In Remembrance: Sylvia Plath

Today would have been Sylvia Plath's 87th birthday. Although there is much controversy surrounding her death in 1963 and her marriage with Ted Hughes, I don't want to focus on any of those things. Today I want to shed light on her writings.

Am I fan of Sylvia Plath? I don't know - I can't say. And perhaps this post will be oddly amusing to some of you because of that. Why would I write a post about a poet and author that I don't know how I feel about? Well, because in some ways I can't help but feel intensely connected to her.

When I read The Bell Jar, I hated it. Perhaps one day I will revisit it and discover that it holds a strong truth for me. Perhaps I read it at the wrong time, or reading about depression was too true and I just found it bleak and colourless. I don't know. But when I read about her, I feel connected to her soul. Some of her poems resonate with me strongly.

Here are a few pieces of her writings that mean a lot to me personally:

The Word, or The Page?

I was thinking about making a list of "Ten Books I Would Save in a Fire," and wondered immediately after how many people would think about it the same way I was. What kind of lists would everyone generate if they did one as well? Would their books contain specific copies of books they own (such as special editions), or would they just write down a list of their favourite books.

Of course, as a perpetual overthinker, this brought me to my next point: do people have a specific attachment to their exact copies of a book, or would any copy of it do? What I'm trying to say, in the most convoluted way, is that I am personally very fond of my specific copies and editions of many of my books, even if there is nothing technically special about them.

Why? It's the same book...

An Interview...with Me!

Do you know Clo @ Cuppa Clo? If not, you should - she's lovely! Clo, alongside Sophia @ Bookwyrming Thoughts, runs the event Novel Newcomers, which focuses on new book bloggers. This time, they are featuring book bloggers who started within the past two years - and that's me! 

So, I got the opportunity to be interviewed by Clo and to be featured on her blog. Want to learn more about me? Well, you can read that interview here.

If you enjoy the interview and want to know more, please feel free to post some questions for me below in the comments here and I would love to answer those questions in a future post.

TTT: Extraordinary Book Titles

It's been quite some time since I did a Top Ten Tuesday, but this one was so fun that I couldn't miss it. There are a bunch of ways I could have gone with this, but I mostly decided on some of the most ridiculous-sounding book titles I know. Yes, I have completely gotten used to some of them as time as gone on, but looking back at them, they are utterly silly. Thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl for a great topic once again!

1) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2) The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales - Oliver Sacks

3) Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love - Maryrose Wood

4) Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants - Dav Pilkey

5) Away Laughing on a Fast Camel - Louise Rennison (Cue: any books in her Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series)

Favourite Five: Movie Musicals as an Adult

A while back I did a list of my favourite movie musicals as a child, however some people were interested in also hearing what my favourites were now. So, I will oblige. The truth is that I've had this post in my drafts since about...forever? I had the hardest time limiting it to just five. If I had to pick musical on their own, and not just movie musicals, I have no idea what I would do. These are my current five favourites (in no particular order)...well, at least the best I can compile them:

variety.com

1) Gigi

filmcomment.com

   2) Yentl

September 2019 Update

The slowest viewing month I've had in ages!

Started Watching:

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Poldark - season 1 - started and finished, 5
What, didn't you just watch this? Why yes, yes I did. So, I got family members hooked on the series and we are watching it together! We have just finished season 1, and will be starting season 2 sometime this week. The fifth season started yesterday, so I am now watching that as well. Re-watching has served as a very interesting reminder about a couple of character's less-than-perfect moments, and it will be fun watching the old side-by-side with the new.

YA in Review: Catalyst (Laurie Halse Anderson)

This post will essentially be Spoiler Free, however comments by other users may possibly contain information that spoils portions of the plot, so read at them your own risk. Catalyst is a companion novel to Speak, occurring in the same environment, but with an entirely different set of characters.

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What it's about:

Kate Malone is a straight-A student, preacher's daughter, member of the track team, and has a gorgeous, brainiac boyfriend. Yet, more than all of that, there is one thing that defines her - she belongs at MIT - she just has to wait for her acceptance letter. Yet, even though Kate might be waiting, life is still zooming forwards. After her classmate's house burns down Kate is forced to share her room with bully Teri Litch and her young brother while they rebuild. Now, Kate is dealing with classes, relationships, waiting to get into school, sharing her home, taking care of her own brother, getting noticed at cross-country meets, and helping kleptomaniac Teri. But she can handle it for a few more months...can't she?