Tag: L. M. Montgomery

Exploring My Bookshelves…in the Springtime

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations2 Comments

Exploring My Bookshelves For EveryoneAddlepates and Book Nerds have another fun topic this week for Exploring My Bookshelves!  Each Friday, bloggers are invited to post a picture of their bookshelf, and write in response to a prompt about said-bookshelf.

Today’s prompt is…a story that takes place in the spring.

I thought about this for a moment, and realized it was a splendid opportunity to talk about my favorite author!

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It’s not strictly accurate to say that L.M. Montgomery’s stories take place in the spring…most of the novels extend over at least a year, the short stories could be any season, and the seven big volumes of her journal span 53 years.  However!  If there’s any author on my shelves who waxes lyrical about the springtime, it’s Montgomery.  And since thinking of her books conjures up images of green fields, cherry trees in bloom and wildflowers, they feel like they’re set in the spring.

My Montgomery collection spilled into its own bookcase a few years ago…and then spilled out beyond it.  Everything in the bookcase is Montgomery’s writing (novels, short stories, poetry, letters, journals…) and I’ve stacked the biographies and critical analysis alongside.

I’m a slightly passionate fan… 😉  But how can I not love a writer who embodies cherry blossoms and wildflowers?

Book Review: Jane of Lantern Hill

On By cherylmahoneyIn Juvenile, Reviews3 Comments

Regular readers know that I have read a lot by L. M. Montgomery—in fact, every novel, short story, journal and letter available! One of her last books, Jane of Lantern Hill, was also the very last novel of hers I read. I only read it once, and that was several years ago, so it seemed like time for a revisit.

The book opens in Toronto, where Jane lives on the very bleak Gay Street with her domineering grandmother and lively but dominated mother. Under her grandmother’s critical eye, Jane is awkward, unsure and lonely. Jane always believed her father was dead…but in fact her parents simply live apart (not divorced, mind you!) and one day a letter arrives from her father. He wants Jane to come live with him for the summer on Prince Edward Island. And there, of course, Jane finds her true home and her true self.

This book has all of Montgomery’s charm and beautiful descriptions, painting a world that invites the reader in. Jane is another plucky Montgomery heroine, one with more challenges and more character growth to go through than many of the more fortunate ones—who began life on Prince Edward Island! Jane is less of a dreamer and very much a homemaker, delighting in cooking and tidying her house and planting her garden. Somehow Montgomery makes it sound so charming that of course Jane loves doing it all (and I say that as someone who wants to shake Wendy for doing very similar things in Neverland!) Continue reading “Book Review: Jane of Lantern Hill” →

Weighing Down the Shelves…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations14 Comments

Before I get to the actual focus of this post, just a note about novel news!  Last week I told you The Storyteller and Her Sisters was available for pre-order on Kindle.  If Kindle’s not your thing, you can now pre-order other ebook formats through Smashwords!  All ebooks will be delivered, and the paperback will go on sale, on October 10th.

Now on to other business…

I’m really dreadful at keeping up with Top Ten Tuesday (even though it’s such a cool meme!) but every so often I see that they’ve done a neat topic I’d like to write on…so even though it’s Friday, and even though this was the topic for several weeks ago, today I’m going to write about the Top Ten Authors I Own the Most Books By.

1) Edgar Rice Burroughs: 56
It helps that he was extremely prolific.  There’s probably still a good 15 books I don’t own.  Though perhaps I should point out, of my 56, 54 of them work with the same two plots: the hero is castaway or the heroine is kidnapped, or both.

2) L. M. Montgomery: 47
You expected this one, right?  That breaks down into 21 novels, 12 collections of short stories (200 total stories), 6 volumes of her journals (7, but one is an abridged version of 2 others), 3 books of letters, 2 books of poetry, 2 collections of early writings, and 1 autobiography.  And…that’s going to stay as-is because there’s nothing else to buy, until someone digs out another archive and publishes something new.  (Though I also have two biographies and two collections of critical essays…) Continue reading “Weighing Down the Shelves…” →

7 Deadly Sins (of Reading) Meme

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

I saw this meme pop up on my friend Lynn’s blog recently, and thought it would be a fun one to take for a spin!

GREED – What is your most inexpensive book?

That’s hard, because I regularly go to the Library Warehouse Sale to buy books for 50 cents…  Here’s one, not actually the most inexpensive but the most jaw-dropping “it’s really that cheap?” purchase: A Window in Thrums by J. M. Barrie, 1897 edition, with the lovely handwritten inscription “For Grandmother from Mary Eunice, December 25th 1898,” sold online for the ridiculously low price of…$2.62.  !!!

I kind of feel like Greed should really ask about my most expensive book…which is a massive, two-volume set on my favorite artist, William Bouguereau, one volume of which is almost entirely images of his gorgeous paintings…and it cost me $300.  It was a moment of madness in a museum gift shop–but I’m pretty sure this is THE definitive book on his work.  And I haven’t regretted it yet!

Now I just need to muster up the courage or madness to drop another $300 (or so) on a signed J. M. Barrie.  Signed L. M. Montgomery, sadly, is FAR out of my price range.

WRATH – What author do you have a love/hate relationship with?

Edgar Rice Burroughs comes to mind.  I love reading his books–I have over fifty of them!  But I sigh a lot about his pathetic heroines, a few of his books have some pretty appalling racism in them, and after reading a biography…yeah, I’m pretty sure Burroughs and I could not have been friends.

GLUTTONY – What book have you devoured over and over with no shame?

I Want to Go Home! by Gordon Korman.  I think by the time I was twelve, I had read it twelve times–and it stayed just as funny.

SLOTH – What book have you neglected reading due to laziness?

I neglected finishing Winston and Clementine, a collection of letters between Winston Churchill and his wife, for years.  And there’s no excuse, since I loved the first part that I read–then got distracted–and didn’t get back to it. But I finally got it read as part of my chunkster challenge last year.

PRIDE – What book do you talk most about to sound like an intellectual reader?

But I never name-drop books to sound intellectual… 😉  Actually, I really don’t, mostly because all my friends like fantasy and sci fi and we have too much shared reading experience to impress each other.  Although if I was going to name-drop, Les Miserables would probably be my best bet.

LUST – What attributes do you find attractive in male or female characters?

Give me a green-eyed book hero and I am lost.  Which is funny, because I don’t particularly look for that in actors or, you know, real life!  It’s strictly a book thing.  I also have kind of a thing for brooding heroes with hearts of gold (in books.  Ahem).

ENVY – What book would you most like to receive as a gift?

Yeah…I don’t know.  I have an Amazon wishlist, but nothing particularly jumps out as MORE desired than any other.  I’d actually really like the soundtrack of Once Upon a Forest, because I love the one song on the soundtrack that Michael Crawford sang but, um, I can’t quite bring myself to spend $25 for basically one song (well, three, I like two of the others…)  I’ll probably do it eventually, I’m just working up to it…but that’s not a book.  Though kind of on the subject, I’d be over the moon if someone gave me an autographed J. M. Barrie book!  And autographed L. M. Montgomery–I would be your best friend for life!

But I’ll feel friendly towards you too if you leave a comment with your answer to any of these questions! 🙂

What Are You Reading, Sci Fi Edition (sort of)

On By cherylmahoneyIn What Are You Reading?20 Comments

itsmondayI think it’s about time I checked back in on the What Are You Reading meme from Book Journey…and this is good timing, since I have plans.  We’re launching on the Sci Fi Experience from Stainless Steel Droppings, after all!

I’ll be starting the Experience off today with some Star Trek viewing.  In the book realm, I first want to finish off Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, third book of the Tiffany Aching subseries of Discworld.  I’ve never felt much concern about finishing Discworld (despite my two-year effort to complete series), but the Tiffany books feel more tightly woven into each other than other Discworld subseries, so I am trying to complete those four.

What Are You Reading Sci FiAfter Wintersmith, I plan to go on to The Masterharper of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, a first read for the Sci Fi Experience.  By the time I finish that, I will most likely have watched all relevant Trek and be ready for the next stage of The Great Khan Adventure, reading The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One.

And somewhere in there I plan to finish a collection of essays, The Intimate Life of L. M. Montgomery.  I have officially run out of new-to-me writing by Montgomery herself (including novels, short stories, letters, journals and poetry).  This collection included a comic journal she co-wrote with a friend over several months.  It was, to my knowledge, the last of her writing I hadn’t read–at least until they make available any other currently-unpublished writing!  In the meantime, I’ll probably keep looking for essays and biographies.  I had doubts about this particular collection because I read a previous book by the editor and found her conclusions exceedingly far-fetched, but so far this set of essays has been well-reasoned and engaging.  I’ve got about four left I hope to finish reading soon.

So much for my plans…what are you reading?