Is A River Alive by Robert MacFarlane ~ MacFarlane is a beautiful nature writer and poet. He tells the story of three? major rivers interspersed with stories of a small river that he has a personal connection with!
Beneath the Haunting Sea by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ I remember loving this fantasy years ago and want to revisit this water-based world!
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery ~ I’m hopeful about a long-time-overdue reread of this series!
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ slowly making my way through again! Montgomery is my favorite author, so I’m loving it!
Sisters of the Earth edited by Lorraine Anderson ~ I’ve been interested in this nonfiction collection from my shelves for awhile! It’s a collection of prose and poetry about nature by various women writers.
The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge ~ another reread that I’m craving. A older career woman gets a fresh start when an aunt bequeaths her a country cottage.
Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ another beautifully written Meyer reread! I really love her atmospheric fantasy! I remember enjoying the tree spirits etc.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman ~ gorgeous poetry I want to keep plugging away at!
The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas ~ I so enjoyed The Robe earlier this year and want to try this Biblical Historical Fiction about the Apostle Peter by Douglas as well.
As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Eugene Peterson ~ nonfiction collection of thoughtful and inspiring sermons by Peterson. He was a wonderful writer/speaker.
Have you read any of these? Do you have a favorite nature-themed read? I’d love to hear!
June is coming to a close and with that I realized that I have another quarters reading favorites to pick! I’m grouping them by loose genre for your convenience!
♥️🌿✨CLASSICS✨🌿♥️
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery ~ continues the story of Anne Shirley! Marilla and Anne have a new challenge of raising two young children of Marilla’s cousin. Davy seriously scares me! 😱 Lavender Lewis and Echo Lodge, The Mrs. Morgan Visit, Paul Irving, the freckle juice, the blue willow ware platter, Mr. Harrison and Ginger, his parrot, not to mention the Avonlea Improvement Society aka A.V.I.S! This book is one of my absolute favorites of the series!
Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery ~ sequel to Pat of Silverbush. Just a delightful story of a young woman dreading change and growing up. The characters, nature, and sweet simplicity are wonderful. A wee repetitive and I don’t love love-triangles, but Judy Blum and the cats make it all worth it!
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame ~ A timeless story of friendship, bravery, and how anything out of order in our lives can rule us if we aren’t careful. Looking 👀 at you, Toad. I loved listening to this (again) with my children.
♥️🌿✨CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL✨🌿♥️
What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Mishima Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts ~ this is an unique novel of individual stories tied together through random connections and a rather mysterious, cookie-eating, felting librarian. I love how each book helps that individual person find something they needed and how each person randomly shows up in the lives of the others in a way that really helps. Some might find this simple, but it really touched me and made me think. The light splash of magic realism was lovely, too.
Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech ~ Gorgeous, heart wrenching story of a marriage, parenting, love, and contentment. Twins in a group home have had a horrible childhood and get taken in by Tiller and Sari who are disillusioned by the mundane. Dallas and Florida need a home and help the couple realize the beautiful life they truly have. The twins are shown unconditional love for the first time. They all work together to stop villainy they uncover at the children’s home!
♥️🌿✨COZY MYSTERY✨🌿♥️
1. Secrets of Shakespeare’s Grave and Tower of the Five Orders by Deron R. Hicks ~ delightful adventures involving a brother and sister trying to help their father save the family publishing company! This is set between Georgia, USA and London, England! Clues, puzzles, mysterious graves, Shakespeare, bookish etc! Just so fun!
2. Gladwynne Grant Gets Her Footing and Takes the Stage by Lisa R. Howeler ~ I absolutely love Gladwynne and her grandmother! Gladwynne comes to live with her grandmother and gets a job as a reporter for the small town newspaper. The mysteries and scrapes Gladwynne finds herself in are intriguing! I love the wonderful town’s people who made these two cozies so sweet! Light faith elements. I have the third on my kindle, I can’t wait to continue!
✨🌿♥️MYSTERY/THRILLER♥️🌿✨~
1. Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon ~ A great installment of this long police mystery series following Venice police detective Guido Brunetti! He follows his nose in this one and uncovers corruption in a religious order! Very creepy and I absolutely loved Guido’s family, coworkers, and the Venice setting. These are gritty with explicit crime violence, fyi.
2. The Crown Conspiracy by Connie Mann ~ I found this one free in my Audible Plus catalog! A morally gray Robin Hood art forger type 🤣, Sophie returns stolen art work to rightful owners by stealing it herself and leaving behind convincing forgeries! The money funds her and her best friend’s rescue group getting women and children out of trafficking. Sound weird? It gets even stranger! 😂 A missing royal painting shows up that has far reaching implications. Lisa and Sophie find themselves running for their lives! A secretive group of women show up to help! Charlie’s Angels anyone? 🤣🙃 This was a bit far-fetched and convoluted, but I ate the audiobook up! 😅♥️ Heavy violence, just fyi.
♥️🌿✨FANTASY/SCI-FI✨🌿♥️~
Deathmark by Kate Stradling ~ Fantasy retelling of The Blue Castle! I found this so intriguing with the cleric/religious villains being extremely disturbing. This one looks kind of dark from its cover, but actually had a sweet, gentleness to story even though the characters found themselves in a difficult situation.
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine ~ Space-punk pirates running between London and colonized Mars. Great found family, autonomous, strange creatures, and more! This really worked for me! Highly recommend!
Huntress by Carrie Cotten ~ This took me a minute to get into due to flashbacks and story set up, but then I loved it! Told through the eyes of Duncan and Cyrene, two opposing local leaders, one hidden from the other after treachery and betrayal, a generation removed! This was so well-written, and the Christian Faith themes, while heavier, pretty seamlessly woven in. Loved the characters, slow moving, Celtic, medieval world. No overt magic. I’m continuing the series soon with The Viking!
Flame Theory by C.F.E. Black ~ Slow start to this rags to riches, high-stakes, hidden identity dragon rider school story! 😂 I really ended up loving the characters and the sacrifices one character makes for another! Friend group was so great! This has some lovely Harry Potter vibes and it was well-written and the dialogue good!
🌿♥️✨HISTORICAL✨♥️🌿~
Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer ~This was an absolutely ridiculous Regency-era story that I really enjoyed! It just worked for me. Another story where the main male character is secretly a good guy, but comes across cold or indifferent. The jibes at the weathy English. “ton” and the familial relationships were great.
Arabella by Georgette Heyer~ Regency-This was a delightfully silly story about an impoverished beauty who lies to two wealthy gentlemen after overhearing them disparaging her! Hilarious happenings ensue!
Little House in the Highlands by Melissa Wiley ~ Slow start, but lovely story set in the Scottish Highlands based on the life of Martha, one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ancestors. Loved the family, cozy, home-y-ness of this!
✨🌿♥️NONFICTION ♥️🌿✨~
1. Homeschooling: You’re Doing Right by Just Doing It by Ginny Yurich ~ Slow start (again) for me but I grew to love this former public school teacher’s thoughts and evidence on the benefits of homeschooling. Reassuring and encouraging!
Whew! 😅 ♥️ That’s a lot! Hopefully, you will find something for yourself or your family that you’d like to check out! Happy Reading!
I’ve taken these last few days of June to catch up on listening to Booktube for a birthday month finale! Still eking out as much celebrating as possible! 😂 I hope to start listening to this audiobook on walks soon! A classic P.I. mystery that I’ve never tried, The Maltese Falcon. If I enjoy it, I hope to watch the Humphrey Bogart film.
~watching~🌿♥️Booktube, mainly, and I hope to try the 2020 Emma film adaptation to kick off the Jane Austen July readathon! I’m very hesitant about newer Austen adaptations, because I love the old ones so much. Have you seen this one? Is it any good? 😅
~reading~🌿♥️ I’m mostly loving my L.M. Montgomery rereads and diving into Moby Dick. I have a lot of slower nonfiction going, too! I have many kindle books that I got via a gift card from my dad for my birthday! 😍♥️
~Noticing~🌿♥️The world is blooming and so fluffy and feathery! Sigh. I saw a Belted Kingfisher on a bridge the other day, which made me so happy!
How about you? What are you listening to, watching, reading, and noticing? ~ 🌿♥️
I’m an extreme mood reader, but will make heaps of hopeful piles! Many of these are rereads or books on my 50 books by 50 list! I’m in a cozy, domestic fiction mood with a side of nonfiction and a vague feeling of something else reading mood. 😅🤪😎
I’m slowly rereading the Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery series because my Ann with an E is getting married this year! 😭♥️I’m on the 3rd book now!
Moby Dick by Herman Melville ~ I love the gorgeous word-smithing and hilarious situations Ishmael finds himself in! I got 3/4ths through this a few years ago, but never finished so determined to now.
Unmaking the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth ~ VERY out of my wheelhouse, but an interesting look at the dismantling of Western cultural foundations and the dehumanization of man. This is so fascinating and honestly, a bit sobering. I’m not sure what Mr. Kingsnorth is totally trying to say, 😂 but there’s enough in here to make me really think.
4. The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge ~ I’m due for a reread of this beautiful story of an older woman moving to an inherited house in the countryside and asking herself if she has ever truly been living.
5. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery ~ been craving a reread of this one . If you felt you had a short time to live, how would you live your life? Valency Sterling has lived a stifling existence up to this point and jumps at the chance to buck against it!
6. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery ~ yes, another Maud book! I’m really leaning into the domestic, cozy fiction. Young Emily Starr is taken in by aunts when her beloved father passes away. Her writer’s soul aches with growing pains and trying to find a kindred spirit in her new situation. I’m finally feeling ready to really dig into my reread of this sadder trilogy.
7. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ~ this is for my in-person book club! We are all busy moms so reading it slowly, but so much to discuss on fading English aristocracy, religion, family and societal pressures.
8. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot ~ this is a book from my 50×50 list and my friend who I trust implicitly with book recommendations said it’s a good summer read! I don’t really know what this is about but looking forward to trying another Eliot!
9. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney ~ I’ve been hoping to read this for a long time and the Booktube reading event Jane Austen July would be perfect. I’m much slower at nonfiction, so we’ll see if I can get to it!
10. Habits for a Sacred Home by Jennifer Pepito ~ I’ve been interested in checking out this home educating title for awhile and am looking for a title to read with our homeschool mom’s group this autumn!
~These are just a few of the ones capturing my attention currently! What about you? What books are on your stack this summer? 🌞✨☕️📚♥️😍
Click in to read a little boy’s thoughts on jam! 😂♥️🥰😍
Happiest First Day of Summer and Father’s Day! I’m over here at Hearth Ridge enjoying family, sunshine, flowers, and an Anne of Avonlea reread. Church and feasting, too! God is good! ✨
Do you have a favorite-of-all-time author? Mine is L.M. Montgomery and I can’t tell you what a joy and delight it is to be back in her books! I finally finished the Pat Duology and Mistress Pat was such a delight. The gorgeously drawn natural world, quirky characters, human-like cats, trees, and houses that she wrote bring me untold delight. I’m currently rereading the Emily Starr books with a group even though I’m savoring them and they are flying through them. 😂 I’m slow. I also picked up Anne of Avonlea to continue my journey through the Anne series this year in honor of my own Anne’s marriage. It’s surprising and wonderful how much my gorgeous surroundings come alive with Maud’s words floating through my heart and mind. It’s actually so life-giving.
Montgomery’s stories make me think GREEN. My favorite color!!! Perhaps because of her love for trees 🌳🌿🌲 and green gables?! 😅
The sound of water trickling (we call the above stream the Withywindle), birds, wind, and I’m getting more audiobook time from walking and driving an hour away for a monthly book club. I have Mistress Pat by L. M. Montgomery and The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears going. The Pears book is an art mystery thriller, it’s a bit info-dumpy, but I love the art fraud case and Rome setting. Two police are helping an art historian unravel the mystery. It’s a series so if I end up liking this one enough, I can go on!
•watching• ♥️🌲 ~ I’m so enjoying checking my daffodils and the tree buds etc for any growth and changes. I did really enjoy this LOVELY journaling YouTube video recently. I was inspired to create my May reading pages. They look 👀 nothing like 😆 some of these gals I watch, but I had fun all the same. I used some kitty washi I had and a Pusheen stamp set we had laying around. I also found some more fun cute reading bingo boards on Pinterest. I find it so satisfying to fill them in here and there.
•reading• ♥️🌲~
I mentioned the two audiobooks I’m enjoying 👆, but currently, I have SO many books on the stack. I think I’m most enjoying spy/thriller/mystery archaeology type adventure stories 😆😂 with a healthy dose of classic, comfort reads. Very strange combo, I know, but I’m definitely eclectic! Below are a few ones I’m throughly enjoying.
Waiting on this next installment of Alex Rider teen spy for MI6! 😅First one was intriguing!New series I found that I’m trying!The first was very violent, BUT I really liked Elias, one of the the main characters and so I’m continuing this series!
•noticing• ♥️🌲~ We have a lot of Bloodroot blooming along the field and road edges. The Robins, Killdeers, and Red-winged Blackbirds have been vocal! I’ve had two Eastern Bluebird sightings which of course fills me with happiness. 😆💙🧡🤍 We saw the male American Goldfinches donning their yellow jackets! 💛🥰 We are testing our observations on the Barn Swallows. They usually are back around my daughter’s birthday and it’s this weekend (17!) so it will be fascinating if we see them! I’ll let you know! I loved seeing my youngest get to ride a horse this past week for the first time. He wasn’t sure but then really enjoyed it. 🐴
Bloodroot Holding on for dear life 😂😅
What have you been listening to, reading, watching, noticing? I’d really love to hear! ♥️🌲🥰
If you could chuck your to-do list out the window today, what would you do? 😅😂 I’d find a lovely spot by water, under a tree, or in my cute local coffee shop, grab a latte , and read. I know, surprise, surprise. ☺️😉
Here’s what’s on my stack that I’m currently interested in or really enjoying!
Cheesy, bordering on super silly continuing cozy mystery series that pokes fun of the Regency literature era tropes 😂I ♥️ my Kindle! Amish in April selection (Booktube Readathon), a couple of fantasy novels, a mystery, writing nonfiction, and continuing 14 yo spy thriller series! Middle Grade Historical Fiction! Can’t wait to try this! I adore anything with lighthouses!Oh my word. I’m absolutely adoring this book. Montgomery’s writing and characters make my heart sing. 😍🥹♥️
I love keeping house…it’s really a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Keeping it…holding it fast against the world…against all the forces trying to tear it open.
“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s eyes. “I’m not a bit changed-not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me-back here-is just the same. It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”
~ Anne of Green Gables
😭😭😭 thinking about my Anne getting MARRIED. 😭😭😭 My oldest son is doing a lot and making decisions, too!! Change and them growing up is in my heart. Hard, but beautiful. ♥️🙏🏻
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Into his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson
We are enjoying Dickinson again in our co op currently! She is one of my most favorite poets and I think this above poem IS my favorite by her. 🥲♥️ The prayer over my life. Here is a beautiful print of it for your home.
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend-as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
~Anne of Green Gables, emphasis mine
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson
A few favorite Emily resources ♥️
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like a low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as if a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft, mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
Good morning! ☀️ Resurrecting my Wednesday Wonders series…I recently answered these questions here, but they are always changing, so indulge me again?! 😄♥️🌷
•listening to•♥️🌲~ I’m finally getting to the sequel in L.M. Montgomery’s Silver Bush duology, using this audiobook recording of it that is fantastic! I’m LOVING Mistress Pat even more than the first. Patricia is growing up and feeling the growing pains of possibly having to leave Silver Bush and everything changing! I identify with change being hard! 🥲I also want to listen more to this Josh Garrels release!
Music practice always going on around here! So thankful we have the ability for lessons!
•reading•♥️🌲~ My mood shifted yesterday 😅 and I started rooting around for things to read. 😂📚 I think I’m leaning towards cozy classics, charming characters, and delicious nature descriptions. Of course, I first picked up, my gal, Maud Montgomery! Hence, Mistress Pat! A memory I have is rereading the whole Anne Series when I was pregnant with my first. Her name is Ann-E 🥹♥️😅 and she getting married later this year! Maybe I’ll reread the series this year in honor!? 😭😍
Moody stack!
•watching•♥️🌲~ I’m slowly rereading all the greats with my younger set. The Wind in the Willows is one of the current ones. It’s such a great book for spring! I was craving the claymation? film version and so enjoyed watching it. The peaceful atmosphere (except Toad 🐸😂) was just as I remembered it.
•noticing•♥️🌲~ Our Black Willow trees sustained a lot of damage in a recent ice storm, but I salvaged a few branches with buds for the table. The robins have been so cheery even though it’s been rainy and cold. I’m waiting not so patiently for warmth and usually by the end of April, the Barn Swallows are back! 😍♥️
Sunset 🌅 Slow strolls and shadows Coming to the end of this in our homeschool co op!Beautiful 🤩 chaos – so thankful for life and color!
What about you? ♥️🌲 What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing TODAY?! ☀️🌷💜🌿🍃
If the old earth could wash herself and begin again so often and so humbly, why could not a man do the same?
A City of Bells, Elizabeth Goudge
What are motherhood, art, our very life but second chances, beginning again, over and over? ‘Second-chance’ is a term that the book industry labels romances that have the same couple making another attempt at a relationship. This is a very narrow definition. We take second-go-arounds at multiple things DAILY. Our faith walk, being kind, loving on those tough to love, and asking forgiveness over and over again. There are so many wonderful stories and art that when you dig deep, focus on a chance to begin again. I want to focus my attention on a few of these with an expectant heart for what truth the Lord wants to show me. I’m not sure how this will play out as I have so much swirling in my heart. A couple of stories that really jump out to me are Marilla, Matthew, and Anne’s from Anne of Green Gables, Valency from The Blue Castle, Jocelyn from A City of Bells, and Mary from The Scent of Water. All these people have been given a chance to start again or at least begin to truly live. I actually made a huge list of stories from books and films that mean a do-over and fresh mercies to me. I was so surprised by how many of my favorites fall into that category!
2nd ~
my hundredth and one second chance, leaves curl into bud faithfully once again
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 