Reading Challenge update Part 1: from Bob Ross approved to book from my birth decade

Hello book friends, good news! I've finally reviewed some books for my reading challenge with The Redolent Mermaid: Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid challenge. The bad news, depending on how you look at it, I write too much for my brain to handle more than 5 at a time. I'll be adding 5 more...

Farewell, friends (for now)

Currently, my life has much in common with the jigsaw puzzle above; it's overly complicated, exhausting and feels half-finished. And like the two-inch wide black border around this design, I can't seem to make the pieces come together. With that, I'm taking a break from blogging for the first time in 3 years. It is...

Top Ten Tuesday: Upcoming Releases I’m on the fence about reading: help me decide

With a constantly expanding TBR and an ever elapsing lifespan (there's an optimistic thought on an early Tuesday morning) the amount of books which I spend time reading has a direct inverse correlation to the amount of time I have left to read more books. Simply put, most of these 2019 releases won't make the...

Teaser Tuesday: The Gown: a novel of the Royal Wedding

This year, I'm continuing with Teaser Tuesdays whenever I read a relatively new book that I want to share. Published January 8th, 2019, I discovered this novel while scrolling through #bookstagram. The cover photo depicting Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's wedding day pulled me in, as historical (and modern) photos of royals do. The Gown:...

The Scented Library’s Top Reads for 2019

2018 was a stellar reading year (so many good books) spurring a resolve to read even more in 2019. In that spirit, I'm throwing my blogging ball cap into the ring of all the Most Anticipated New Books of 2019 lists (I do love to write a proper list). Pooling library resources from Bookpage, Booklist,...

Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid’s challenge 2019

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice/And to make an end is to make a beginning.” T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets Leaving it to T.S Eliot to lay it down, literary style-that turning of the page that only the beginning of a new year can bring. 2018's reading...

A Year in Books: 2018 Reading Challenge finale

Thanks to all of the new bookish followers I've acquired this year, and to those here previously for staying with me as I incorporate more book topics into this blog. Here's my reading journey for 2018, stats and cover photos compiled from Goodreads. TOTALS: read 10,526 pages across 30 books AVERAGE LENGTH 350 pages  SHORTEST BOOK: 128 pages Fantastic Beasts and Where...

Book Reviews: Bird Box, The Hour I First Believed, The Sun Also Rises

Fiction--classics -Americans abroad -Hemingway is a real drag -the Lost generation -Pamplona, Spain -Um, perhaps I'm missing something The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway (read a Hemingway, Steinbeck or John D. MacDonald novel) ★★☆☆☆ "Published in 1926 to explosive acclaim, "The Sun Also Rises" stands as perhaps the most impressive first novel ever written...

Book Reviews: The Chalk Man, The Fellowship of The Ring, The Night Circus, Ways to Hide in Winter

Reading Challenge update time: Absolutely the most gratifying group of books I've read this year. All attending to different moods, not the least of which was tackling a book hovering on my to-be-read list for over 20 years. Fantasy--Fiction, classics--adventure stories--legendary--Middle earth--might Elrond's council end soon? I need another cup of tea--skip the prologue The...