I’d love to hear your answers and I hope you may find a new favorite if you try any of these!
Book Questions 📚✨♥️
•favorite book ~ I think besides The Holy Bible, currently my favorite books are A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, and Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Thinking about this question made me want to reread all of these! 😂
•2nd favorite set of books ~ Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery and The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge.
•3rd favorite set of books, currently ~ Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery and Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery. Pat of Silverbush and Mistress Pat by LM Montgomery.
•favorite book that’s not Montgomery or Goudge 😁~ Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
•least favorite books ~ usually contemporary rom coms that I keep trying 🙃😫, most recent I really disliked/low-key hated,🤣 Love in Tandem by Becca Kinzer and Date with Danger by Jenessa Fayeth. These didn’t work for me.
•second least favorite set of books ~ I really disliked both Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier. So creepy and bleak. Not for me!
•book(s) that made me cry the most ~ I don’t cry a ton while reading, but I remember being disturbed and shaking to the point of tears by The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Labors of Hercules Beale by Gary D. Schmidt had me choked up.
•books that made me laugh the most ~ I can’t remember! 😂 Maybe I don’t read funny books? I think Jerome K. Jerome‘s Three Men in a Boat may have made me laugh and Lady Susan by Jane Austen?
•most underrated novel ~ there are SO many, but Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro comes to mind. That book stunned me and really made me think.
•most overrated novel ~ don’t come for me! 🤣I actually like this novel for its disturbing look at twisted desires, obsession, and family dynamics, but I think Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a bit overrated. It’s pretty depressing. 😫
Want to read stack!
How about you? What are your answers to these? Have you read any of my choices? Agree or (kindly) disagree? 😁♥️📚 I’d love to hear! Happy Reading! 📖
The Marble Faun is American, but the right time period. It was a recommendation from Jennifer Brooks, a favorite Booktuber that unexpectedly passed away this year. 😞 I’m reading a Christina Rossetti poem each day and buddy reading on Voxer Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell. I found a Librivox audio version which has different readers for each chapter (not my favorite), but there is difficult colloquial language that the readers are better at than me. Deerbrook is being put on hold so I can buddy read it with an online friend later this year. I have so many Trollope books to choose from, but I’d love to pick up Barchester Towers sooner than later. This is the group read and I have it on my kindle…I didn’t love-love Lady Audley’s Secret, but I liked it enough to give another Braddon a try.Nicholas Nickleby by Mr. Dickens I started in September and I’m listening while following along. It’s hilarious in the midst of Dickensian misery. 😂 I’m really enjoying it! Creepy tales from Mrs. Gaskell that I’ve wanted to try! I have these in my Kindle.Chantry House by Charlotte Mary Yonge I started in September and I’m really enjoying it. I read Dynevor Terrace by Yonge this summer and didn’t love some of the characters portrayal, BUT overall, liked it. A Victorian play is one of the prompts for Victober and I found an audio version of ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’ and his famous ‘Pygmalion’. I’m going to give them a try!I just recently heard of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. I’ve never heard of this Victorian author.The Coral Island sounds like a fun adventure story. My son’s Sherlock mug! ☕️ ♥️
Just a ‘few’ of the Victorian items I’m trying or considering reading…it’s part of Victober fun to way overestimate how much one can get to during October! 😂😂😂 I’m planning on continuing during November and December, too! The “BER” months are perfect for classics. 😁🖤🐦⬛ I have piles of lighter, easier reads for inbetween the dense reads. Here are a few more Victorian things I’m considering…
‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw
Woman in White by Wilkie Collins audiobook
Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell
A Dark Night’s Work by Elizabeth Gaskell
Children of the New Forest by Frederick Merryat
Treasure Island by RLS (reread, possibly listen with my children?)
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (my children and I are listening to this currently)
Victorian Fairy Tales edited by Michael Newton ( I read a few of these last year! I may read ‘The King of the Golden River” and “The Golden Key” with my children.
One of the prompts is a Sherlock Holmes story, but I’m just planning on watching a Jeremy Brett episode with my 17 yo son. Brett is a fantastic Sherlock!
What sounds good here? What should I prioritize? This is SO fun! 🤩😂 Let me know what you are reading that feels fallish! 🧡🖤🧡
{book cover images/interior illustrations are from Google}
Is there anything more cozy then journaling and journals? 😄♥️ It’s no secret that I’m a journal fanatic! We are trying something different this year in our home learning of combining our multiple journals into one. I’ve had the opportunity to journal alongside my children and it has been such an enriching experience. I don’t often share my children’s work, as that’s their own, but don’t mind sharing what I’ve been recording myself. 😆 So much richness! 😍I’m learning every day right along with my children. I have music lyrics, quotes, drawings, etc in here already! I treasure it. Do you journal?
What you learning or diving deep into? Isn’t life grand? 😄♥️🙌🌿🍄🌻
Listening…Great Pumpkin and Harry Potter Ambient Music. I’m also enjoying Nicholas Nickleby audiobook while I follow along in the book.
Reading…I’ve begun a lot of my Victorian TBR, Dickens, Gaskell, and Yonge. but I’ve been enjoying light, cozy stories inbetween. Kiki’s Delivery Service, Thimble Summer, and The Language of Spells.
Watching…I’m back to watching YouTube/or going on Instagram only on Saturdays. It really helps my focus and sanity during the week. A new favorite YouTuber that I can’t wait to watch more of is CleoPatrick.
Noticing…the main thing I’ve noticed lately is that our Barn Swallows are gone. 🥲♥️ We’ve been seeing a few butterflies still and our temperatures are fluctuating a lot. My son saw a “V” of geese on Sunday. We’ve been trying to get outdoors more because we know the cold, snowy is coming.
How about you? What have you been reading, listening to, watching, or noticing? 🍁♥️
I’m hoping this week to hunker down into a bit of coziness. Nothing like the end of September, early October, easing into gratitude November, to foster a sense of richness and comfort. These are truly some of my favorite months. My family and I had a wonderful time with our annual apple 🍎 orchard visit, as well as our first bonfire 🔥 🪵🍄🟫🍂🍁. Sigh. 😌 So much to be grateful for! So curl up with a hot cup of tea 🫖 or coffee ☕️ and come chat with me.
We were looking 👀 for the Great Pumpkin 🎃 together! 🌞🍂🍁🐿️😁♥️Pumpkins are SO delightful, comfy, and cheerful to me! 🎃🎃🎃Chili with cheese 🧀 ♥️🦔🐾🪶Let Victober reading commence! Victorian literature + October = Victober. Lots of info about this event on Booktube or Instagram. I just informally follow prompts etc. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
“I am a child of the Earth and heavens. I find myself at once skipping like a schoolgirl full of wonder, and hushed in awe, something like the monks whose vespers follow the unfolding of the holy hours, and the turning of the globe, away from, then toward the sun.
I am humbled by this call to take in the autumnal majesty. To sit beneath the wind-blown boughs, to listen to the acorns plonking on the roof above my head.”
~ Barbara Mahany, from Slowing Time, p.152
I hope you’ll join me in your homes, journals, or own online places enjoying the season’s gifts! 🖤🍂🐿️🍄🟫🍁🖤
On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time-remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go-while the countenance of Son was crossed and recrossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.
Something about a new fresh month always super excites me! This year has been a challenging year for me with my writing and creativity. I’ve had some setbacks in my health journey, bad habits creeping back in, and sleeplessness. Unfortunately, that lends to my creative pursuits being put on the back burner. I’m challenging myself here at the blog to post something three times a week for November at least, prayerfully till the end of the year. Just to get the habit rolling again!
How about you? Do you have writing or creativity goals currently? Anything you want to revive? Are you reading or practicing any habits that are helpful? I’d love to hear!
Currently reading and loving! 📖♥️ Anything feeding you?
I’m currently continuing all the autumn/ Victober reads{a Victorian literature read along during October}, and enjoying my large TBR stacks. I’ve been enjoying Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on YouTube. I’ve also been drawn to Hercule Poirot episodes. What’s currently filling your well? 😄♥️🔍
