A. L. > Recent Status Updates

These parents are really ticking me off. How many times do the kids have to almost die before you start to think?!

I am loving this book. This is not one to be rushed through however, but to be slowly enjoyed.

Temporarily on hiatus from reading as this one might be a bit too big and dark for my boys at present

Just a complaint about how since Amazon took over Goodreads, so many books have the wrong editions listed and the scanner doesn’t work worth beans. You’d think one of the richest companies in the world could afford to get this stuff right.

They keep referring to things that must’ve happened in the 1st book, so I found a cheap copy of that and have ordered it to read first.

I have to admit, as this is delving more and more into comparative religions, and with the dry, academic style of the 1940s (apparently the period was being rationed as well), I’m finding it more and more of a slog.

I’m thinking maybe I didn’t read this before. If I did, I don’t remember it.

(Cont. from previous progress)
I’m very glad Ms. Springer is writing this way, and not dumbing down the story, but I think the publisher may have been misleading in putting “8 and up”. Only because the constant having to stop for explanations is affecting the flow of the story and making it difficult for my daughter to keep focus.

The back cover says “ages 8 and up”, and I’m feeling like this is misleading. I don’t know any 8 year olds who would know the vocabulary this book has. Perditorian, intermediaries, monomaniac, Mesmerism, galvanized, peripatetic, these are just a few of the words I’ve had to stop and define as we’re reading. Not to mention all the references to Victorian fashion and mores.

“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”

“Doremus Jessup...watching Senator Windrip...could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.”

“We’ve got strength and will, and for whomever has those divine qualities it’s not only a right, it’s a duty, to use ‘em! Nobody in God’s world has ever loved a weakling—including that weakling himself!”

“It’s great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl.”
Man, this guy can write a page-turner!!

I never thought the day would come when I’d feel truly sorry for Donald Trump. Makes you wish someone could’ve gone back into his childhood and intervened.

I love Sharon Kay Penman so much. I wish she wrote more, about a variety of subjects. I always learn so much from her novels.

Going to shelve this one for now. Only the fact that I already knew so much about Henry VIII and his divorce has kept me from drowning so far. The author tends to jump right into the middle of a new scene, or a new action with no explanation of who, what or where. And right now, I just don’t feel like piecing it together anymore. I need a book that just sucks me in, and that I can’t wait to read more of.

Told my daughter to pick our next book, and she chose this one! Mommy is pretty excited!

I’m struggling with this book. I really dislike Charlie’s handlers, and kinda want to slap Charlie for putting up with it.

Going to try a bit of light reading to try and lighten my mood, which has sunk pretty low the past few days.

I have to thank my friend, Sarah Pluck, for recommending this book to me. I am absolutely loving the way the author has switched up, switched around, and modernized the distinctive elements of Pride and Prejudice to fit modern day. It is so good! I hope she covers all of Ms. Austen’s books!

Oh man. I’m at February 44 B.C., just weeks before the Ides of March and, even knowing well what’s coming, it’s so tense and gripping and just heartbreaking to get there. McCullough has made me care about Caesar, especially in this 6th book when she’s finally showing his feet of clay. You can see the errors he’s making, well-intentioned though they may be, and it’s cutting me to the quick.

I loved these books so much when I was a child. I’m now reading them with my daughter, and hoping she enjoys them too.