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Emily C Gardner

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25 Bunny Books perfect for Spring
13 Wintery Children’s Books
A Bible Literacy Book Flight
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Catching that morning light on wonderful bookmail from yesterday. Thank you @annebogel! _ You have three weeks left to pre-order this gorgeous book and get the 👌🏻 pre-order bonuses. My favorite bonus is getting the audio book free. I can imagine hearing Anne read essays about the book-life will take a bit of the stress out of grocery shopping... _ #idratherbereading

REVIEW: Becoming MRS. Lewis. Thank you, @tnzfiction For the free ARC. 🌿 “I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me...(sing along with me now) I am a rock, I am an iiiiiiisland.” 🌿 Despite knowing a good portion about his life and reading the majority of his work, I think I viewed C.S. Lewis' brilliance as writer, academic and theologian like that Simon and Garfunkel song - that it existed of its own accord, an untouchable island of the mind. Which is maybe why I found the story of how Joy Gresham became Mrs. Lewis a bit jarring at first. 🌿 How quickly I forget that people (and their work) don't exist in a vaccuum. We are all influenced by our personal history and those around us, whether we like to admit it or not. How could the correspondence turned filia turned eros between Lewis and Joy not make an impact on his intellect, faith, and writing? 🌿 What Worked For Me: @pattichenry has crafted a compelling portrait of the woman who became indispensable to a beloved author. Joy exhibits strength, independence, creativity and a stalwart determination during a time when women were expected to be docile and reliant. As with many books like this, I loved hearing the desire and process behind the project in the author's note at the end. 🌿 What Didn't Work For Me (not the best label as you will see this wasn't a negative for me): It took me about 200 pages (almost half the book) for this to be a page-turner. The beginning was slow, but not in a way that made me want to abandon ship. I think the pace mirrored the complexity of Joy's situation and time it takes meaningful relationships to develop. 🌿 Becoming Mrs. Lewis - 4 enthusiastic ⭐️! An absolute must read if you’re a Lewis fan. Releases Oct. 2, 2018.

The trouble with loving classics is the knowledge that when you finish a series or have read the entire works of a certain author, you know there will be no more. Last fall, I wrote a post (I'll link to it in my profile) about books to extend the Little House on the Prairie love when you've read through the whole series. - I found another to include in that list. Cynthia Rylant, who my family loves for both the Poppleton and Henry & Mudge series, wrote Old Town in the Green Groves to fill in the gaps of Laura's story between On The Banks of Plum Creek and By The Shores of Silver. - The book covers a two year span when little Freddie is born (and sadly passes), the family moves to Burr Oak, Iowa to help run a hotel, Baby Grace is born and they gear up to move West once more. - Rylant covers a lot of ground so there isn't much detail, but she is able to capture the simple, childlike pleasure in the ordinary that I especially enjoy in Little House. It's definitely worth taking the couple hours to read if you're a fan.

Anne fans rejoice! @sarahmmccoy is giving us a peak at what made Marilla the strong, funny, steadfast woman LM Montgomery portrays in the beloved Anne series. . Thanks to @williammorrowbooks for the free ARC. They put out two books last year (from @sarahmillerauthor + @elisehooper) with the same “side-female-character-perspective/life” feel and they were both wonderful (scroll back in my feed for reviews of both), so I have high expectations for this one. . Comes out in October. I’ll post my thoughts once I’ve read it!

We did actually purchase books in addition to our free score at the library sale... Let’s just call this the leaning tower of books (+ 10 kiddo books) which set us back $35. 🙌🏻 . I don’t usually go in to book sales with a plan (unlike the countless older folks who had neatly organized lists 😍), but I did this time and came away very pleased. . My wishlist was more Marisa Del Los Santos, any Angela Thirkell, and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty. Two out of three isn’t half bad 😊 And I seem to ha e found others to make up for the one I couldn’t find. . Any favorites in this stack?

I blame @annebogel 😊 Saw these a few weeks ago in one of her Friday Links I Love emails and decided they would be a good Prime Day purchase. . The Seckatary Hawkins series by Robert F. Schulkers published between 1921-1932 has a cult following whose fans included Harper Lee. They made appearances in To Kill A Mockingbird and these two were recently re-released. . I hadn’t heard of the series but To Kill A Mockingbird is a meaningful book to me (My son’s middle name is Atticus), so I couldn’t resist. . Anyone read these?

FREE! I could barely keep my excitement and my speed back to this haul in check when I confirmed with the volunteers that this box of gorgeous Readers Digest collections where part of the free section at the library sale. 🤗 . They were under a table with dust jackets on so maybe that’s why they went unnoticed... . I cannot wait to sprinkle them all around my house. . How do you decorate with books?

My kids-at-the-library method usually involves pulling random titles off the shelves as we make our way to the train table + puzzles. Those get checked out to read at home and I’ll read aloud whatever they pick out while they play. . For such a haphazard book choosing method, we’ve come home with several gems this Summer. Tea Party Rules is one of them. . Bear stumbles upon a tea party laid out in the woods. He can’t resist the lure of cookies (who can?) and subs in for the stuffed teddy. But Bear is going to have to follow the results if he wants a cookie. . Whimsical illustrations and a smile-making twist at the end. Tea Party Rules was requested multiple times from both my son and daughter. . Do you have a library strategy?

REVIEW! Every time I saw this book in the Kindle deals from @annebogel (and I feel like Marisa de los Santos shows up often), I couldn’t get past the book description, which seemed vaguely uninspiring. Or at least not compelling enough to oust others on my TBR. . Leave it to the Bookstagram community to change my mind. @she.hearts.books posts about Marisa de los Santos were warm with praise and now I see why. Love Walked in was a delight and I’m looking forward to reading through her entire catalogue of books. . Though not a novel in verse by any means, de los Santo's background as a poet shows in her writing voice. Dialogue and descriptions had a wave-like structure that perfectly complimented her word choices which were uncommon enough to catch your attention but not obscure. I also love when authors are able to weave cultural references into the fabric of their stories (in this case, classic movies and orphan stories) in a way that seems genuine to the plot and characters. . I usually have a favorite narrative when the perspective of a story switches between characters, but I adored Clare and Cornelia equally. Clare is an 11-year-old whose mom is struggling with a mental illness and Cornelia is a thirty-something who is quickly enamored with the Cary Grant look-alike who walks into the coffee shop she manages one afternoon. He also happens to be Clare's father. Their lives get entangled in unexpected ways. . Love Walked In made me laugh, cry, pause (to re-read beautiful sentences), and consider the meaning of family. . “She thought about the word “capture,” how it put a writer on par with a fur trapper or big-game hunter, and how it implied that stories were whole and roaming around loose in the world, and a writer’s job was to catch them.”

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