Calling all book lovers!

Do you love books? Do you love to read books FOR FREE?! If so, then have I got a site for you to explore!

https://archive.org/

If you go to this site and register for a free account, and then click on "books" (at the top left) and then "open library" you can find almost ANYTHING you care to read for FREE! There's a "borrow for one hour" button at the top that you can click to renew as often as you like. It's the easiest thing ever. 

The only books I've had trouble finding are those that have been very recently published. Anything back before 2019 or so, though, should be there. And the (almost) best part is that old books that are long out of print are there, too. The selection is vast. If you love to read and have a limited budget for buying books, this site is a game changer! I've been burning through books at an almost unheard of rate since discovering this treasure trove!

Check it out. You can thank me later!

Cold and dark

It's cold here on the East Coast this week.

Last night the temperature dropped to 27 degrees (-2.7 for all you Celsius folk out there) after a day of rain and high winds. The wind chill was in the teens when I woke up this morning. Today the high was only about 10 degrees above freezing, and tonight is going to be just as frigid as last night. This kind of cold is highly unusual this early in the year.

I don't mind the cold; in fact, I kind of like it. I run on the warmer side naturally anyway, and with plenty of extra weight padding my body, too, freezing weather just isn't that big of a deal. I lit the fireplace this morning for the first time this year, reviving last winter's habit of drinking my morning coffee by the fire. That was kind of nice. I just hope the weather is this cold the week before Christmas, when I'm hosting my book club's holiday meeting/party. I'd like to be able to turn on the fireplace for picturesque effect, and serve pretty mulled wine to drink.

Last year's mulled wine.

What I'm not liking right now are these short days. I can't wait to pass the solstice so that the days will slowly start to lengthen again. This is the part of winter I dread each year.

Speaking of dark, I'm reading The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. The first 50 pages or so are very disturbing, but I couldn't put it down. I'm about a quarter of the way through now and it's fascinating, but still very dark.

What's the weather like where you are?  Are you reading anything good to pass the time on these long, dark, cold nights?

Summertime reads

There is nothing quite like summer reading. For practically my whole life (at least 30 years of it!) it's been a summer tradition to spend as much time as possible with my nose buried in a book. I'm not sure where this love of reading came from--no one in my family liked to read except me--but it's made my life immeasurably better and richer. Although I still live within 30 miles of where I was born, I've always felt like a citizen of the world thanks to the other lives I've lived vicariously through books.

So far this summer I have been on a journey through the seven kingdoms of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series. I'm somewhat surprised at how much I'm loving these books, given that I'm not normally a huge fan of fantasy fiction. Actually, I do seem to be reading more books in this genre lately. I guess there are some perks to working in a bookstore (even a corporate giant bookstore), one of which is getting exposed to genres and authors that I would normally pass on.

I'm glad I decided to give these books a try. The plot is exciting and keeps you guessing, the scenes are rich with vivid detail, and the characters are easy to either love or hate. There are kings, usurpers, and smallfolk, ladies and whores and treacherous friends, poisonings and beheadings and chivalry, and dragons! Summers can last for decades, but so can winters and darkness and cold. Wars are raging, houses are fighting for control of the realm, and winter is coming...

I love this series. It's a total escape to another world. Today is sunny and cool, perfect for lounging around in the hammock with A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the series. I just got a copy yesterday. It's exciting to have a new book to enjoy on my day off!

  What are you reading this summer?

Winter flowers, winter reading

Today I picked the first camellia blossoms of the winter. I love these flowers simply because they bloom and thrive during the deepest darkest part of the year. I made a small arrangement for our main bathroom.

There have been a lot of new books purchased around our house recently. I have ordered a copy of The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper and am excited to read this again after many years. It was recently recommended by Cate at  http://www.beyondthefieldsweknow.org/ as a good yule/midwinter read. I had forgotten about these books, which I read when I was about 12, and loved. I am excited about reading them again!

In the meantime, I found this little gem buried in the Cultural Studies section of the bookstore where I work. I had to bring it home with me:

I am interested in native plants, and the use of them by early peoples as medicine. This is a nice little reference book to have and I'm sure I will refer back to it often.

Books and flowers--those are the simple things making me happy today.

Winter Reading, Winter Weather

We are expecting snow again for the next few days! I am so excited...it is really unusual for us to get snow at all....and to have it twice by mid January is almost unheard of! It has been a bitterly cold winter this year. Most nights have been well below freezing, and lots of mornings we've had temps in the low teens. I love it! It's like we're spending a winter further north, and I am enjoying the change.  So far I am not ready for spring yet. I am continuing to rest and dream of what the new year may bring for me.

I have been doing a lot of reading for the last few weeks. My newest discovery is the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel. It was purely by chance that I read the first book, "The Clan of the Cave Bear". It was left behind by the lady that used to live in our house. We found three big boxes of books in the garage and we kept any that looked interesting. Well. This series follows the life of a girl named Ayla who lived during the Ice Ages. When she was a small girl, her parents were killed in an earthquake, and she was adopted and raised by a group of neanderthals. I have been captivated by these books! Apparently the author did lots of research so many of the details of the early humans' lives included in the book are believed to be based on facts. It has completely altered my perception of neanderthals. And it has been quite an escape for me, following Ayla's adventures through prehistoric Europe!

I just love sitting by the fireplace at night, reading, sipping wine, and enjoying the coziness of our den. I am about halfway through the fourth book in the series, "The Plains of Passage". I can't wait for the snow to start falling. I hope to awaken tomorrow to a fresh sparkling wonderland of white!