Between the Pages

     Happy holidays everyone. Thankfully, at my house, books are gotten and given for Christmas. *CHEF's KISS - MUAH* Pieces of fiction, non-fiction, classics, first editions, and more flow out of brightly colored wrapping papers as the giver smiles with pride and the receiver shrieks exclamations of adoration and contentment. Here, without further adieu are the books (and bookish items) I got (and GAVE) for Christmas 2020. BOOKS I GOT     A Classical Mystery Collection     A Collection of New Yorker Short Stories (1925 - 1960)     A Collection of New York Times Crossword Puzzles     Virgo by Stella Andromeda       And Then There Were None (collector's edition) BOOKS I GAVE     The Grace Kelly Dress: A Novel  by Brenda Janowitz     This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (collector's edition)     A Mysterious Christie Pair: Death on the Nile  and And Then There Were No...

     I am in the middle of two books. My resolution for 2020 was to read one book at a time. My thoughts: (1) it will be faster and more efficient to read one book at a time (2) I can focus on the characters and what the book is telling me (3) my reviews will be more spot-on, more critical, and more representative. Guess what? All year, I read multiple books at a time. I didn't meet the goal. That's fine, right? I read almost thirty books (so far), so my system mus have worked well.       Right now, I am reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood  which I am LOVING, and Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile (surprise surprise she's reading Agatha Christie again ) is one of her best, truly amazing. Capote's work has so much journalistic importance. The writing is impeccable and the order of events *muah* -- chef's kiss.       Death on the Nile has some of the most vivid characters I have ever read. I got to a HUGE turning point last ni...

   Hello everyone and welcome back. It has been altogether too long since I have written a blog post, but here I am fairly well and mostly alive after exams. Jane Austen's birthday was December 16. On her 245th birthday, Austen still inspires and leaves her mark.  Jane Austen in an original family portrait.       This summer, I wrote a spotlight or Writing Women post on Jane Austen. Check it out here . Bookstagram was blowing up with love, birthday wishes, and graphics about and for Austen on the 16th. For me, a long time lover and three-time reader of Austen's Pride and Prejudice , the lively state of admiration for this classical author was heaven. Check out my following list on my Instagram @betweenthepgs for some accounts that posted about Jane Austen too. 

   The New York Times  came out with their list of the most notable books of 2020 on November 20th. I wanted to let that list ruminate in the book community for a while before I did a post on it. I want to preface this short post by saying that a lot of those books are AMAZING; however, they do not specifically pertain to this blog, its blogger, its audience, or its content. While it is never too early to start reading memoirs and poetry and complicated backstory fiction (and when I say never, I mean NEVER), I feel a lot of the books that made the list wouldn't necessarily inspire a love and passion for young readers. The intended purpose of this blog is to jumpstart reading and to make literature fun and accessible not daunting.     I am going to be frank and forthcoming. While you all do not know my name, you can hear my personality through my writing. So here it is: I have not read one book on that list. Not a one. As a person who claims to love books, r...

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are amazing. They are my favorite short stories and my comfort reading (you all KNOW what I mean). Please read them and enjoy! Comment your favorite story below.  BTP's copy is from Barnes and Noble. Click here  for more information. 

Happy National Novel Writing Month! I cannot believe it is November already. It seems fall has gotten away from me, from all of us. (It was almost 80 degrees where I live today, so it seems the weather is confused as to where autumn has gone too!) Please enjoy the following slides. Comment below if you like the slides as images pasted in posts or as an embedded slideshow for clearer viewing. I hope you like this new format as much as I do. Happy reading!

SUMMARY  Ellingham Academy is a private boarding school in Vermont where the United States' brightest thinkers, inventors, artists, and creators come to play. Founded by one of America's richest, from-the-ground-up benefactors in the early 20th century, Ellingham Academy, while a center of learning and talent, has a storied, infamous, and twisted past. Albert Ellingham's wife, Iris, and daughter, Alice, were kidnapped soon after his school's opening. Neither returned. A taunting riddle was left for Mr. Ellingham written by the assumed criminal who used the pseudonym Truly Devious.  Decades later, Stephanie Bell steps onto Ellingham's campus with one goal: to solve the case, the crime of a lifetime. Much to her parents' chagrin, Stevie spends more time with the crime and real documents and evidence than with her anatomy class subject matter. Along the way, she enlists the help of her housemates: a novelist, Nate, an actor, Hunter, an artist with a French fetish, ...

Friends, I promise a massive review is coming soon, as I am reading a trilogy that I plan to review as a unit. Until then, I'll be here reading and writing mini-posts on holidays I find interesting. I hope you all find them fun too. At least I'm learning something, right?  October 18th through October 24th is National Friends of Libraries Week.  The third week of October promotes groups who support libraries. This week is a great platform for groups who are active in their local library scene to increase awareness in their communities, grow membership, and encourage people to read and get active in their libraries'. Some groups, as you may have seen in your communities, focus on getting youth (especially teens) involved with their library. This, from experience, is no easy task. Their efforts are reasons to celebrate! How can you observe National Friends of Libraries Week?  *safely* (because of the COVID-19 pandemic) Join the teen/youth group at your library Know that YOU...

Happy belated National Dictionary Day! I am going to start posting a mini-post for each of the holidays posted on the Bibliophile's Calendar !       October 16th is nationally recognized as Dictionary Day, which is based on Noah Webster's birthday. Noah Webster, the Father of the American Dictionary, is fittingly recognized with this celebration. He published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language , in 1806. Immediately following its release he began compiling his most cumbersome work: An American Dictionary of the English Language . To do so, he learned 26 languages some being Old-English, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. It took him 27 years to compile over seventy thousand words, twelve thousand of which had never been recorded in a dictionary before.       Webster sparked a massive linguistic reform. He found some British spellings unnecessarily complicated; thus, he ...

 Hello, again. I am so happy to be posting. Turns out there are a lot of literary holidays! Enjoy!

For my birthday, I received a Parnassus YA Book Bundle. As this is a bookish gift, I thought I would share its contents with all of you. I will follow up on each item after I commence using them routinely or after I read it. My favorite independent bookstore is Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. At this book store, they offer a Young Adult gift box that staff members put together. These boxes usually include one to two books and a couple items that are either cute and literarily oriented or make reading easier.  In my YA Book Bundle, I received two books:  Legendborn  by Tracy Denon and Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (who actually came to my school for an author talk last year!). I am very excited to read these two. My TBR list is a MILE long, so these reviews will probably pop up around November or December. Nonetheless, I am very excited to read and review these books, as Legendborn is a fantasy book (a genre I don't read very often) and Open Road Summer is a fun ...

 For my September BOTM, I wanted something that would be the calmest 'adult' book in this month's bunch of suggested picks. I picked The Last Story of Mina Lee. Review coming soon! Do you subscribe to BOTM? What did you choose? Happy reading!!

  While The Simple Wild was a little over the top for me, it is a fine, romantic, early adult novel.  Summary Calla Fletcher leads a perfectly normal and fulfilling life. She has a boyfriend, a job, a good family life with her mother and step-father, a smattering of supportive friends, and a successful website and social media account. She is beautiful, fit, and has a diverse and expensive wardrobe.  She would not live in Toronto with her mother, Susan, and her psychiatrist step-father, Simon, if her mother hadn't have hated her life. Originally, Susan got pregnant with Calla, married, and lived with Wren Fletcher, Calla's father, in Bangor, Alaska. Calla's mother has instilled nothing less than hatred for the early darkness, bitter cold, the occasional outhouse, Wren's tiny-dangerous-plane-charter company, and the constant absence of Wren in Calla.  Over her 26 years of life, Calla has heard from her father in a serious, talking manner about five times. The occasion...

 As a proud member of the bookstagram community, the rapidly growing corner of the social media/internet sphere dedicated to reviewing and reading books, I look up to a lot of bookstagrammers. While I wish I could name each and every one of them on this platform, I'm afraid that would be an impossible feat. Here are my 5 favorite accounts. 

       Reading is a fickle activity. If you are on this blog, chances are you have the keen ability to read anywhere: your car, bed, couch, floor, lounge chair, rocking chair, porch, et cetera. This quirky talent of being able to read anywhere at any time is bread out of necessity. I need to finish this chapter (who am I kidding, the whole book). I need to finish this reading because I have to study for math. I have to drive for eight hours to Florida with my extended family; therefore, I have to read.  Is there such a thing as the perfect place to read? Is all reading born out of necessity?       I am not positive about the first question, but the latter question I am certain the answer is NO! All reading is not born out of having to or necessity! Even as an intense bibliophile, some of my reading is a "have to".  As for the first question, I do not think there is a perfect place to read, but I do think there are steps to creating a "go...

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting and disturbing tale about mankind's dual identity and how it may be brought by science.  PLOT SUMMARY Soho, London. Victorian Era. Mr. Utterson is an upstanding lawyer who hangs out, drinks, eats, and smokes with his other upstanding lawyer and doctor friends, two being Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll.  One night, as the novel opens, Mr. Utterson walks along with his friend Mr. Enfield when they pass an old dilapidated building. The site of this erection sparks Enfield's memory, and he tells an eerie story. One night/early-morning, Enfield was out on a stroll through Soho on his way home when he sees a young girl gets knocked over and trampled on by a short, portly fellow. The man runs ahead, but Enfield and a couple others catch him by the collar and make him apologize to the girl's family and give reparations. After the encounter, the short man heads into the same dilapidated building Utters...

August 2020 has rounded out the biggest literary summer I have ever had! I have officially read 20 books in 2020! In fact, 18 out of the 20 books of 2020 have been read between May and August.   I have read and reviewed 5 books this month. Here is the official break down: This month was fairly balanced in terms of likes and dislikes: two dislikes, two loves, and one straight down the middle. Therefore, this month balances out as a fairly good month. I cannot believe I have read five books this month. One-fourth of this year's books! I hope to make a recap and chart like this one every month. Here are the reviews of the books I have read in August: http://betweenp.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-good-girls-guide-to-murder.html http://betweenp.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-man-in-brown-suit.html http://betweenp.blogspot.com/2020/08/dracula.html http://betweenp.blogspot.com/2020/08/atomic-love.html http://betweenp.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-guest-list.html I also wrote 4 interest pieces this month. A...

Dracula by Bram Stoker is truly horrifying and a classic EVERYONE should read.  Summary Johnathan Harker is off on business. He always has a plan, Except, this time he doesn't. His mysterious business associate has not given him any direction. Johnathan Harker travels to Transylvania to meet his host. Instead of a professional, businessman, Harker is greeted by a seemingly mythical, ghastly white-haired and skinned man. Count Dracula, or the Count for short, terrorizes the town below the cliffs of his lair. Throughout Harker's time at the castle, he is almost killed from scaling the castle windows' ledges, three ghost women who cackle and try to suck the blood out of the veins in his neck, and the Count himself.  Meanwhile, Harker's fiance, Mina Murray, is with her beloved friend, Lucy Westenra, in Whitby. Lucy starts having dreams and sleepwalking. One night, Lucy sleepwalks to a misty churchyard where Mina spots a ghostly figure on a bench next to an extremely pale Lu...

  Jennie Fields's historical accuracy in Atomic Love is unrivaled, but, like everything, is not perfect. Summary Chicago, 1950. Rosalind Porter is just getting herself back together after her long-time relationship breaks up and her long-time project blows up (literally, she was an integral scientist in the Manhattan Project). Her heart is broken by her boyfriend, more like a soulmate, Thomas Weaver, who is also a scientist. Her soul broke though when the bombs fell and burst Nagasaki and Hiroshima into a million pieces that would never truly be put back together. She felt guilty and empty.  She's getting back on her feet though. She spends fun-filled weekends with her mini-twin and niece, Ava. She visits her sister and brother-and-law (more like her mother and father because Roz's mom was so old when she was born), Louisa and Henry. Her life is finally settling down, that's when Weaver starts to call again. And call and call and call and call. Staying strong, Rosalind ...

Hello everyone. I have missed you all SO MUCH! I haven't blogged as much these past couple days because, drum roll, school started! I promise everyone is safe, masked, and socially distanced at my school. What about you? How has COVID-19 affected you reading? Comment both down below! Because of internships, programs, busy work, and, now, homework, I have been listening to no end of great podcasts. I already did a post on this, but I have a couple more I NEED to share.  Phoebe Reads a Mystery I am literally in love, y'all. I can honestly say that I listen to this podcast every day. I have listened to 3 full books on this podcast. I truly cannot get enough. It is a great way to fly through books if you haven't the time to sit down with a physical copy for a couple of days. Phoebe's voice is AMAZINGLY calming, yet informative. This podcast helps me get into books. As you all know, my favorite genre is mystery/detective. This podcast is perfect. Five stars. ZERO complai...

  The Guest List by Lucy Foley has a great concept and plot, but the wonderful story is buried by inappropriate language and sexual innuendos.  *DISCLAIMER - I knew this book was for adults before I read it. I will explain in the review part of this post. I don't think anyone below 18 years old should read this book.* Summary On a remote Irish island called Folly, Jules Keegan and Will Slater have gathered their closest friends and family. The smart, ambitious magazine publisher and the charming, witty, and handsome television star are getting married. While the sea and cell service are a little choppy, the couple and their friends won't let the setting spoil their fun. A deserted island, a huge house, plenty of alcohol, a four-tiered cake, and the perfect dress make the wedding of the century. "But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human". Jealousies and not-so-fond memories come out before the cake is even cut. Dark clouds loom overhead, physically and...

I continued my Book of the Month service this month! While I have not read these books yet, reviews are coming soon. This post will just serve as a report on what came in my box for those of you without Instagram.  For my August Book of the Month, I picked Atomic Love by Jennie Fields.  This month, I decided to do an add on. I am so excited I did because I picked The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I have heard nothing but AMAZING things. Plus, all of you know I love mysteries and thrillers! This should be GOOD.  I am beyond excited to read these books. Thank you BOTM! Have you ever ordered BOTM? If not, comment below for a reference code! Want this specific book? Again, my reference code gets us both rewards! Read either of these books? Comment your thoughts below!