The May Roundup

Hello all of you livers of life!!

I have some exciting non-book related news that several of you probably relate to now that school is out for the year... I'm a high school senior! Like a real, breathing, done-with-the-junior-year, hasn't-died-from-school-yet senior!
Other exciting news that probably is more awesome for me than for you: I'm getting a new computer! After my old one went AWOL on me, it severely dampened my creative juices, because though I could still write, all of my research, plotting, everything I had written of both The Peasant and Lorelei was on that computer. Fortunately, it came alive long enough for me to transfer all of that onto another computer, so all is not lost.

Enough unscheduledness. Let's get to the order of the day: monthly reading!!

This month is rather odd in that you will see no Shakespeare on the list. Shocking, right, for a nerd like me? But with end-of-the-school-year cramming, I found that a lot of my normal reading got left behind...

Comfort Foods and Favourite Authors

"If one had not experienced it, it would be hard to understand how a dead man out of a book can be almost a member of one's own family circle." -C.S. Lewis, to his brother Warren  

Recently I've been thinking about a particular question, one I've been asked far too often. "Who is your favourite author?"

  Now I suppose this question is not at all unreasonable, you could only expect that someone who loves reading would have at least one author they preferred above the rest. 

  The problem for me is, there just seem to me to be so many types of favourites. For instance, if I said algebra was my favourite education subject of all time, I would probably be lying. Why? Because it's too vague a question. But if I said that algebra was my favourite subject which dealt with improving my logic and helping me to think more analytically, it would be truth. 

  In something of the same way, every author resonates with his audience differently. They leave an indelible impression on their readers, whether it be of a particular character or place, a message, or just an overall feeling. 

With all of the random thoughts that I spend so much time developing, you'd probably get the impression that I have way too much free time on my hands. Wrong. I have no control over this. If my brain decides that it's going to categorize the types of authors and their written works, so help it, it's going to. So please try not to be too fed up by this post. I tried to stop it. *dramatic music*

The April Roundup

Hello Bloggers, Readers, and casual Internet-Goers!! I'm back once more to discuss my embarrassingly compulsive hobby, which you obligingly listen to every month. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you just skip these posts. Hmm.

I started the month with The King's Fifth, by Scott O'Dell. I suppose you could call this a sequel of sorts to the novel Zia, which I read last month. It involves a few of the same characters, namely Zia herself, but it is telling the story of a young cartographer by the name of Esteban de Sandoval, who travels with a group of Spaniards searching for mythical treasure of ancient Native Americans. It's compelling in its simplicity, you see the motives of the other men and you know what they will do to get what they want. The interesting part is watching Esteban's character evolve to a point where he begins to make decisions he wouldn't have at the beginning.

The March Roundup

Hey guys!! Today - errr, tonight rather - I once again put before you my humble reading list from the past month. I'm sorry that it's coming at you late, as usual. I've been (and still am) abominably sick the past week, and haven't been thinking about posting a bit, quite honestly. It's a wonder this post is here at all. But I did have the mental concentration to start NaPoWriMo on the right day.(namely, yesterday) It's the same as NaNoWriMo, for those of you more familiar with that, except it requires you to write one poem every day, rather than a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Now I am probably the worst poet in the world, which means none of those poems will ever make it to this blog. But, I did feel like it was good practice, and writing verse often puts me into the right sort of pensive mood for writing. So I said to myself, "Why not?" Also Caitlyn's doing it, and she's posting her work, so check it out!! She's already a fairly established poet, and much, much, MUCH better at it than I.

Anyways, I read surprisingly fewer books this month than I have the two previous months, so it was by a very small margin that I actually stayed on course for the rest of the year. And the books? Here they are.

The February Roundup

I actually didn't realise until just now that I had promised to do this post on the last day of February instead of the first day of March. Which (1. Makes a lot more sense than the way I thought it was and (2. Makes me two days late with this post, instead of just one. Not that that seems to affect me much.

It's kind of ironic, actually. I ended up reading exactly the same amount of books this month as I did last month. Which I guess is kinda impressive, because February has WAY less days than January. Like, three less days.
  Speaking of which, if someone was borne on the 29th of February in a leap year, what day is their birthday on on all the other years?

  Anyways. This month has been insane, and only partly because I read way too many books and my computer has all but prepared itself for cremation. Fortunately, some of the craziness is genuinely exciting at the same time as being intimidating and scary. (We just started the process to adopt a child from China!! Well, my parents did;) In fact, there's been so much going on that I am surprised I found time to read at all. Which, you know, explains why I ended up reading a ton. #LOGIC

The January Roundup

Hello all fellow Bloggers and Blogreaders alike!! Today is the last day of the month, and as I promised before, the last day of the month post is a roundup of the books I've read during said month;)

I'm pretty sure I already covered the first few in a previous post. (which I will link to when I get on something other than my iDevice ;) 

So!! Taking up where I left off, we'll start with:

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brönte. I love this book. It never gets old. Seriously. Read it. 

Contending For Our All, by John Piper. This is the fourth in a series called the Swans Are Not Silent. I was assigned this series for school, and it was the best thing ever. These books have brought about a sort of personal revival in my own spiritual life. I can't give a higher recommendation;)

Something I Have Not Done That Most People Have

Guyyyyyyyyysssssssssss guess what!!! My computer's fixed!!! I'm using it right now as I type this post!! As you can probably imagine, my exuberance is unbounded. (that just means that I'm really, really happy;) Also, I went to the library (aka Heaven to my friends who know me well xP) AAAAND Taco Bell. It's been a good day.

..Which is what I needed since I finished reading Les Miserables yesterday. Which is what I will need when I finish A Series of Unfortunate Events again. Which is what I needed several years ago when I read the Count of Monte Christo.
  While we're at it, why don't we just change this post to "Things I have done that most people haven't"??
Just kidding. The ratio of things I have done to things other people have done is like 6:3900.

So, let's begin the list.

1. I have never seen Twilight
2. I have never had my own bedroom
3. I have never been to public school
4. I have never been on Facebook
5. I have never petted an alpaca

I think that's the end of my list!! Have a nice day=)


~Margaret

My Favourite Thing to Do

So I'm mad. I wrote a whole long post yesterday about multiple things that I hope to do in the future, full of resplendent images and witty comments. I was using the Blogger app, (because my computer is not yet fixed) and when I pressed "Publish," I had every inclination to believe that it had done so.

It didn't. that's why I'm mad. I was FaceTiming Caitlyn this afternoon, and our blogs came up in conversation as they often do, and I got on mine to check something. You can imagine my audible and violent despair, and also Caitlyn's questioning but unperturbed confusion when I found that it had not published, as I had originally believed.

So I'm sorry. The post has disappeared. And it seems rather useless to try to replicate it and post it a day late.

Which brings me to the reason for this post: Blogging on time, on the exact day on which I am supposed to. Also my favourite thing to do at the moment, (which is probably griping about missing blog posts) but mostly blogging on the right day. Please just give me a minute to bask in this accomplishment.