A Week of Rereading...

I like revisiting a book I've already read for some of the same reasons I like returning to the same beach house again and again; it's familiar. I know what to expect and I know all the best spots, so I can just relax and enjoy the experience. And with no library books currently hanging over my head, I decided to take a break from my TBR shelf and spend a few days rereading some old favorites.

I bought Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field by Melissa Nathan over a decade ago when I was going through my British chic lit phase, and I wanted to see if it was as funny as I remembered (and if I still want to keep it). Jasmin Field is a journalist who has been cast as Lizzie Bennet in a stage version of Pride and Prejudice being produced for a charity event; the director of the play is Oscar-winning actor Harry Noble, whom Jasmine finds as arrogant as he is handsome. Life imitates art when Harry finds himself unexpectedly attracted to her. (You can see where this is going, can't you?) Despite being completely predictable, this bit of romantic fluff is still fun. (But I might be ready to let it go.)

Then, being in the mood for a little more romance, I binge read three of my favorite Rosamunde Pilcher books--those deceptively simple yet beautifully written novels about two people falling in love, where the spaces between the lines and what isn't said is almost more important than what is. (As a bookish bonus, they're also all set in amazingly irresistable places like Scotland, Cornwall, and Mallorca.) My chosen threesome? Snow in April, The Day of the Storm, and Sleeping Tiger. It was like being on summer vacation...and just what I needed this week.

Happy Rereading!

Happy Birthday, L. Frank Baum!

L. Frank Baum created the amazing, fantastic, and wonderful world of Oz...a world I loved as a child. I collected all fourteen Oz books and happily read them over and over, especially my three favorites: Ozma of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, and Glinda of Oz. Such great reads! I was enchanted by Baum's unique and fun characters: Billina, the talking hen, the Woozy, the Nome King, Tik-Tok, the wind-up mechanical man, Polychrome, the Rainbow King's daughter, Glinda the Sorceress, and of course, Princess Ozma and Dorothy. But most of all, I loved Oz itself. Who wouldn't love a place where books grow on trees, inanimate objects come to life, animals talk, and magic exists? I always wanted to go there--see the Emerald City and Glinda's palace, take a stroll down the yellow brick road, pick a 3-course nut for lunch, visit Miss Cuttenclip and her town of paper dolls as well as the puzzle-piece people of Fuddlecumjig, spin on the Merry-Go-Round Mounts, and hang out with Dorothy and Toto and all their friends.

The Oz books fueled my imagination growing up; rereading his books now is like revisiting childhood. Ray Bradbury once described Oz as a place "where the young stay young and the old grow young forever--these books are for readers of all ages." I couldn't agree more. So, here's to L. Frank Baum and the wonderful world of Oz that he created!

Happy Reading!

Children's Book Day

"I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, 

and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy.  And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child.  I still believe in stories.  I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book.  Yet it is not the same.  Books are, for me ... the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that.  When I was a child, books were everything." --Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

     On Children's Book Day, take a moment to remember the books you loved as a child.  Revisit the magic and wonder of Oz.  Return to the world of Nancy Drew where mystery and adventure ruled.  Reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Pick up any children's book that once made you smile and remember how it felt to read your favorite book from childhood for the very first time.  Which childhood book will you choose?

Happy Rereading!