Two Weeks in My Reading Life

I wanted to do something a little different in this post and give you a quick look into two weeks (more or less!) in my reading life. 🙂

Typically I read 8-10 books a month, but lately it has been a little less because I’ve had so much going on (launching my latest novel and working on other projects), but I have been enjoying some great reading and wanted to share a bit about it!

A little over two weeks ago, I finished reading Spring Begins in March by Jean Little. It is a perfect springtime read (as the title might suggest!), even though the title is really more metaphorical than literal. It’s the sequel to Mine for Keeps, Little’s first novel. I have talked about this book before in my Best Books of Spring post, but it’s worth talking about again because of the charming, realistic characters and the delightful resolution. The best part of the book is when Meg’s grandmother reads aloud Anne of Ingleside to her. This scene was taken from one of Little’s own experiences as a child, when she “read ahead” after her grandmother finished reading for the night because she had to find out what happened to Anne!

When I first read Spring Begins in March, this scene made me want to read Anne of Ingleside, which I never had before. (I had read Anne of Green Gables countless times, but had never gotten to some of the later volumes.) So I read it and loved it! In a journal entry from that time, I wrote: “I like the little vignettes, like individual episodes of a sitcom.” Readers have criticized the episodic nature of some Montgomery books, but much of the time those ‘episodes’ make the books special and unique.

So when I revisited Spring, it put me in the mood to revisit Ingleside. But there was a catch: I have been trying to read the Anne series in order for the first time EVER. I started last April with AOGG and have been (slowly!) continuing throughout the months, and I needed to read Anne’s House of Dreams in order to read Ingleside.

I decided to challenge myself to read AHOD in three days. I have always been a slow reader—I read tons of books but it typically takes me a week to read a long-ish book like the ones in the Anne series. And I love a good challenge! So I dived in and (sort of) binged AHOD. It was terrific fun! AHOD is (like other Montgomery books) essentially stitched together from various short stories that LMM wanted to revisit, but everything is seamless. In my opinion, this is perhaps the most well-crafted Anne book because there’s nothing really extraneous—everything matters, and the various subplots all work well together in harmony.

Here is a two-page spread in my scrapbook that I created while reading AHOD:

So then I went on to Ingleside, but at the moment I am only about halfway through because of two things: life became even busier, and I also received some books for my birthday (yay!) and I am starting on those. Anne of Ingleside is such a joy to read, especially the original portions that were never short stories, LOL! I just find this to be another absolutely wonderful springtime selection.

I also recently read Lizzie by May Justus, a chapter book from 1944 that was reprinted a few years ago. I’ve embarked on a different kind of reading challenge this year—I want to try reading a book set in each U.S. state! So Lizzie was my choice for Tennessee; it’s set in the mountains and is very sweet. Nothing much happens in it, but since it’s so short, that’s okay. 🙂

I just finished one of the books I received for my birthday, Lois Lenski’s Flood Friday. I had a hard time putting it down because I had to find out what happened to all the children! It was based on a real flood in Connecticut in the 1950s, and Lenski is (as usual) excellent with bringing details to life.

The next book I’m currently reading is The Adventure of the Seven Keyholes by Augusta Huiell Seaman. I love her books—she wrote vintage children’s mysteries in the early 20th century and this one, from 1925, is quite good so far.

So that’s basically two weeks in my reading life. What have you been reading lately? I’d love to hear about the last two weeks in your reading life!