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I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

Jorge Luis Borges 

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Dear Spiderman, (Book List #???)

So I’ve been watching a lot of movies and tv shows lately.  Between Julia and Sallie, we’ve got loads of streaming services at our fingertips, so we’ve been using our downtime to watch anything and everything.  (They’re always expressing amazement when I admit to not having seen something that “everyone” has seen.  For example, I was met with gaping mouths and popping eyeballs when I let slip that I’d never seen Mean Girls.) 

Anyway, the point is, I’ve been watching a lot of movies and tv shows, and it’s amazing how many of them are adapted from novels.  Also, every time we watch one that’s been adapted I ask Sallie and Julia if they’ve read the book, and they often say no.  Julia more than Sally.  As an English major, I feel it is my duty to read the books if I’m going to watch the adaptations.  Therefore, I bring you:

To Read, Books that Have Been Turned into Movies or Television Shows:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Outlander by Diana Gabbaldon

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The problem is that this list could go on  f o r e v e r.  How does anyone ever decide what they want to read next???  There’s simply too much.  I’m being pulled in too many directions!  For instance,

Tumblr is telling me to read Good Omens and His Dark Materials first while 

my English professors are telling me to read Pride and Prejudice first because “classic” and 

my friends are telling me to read The Hate U Give, and 

Twitter wants me to read The Handmaid’s Tale because the show is so good, and 

my heart is telling me to read everything all at once, right now, this instant *faints*

Here, let’s focus on something less stressful.

Book/Movie combos I’ve already read/watched:

Jane Eyre

Romeo and Juliet (I watched the 1968 version and the 1998 version, and, I gotta say, I think ‘96 is way more fun.  Film critics be damned.)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (I read this recently because the local bookstore read it for their book club.  The book was adorable, but the movie was really rather awful.  Who writes these adaptations?  I think they should let me do it instead.)

Harry Potter (duh)

A Little Princess (I had this book when I was younger.  Loved it.  Loved the movie even more.  Yep, I said it.)

The Hunger Games

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I got off the top of my head.  And now I’m exhausted.

Goodnight, Spiderman!

J.A.

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The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows & the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years.

Audrey Hepburn

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Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek ▪ Weimar, Germany

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twilight is… lord byron’s fault

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Happy Thursday, bookworms! Only one more day and we get to start the blessed weekend. Any big plans??? I’m celebrating a friend’s birthday tomorrow night but hoping to relax Saturday for the most part. I could use some R&R. How about you? So, I’m new to this whole #spiralstack thing but I am LOVING it. I’ve seen some pretty elaborate ones out there! I figure, I’ll start simple and go from there haha. I chose these Clothbound Penguin Classics for today because I got a ton of them for Christmas.They sit prominently on my shelf in the dining room so that literally everyone who comes into our house is forced to admire them haha! I think my favorite will always be Wuthering Heights and Anna Karenina. What is your favorite classic?? We saw the lovely @poodles.ponies.peonies post this the other day and wanted to jump on too! We’re taking on the #123tag. If you want to do it, consider yourself tagged! 1 One word title: Nemesis (because I just finished it last night!) 2 Book w/ twins: Cath and Wren (Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell) 3 Author w/ three letters: J.K. Rowling Day 25: New books

I  N S T A G R A M

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Dear Spiderman,

Confession:  Try not to think any less of me after I tell you this, Spiderman, but I have to tell someone, and since you don’t reply, I can be pretty confident in my assumption that you won’t publicly shame me like the majority of my English-major friends would.  So here it is.  Here goes.  

*deep breath*  

IreadallfouroftheTwilightbooks.  Did you catch that?  I hope so ‘cause I’m not saying it again.

But there’s more.  I didn’t just read them.  I read them all in a week.  AND I watched all of the movies.  All. Five. Of. Them.  That’s 2,720 pages and 10 hours and 33 minutes of sparkly vampires and moody werewolves and incompetent female characters except for Rosalie who is, let’s be honest, bad ass.

Am I proud of this?  No, not even a little bit.  

...Okay, that’s a lie, I am a little bit proud.  I mean, that’s a lot of pages, you know?  I know it’s not *teacher voice* literature, but it was still entertaining, not gonna lie.  So.  That’s my dirty little secret for the day.

At least I didn’t read Fifty Shades of Grey.  I get points for that, right?  And no one knew what I was reading ‘cause I borrowed the e-books instead of physical copies.  See how smart college has made me?

Speaking of college, I may or may not have gotten a little bit behind on my schoolwork because of this vampire binge.  But to be fair to myself, we’re reading The Sound and the Fury, and it’s just...incomprehensible.  Am I allowed to say that about William Faulkner?  Are the ghosts of literature professors past going to come back and haunt me for mentioning Twilight and William Faulkner in the same post?

Anyway, here’s me as a sparkly vampire.

J.A.

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My ideal 19th century bookshelf, now in drinkable form

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out about Project Gutenberg, and now I’m dead.

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Dear Spiderman,

Did you know that the library offers digital books as well as physical books?  I found this out when I went to look for a book and discovered it was already checked out.

Me:  Hi, I’m looking for To Kill a Mockingbird, but I can’t seem to find it. Librarian:  Let me check. [She proceeds to tap her keyboard very professionally] Librarian:  It looks like all of our copies have been checked out. Me:  *sigh* Well, I guess I’ll just have to read one of the other hundreds of books on my list. Librarian:  You could always borrow the e-book. Me:  yOU HAVE E-BOOKS?!

I think my excitement may have startled her because she jumped about a mile in the air.  Is one really not supposed to shout in a library or is that just a movie thing?

Anyway, I think this knowledge has ended any chance I have at getting anything productive done again.  If you ever need to find me, too bad, I’ll be hiding somewhere with my phone and every book I could ever want on it.

Goodbye forever.

J.A.

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Jane Eyre (2011)

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He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables.

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Books, books books!