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The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
The adventures of Christopher Robin and his much-loved friends, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Owl, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, and Eeyore.
Genre: Classic | Age: Children (4+) | Buy: Amazon
Personal Review:
How can a teddy bear and his friends tug at your heart-strings like Pooh does? I grew up watching the Pooh cartoon and didn’t know it was a book until I was an adult. Now I have read the complete Pooh tales to my children twice and both times I cry when it’s over.
The Pooh stories are so sweet and my girls of all ages (2.5 to 9.5) can’t help but listen when another Pooh adventure starts. This is a classic I’m thankful to have for my kids and will keep for my grandkids someday too.
A Touch of Romance (Romantic Encounters #2) by Paullett Golden
Leila, a budding poetess, is randomly paired with Jules, a Regius Professor of Greek and translator of poetry, at a week-long writers’ retreat. They may love each other but Leila’s future has been planned for her, and it unfortunately doesn’t include Jules.
Genre: Georgian Clean Romance | Age: Adult (17+) | Buy: Amazon
Personal Review:
More delightful words from Ms. Golden. What a treat to have found her works.
In this book we get to follow another one of our friends (Leila) from the local literary society. And there is no more fun way to meet our new hero, Jules, than at a writers’ retreat! I very much loved the first half of the book, where Jules and Leila are randomly paired to follow scavenger hunts and they get to know each other. The time that they were at the retreat together really got me invested in their relationship and kept me rooting for them.
The second half of the book involves Leila figuring out how she is going to get out of a marriage arranged by her over-the-top parents and Jules figuring out how to convince them he’s the man for her. I absolutely LOVED that Jules refused to pretend to be anything other than he was. And that his unique chivalry-ness was what endured to the end of the book.
There were so many good lines in this book. I am finding that Golden has a lovely writing style that lends itself to great literary quotes. I am so excited to read Isobel’s (another literary society member) story in the next book!
Oh, and I should mention the flash fiction at the end. I really love flash fiction so these are nice little treats. My favorite was the final one, The Gift, which didn’t even have a romance arc, just a lovely story of acceptance.
How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton
What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Follow along as Eagleton examines broad questions of reading literature.
Genre: Non-fiction| Age: Teen to Adult (15+) | Buy: Amazon
Personal Review:
This was kind of boring but I’m glad I read it.
I am trying to regain the “literary brain” that I really enjoyed having as a younger person, before daily tasks like keeping 4 kids alive was a necessary part of my life. I picked this up because I would like to read books in a more critical way rather than just feeling like I like it or not.
And, even though parts of this were pretty interesting and I enjoyed the references to Shakespeare and other works I read as a teen, it kind of lost me in its significance. It felt more like a journal entry or academic conversation about what the author thought of several literary works, when I was hoping for more of a way to read and understand literature myself.
The last 2 chapters were the most helpful, revealing that interpretation of and value of works are often in the eye of the beholder…but also objective in some ways. Again, I’m glad I read it for the brain exercise it provided, but I didn’t get out of it what I was hoping.
Happy reading!
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🤖 Always written and edited without the use of AI.
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