Powell's City of Books

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Last week my fiancée and I went to Portland to visit friends and family and while we were there he took me to Powell's bookstore. Not only that...he let me spend two whole hours there. :) I could have spent much much longer but there were other things to see and do. We've decided though that we should go there every time we visit Portland. It's probably one of my favorite places.

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While perusing the shelves for books to take home Britton ran across this one:

Which he immediately fell in love with and HAD to buy. It's a really cute and funny book! However if you have a particular fondness for fairies you may not like Tollins as they are rather careless of them. We read the first story together and then he read the other two over the phone to me. They are really funny. :)

And then I found the beautiful clothbound Penguin Classic Cranford which was used so it was much cheaper but it still looks like brand new:

Can you tell I'm in love with it? :)

And Britton also bought Brisinger, so we now have the whole Eragon set until the fourth book comes out. I need to finish this series!
Going to Powell's can be overwhelming and you suddenly seem to forget what books you've been looking for so we've decided next time we're taking a list. In the meantime...I'm going to get some reading done. ;)

~Elizabeth~

Alice in Wonderland

I finished reading Alice in Wonderland yesterday...my goodness what and odd book. haha It was fun to read though. Growing up I always hated the cartoon of Alice in Wonderland, it scared me like nobody's business. But I really am excited for the new movie coming out and thought I better read the book first. (even though the movie is supposed to be quite different I think)
My favorite chapter was The Mad Tea Party. I love the March Hare, Mad Hatter, and the dormouse. I wish they were all in the book more as they made me laugh the hardest.

Oh....just look at his striped socks and the fact it's always tea time...I think we should be very good friends if we happened to meet, and I'd have more chance of becoming mad like the rest of them than thinking them ridiculous. :) Perhaps it's a very good thing I've never made it into Wonderland!

The movie is out this Friday! I'm excited to see what it's like. It looks really awesome, I think.

I'm not sure when I'll see it, but I'm pretty excited about it. And maybe one of these days I should give the cartoon another chance. I still think some of the story is creepy, even in the book, but it is crazy mad fun. :)

What's on Jane's Bookshelf

What a fabulous idea Lizzie! I hope a lot of you will do this. It's really fun. You may even discover (or rediscover) some books on your own shelf that you haven't read before. Go here to read about her idea.

Alright, here goes.

Aren't they pretty? These belong to my mom. She has a lovely collection of books and these are just a few of them. Here is what's on the shelf:

The Beacon Primer
This is from 1912!

The Story of a Candy Rabbit by Laura Lee Hope
Sounds cute doesn't it? Or, maybe it sounds sad...

Oral and Written English
This is a gorgeous book. Look at it! Wouldn't you like to learn English from a beautiful book like this? I think that text books we have now are just so ugly. And you should see what is in this book. It has things in it like "How to read a poem aloud" and "Making Your Meaning Clear"

A Court of Inquiry by Grace S. Richmond
Written in 1901 or thereabouts. I haven't read this but my sister Aimee has. She loved it. No one in it has actual names but has the most delightful nick names like "The Philosopher" (Philo for short) "The Gay Lady" or "The Skeptic". It also has great illustrations, Gibson Girl style.

The Trail of a Sourdough: Ballads and Rhymes by Charles E. Royal
This is full of intellectual and thought provoking poems like "The Immortal Cootie".

Prairie Tales

Keeping Fit for Fun
What this looks like is a bright and colorful book from the 50's that tries to make exercising look fun. I'm not buying it. ;)

More Friends and Neighbors
A very old reader

Little Fox by Francis Frost

Betsy Ross and the Flag by Jane Mayer

Yipe by David Malcolmson
Has the most adorable picture of a little black puppy on it!

Matilda and her Family by Miriam E. Mason
A story about cats! :)

Commodore Hornblower by C.S. Forester
I read the first in this series this year. So good! If you want to watch the BBC adaptions of these classics go here to my other blog The Three Spinsters.

The Little Lame Prince by Miss Mulock
This story starts with a wonderful beginning: "Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born." And I love how the author goes by "Miss" Mulock. Charming!

The Real Book about Christopher Columbus
Not to be confused with the fake books about him. ;)

The Story of Leif Ericson by William O. Steele

Booker T. Washington by Shirley Graham

Charlemagne by Manuel Komroff

The March of Muscovy by Harold Lamb

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

You know, it's strange. I read this book when was probably 15 or 16 and I LOVED the first half of the book and DETESTED the second half. I think because it was such a hilarious story up until the the middle of the book and then it just takes a turn for the worse and goes downhill from there. At least, that's what I thought back then. 10 years later, I might think differently. Maybe someday I'll give it another chance.

Well, that's all! I hope that you all will play this game with us. It's quite fun! I'm looking forward to what Lizzie will write! :)

♥ Jane

The Mysterious and Interesting Pasts of Used Books

Don't you just love it when you find lovely books at the used book store? I was so excited when I found this one! I've been looking for it for awhile. Our library doesn't have it so I asked them to order it but they never did! Consequently, I've been scouting around for it everywhere. Wow, It's a hard one to find! Until the other day! We hopped into the used book store to look for a present for a friend and I thought to myself, well, I'll just look again for that Thomas Hardy book. I went straight for H and found a bunch of Hardy books. ALL the wrong ones. So I was off looking for another book and my sister called me over and said hey, weren't you looking for a Thomas Hardy book? Which one was it? Then I said, Oh, I'm still looking for Under the Greenwood Tree but they don't have it. As soon as I said that she pointed to it and I snatched it off the shelf and clutched it for dear life! Oh happiness!

It's not even a great copy. Kind of ugly actually with it's weird green and gold cover but it's in pretty good shape and (best of all) has tons of markings and underlining and notes by the previous owner. :) The first page says
To Gram
Love Wendy

Gram (or Wendy?) underlined this passage and then wrote "Hardy the poet." underneath. Yes, Gram, you are right! I love that passage too. :)


Ooh, and look! I found this lovely book in the kids section. It's the sequel to Pat of Silver Bush which I have yet to read. I'm going to make myself wait until I find the first book before I read this one. Have any of you read these books? Did you like this series?

Do you want to know what the best thing about this book is? It belongs to...get ready...Shirley Ann Cook!!!! Shirley Ann?! What are the odds? :) And look at the surprise I found after I got home!

Little Shirley Ann Cook was using this sweet little paper doll as a book mark. Do you think the doll minded? I don't think so. She probably loves to read. I should move her to a new page. She's most likely tired of reading page 120 over and over! I'll find a really interesting one for her to read. :)
There, she can now read about the lady who mistakenly put rat poison in the family pancakes instead of baking powder!

I would love to hear if you have any interesting old books with odd names written in the front or other such things. Do tell!
Happy Reading!

Jane

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Every once in awhile I love to wander through the children's section in the library and randomly pick up some books I've never heard of that sound interesting and take them home and be surprised.
My most recent find was 'The Mysterious Benedict Society' by Trenton Lee Stewart.
It was a fun read, kept you curious until the end and you came to love all the quirky characters and I was quite sad to leave them by the end. But I wont give too much away as to keep it a mystery. ;)

Currently I'm reading through the Lemony Snicket books, Little Dorrit, Mansfield Park, and a lovely book of Keat's poetry.

What are you reading?

Eight Cousins

Well hello there! I'm Jane. Nice to meet you! I hope that you will enjoy this little book blog we have created. We will update it as often as we can with reviews and thought on the books we love or don't love. We hope that you will feel free to comment and let us know what you think of these books!

I found this wonderful old book (above) at a used book store recently for $1. Yay! When I go into used book stores I look for Louisa May Alcott books first. I would like to have a collection of them. So far I have Little Women (given to me by my very great friend, Lizzie. Thank yoooou!), Little Men, Jo's Boys and Eight Cousins. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for more.

Eight Cousins...one of my favorite books written by Louisa May Alcott. This cozy little read is about a little girl named Rose who has recently lost both her parents and goes to live with her extended family on "The Aunt Hill" where she meets her eight cousins who happen to be all boys. As you can imagine it is full of funny antics and mischief that can only be thought up by little boys, great capers and scrapes and boatings that make you wish you had grown up at the Aunt Hill. Oh, let's not forget the aunts! They are as funny as the cousins. Each one different but strangely similar (reminds me of me and my sisters....). Aunt Plenty is the Homemaking hero. She's happiest when she's feeding a brood..reminds me of my older sister. :) Aunt Jessie who has four of the boys and loves every ounce of her rowdy boys and the strange things they bring home for her to see. Aunt Peace is peaceful, in spite of her romantic disappointment early in her life, and a wonderful seamstress. She encourages everyone with her peaceful and patient ways. Then there's Dolly, a hilarious little girl who tries to tag along with the big boys. There are many more equally entertaining characters but I will let you get to know them for yourself. So, pick it up and read it. You will not be disappointed. :)