I have a confession. Granted, a blog is mostly someone’s confessions, but that is beside the point. Anyway, I’m a huge bookworm. Like massive. I’ve read every single Nancy Drew book ever written. In fact, I have the complete series boxed up in my Dad’s attic to take when I have a place to live that is more than 20 square feet. I owned the full series by around age 14. My parents would take me to Annie’s Book Stop during the summer when we camped at Lake Winnipesaukee (Yes, I do still need to google how to spell that). I could usually get books for $1, so I completed the series pretty quickly. I also somehow managed to talk my mom into buying me the complete Boxcar Children’s series from those fun scholastic book things in elementary school. Those are also all boxed up waiting to head to my future library of a house. We would go up to New Hampshire on Friday night, and by Sunday afternoon on the way home I would usually have read 3 books. I could (and can still) read extremely fast, and still tell you conversations people had in the books. Books are my happy place.
A little background: After three semesters of being a Business major, I found my brain was melting far too quickly and thought I should make a change. Since my love of books runs so deep, I decided on English Literature. Ahhh that was such a good idea. I also got to keep business as a minor because I already almost completed a minor with my regular classes. Just Finance left. Should be a good time…
Anyway, so with being an English Major and the idea that I would like to work in Editorial in my brain, I started stalking publishing houses websites looking at their open job listings for when I graduated. I stalked Random House, Hachette, Penguin Group and National Geographic like it was my job. Then one day one of them had 5 summer internships posted. They were paid internships! I had to submit my resume (to every internship they offered), which had just been all fancied up because I had finished my first co-op. Long story short, I got accepted into the Support Services department (because I didn’t read the editorial description fully and it was the only one that required a cover letter. Damn. Read things, kids, read them thoroughly) and had an amazing summer internship with a major publishing house. The point of this is that with working at a publishing house, even as an intern, there are books EVERYWHERE. And you get to take them home.
So, even my apartment looks like a library. I have a bookshelf where each shelf is 2 books deep, sometimes more if they are mass market paperbacks. Then the overflow goes onto another bookcase which is horizontal because my TV is on top of it. I’m surrounded. And I love it.
BUT the point of this whole business is that I’m going to share my thoughts on some of my favorite books and ones I end up reading as well as some movies. To start off, I want to give a little review of Sarah Addison Allen’s “Garden Spell.” Which is one of my favorite books of all time.
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| My books are well loved. |
This book is pure magic. Literally! Claire Waverley is a young, introverted woman, who has this house with a magic tree (bear with me, I promise it’s fantastic and not the least bit childish). Anything grown around the tree has magical qualities that make the person who ingests the plants act in certain ways. Claire takes advantage of this and opens a successful catering business. An example of how the tree works is dandelion quiche: dandelion encourages faithfulness and when used in food, promotes faithfulness in the eater. Claire’s sisters Sydney comes back into her life in Bascom, North Carolina with her daughter. The "Waverley magic" is present in each member of the family in some way. This book is beautifully written and gives the reader hope that small miracles do exist in everyday life. Read it. Please. And love it as much as I do. I have actually bought lavender recently and want to try Claire’s lavender bread recipe which is said to raise spirits and prevent bad decisions from fatigue or depression. ;)
