Happy #bookreview day! And it's the first book review of September; yes, I know fall doesn't officially begin until later this month, but as a teacher, fall begins with back-to-school time.
And what an... interesting... back to school time it has been so far.
But I'll save that for other blog posts, because today is all about the book review!
This summer one of my favourite reads was A Girl Walks Into a Book. I don't typically read a lot of nonfiction, but I really don't know why; I generally enjoy it, particularly memoir-style nonfiction.
Maybe it just needs to be about the right subject matter.
Like, you know, about a woman who loves books, particularly classic books, especially the Brontes...
As readers, I think we've all had that experience of finding the perfect book to fit our lives at a perfect time. That's what this book is about: Miranda Pennington experiencing the perfect Bronte book to help her through different points of her life.
Since it is a memoir, some parts the reader may personally identify with. Other parts, maybe not so much. But I really loved this book.
Full disclosure: Jane Eyre is the book that made me fall absolutely in love with reading. I may be more of a Jane Austen fan now, but while I did read before, it was Jane Eyre that did it for me.
It was the summer before the fourth grade, and I'd have been about nine years old, I think. And I read Jane Eyre. I liked reading before, but whether it was because it was the first "grown-up" classic I read, or because of its strong female protagonist, I just loved it. I didn't know words could be like that, that they could be so beautiful.
I've reread Jane Eyre a few times since then. In fact, Pride and Prejudice is the only book I've reread more, actually, excluding the ones I teach of course.
So I get, on a personal level, where Pennington is coming from. But even the elements with which I could not identify, I enjoyed.
When I'm reading, I often take pictures of lines and sentences and descriptions that strike me as effective, or beautiful, or creative... I took fourteen different pictures while reading this book! Fourteen times I was impelled to nod my head in agreement, smile, gasp, other otherwise "huh" over Pennington's descriptors.
"Truth in fiction never makes it weaker, but
anchors it, unlike lying in nonfiction,
which is like robbing a tree of its roots."
Also I seriously agree with Pennington's appraisal of Wuthering Heights, a book for while I feel strongly...and not necessarily positive.
Yes! I thought, reading this. Yes, absolutely, absolutely yes.
So maybe I have personal reason to love this book so much, since I personally identified with it so much.
But above all, this is a book for those who love books, for those who love classic books, especially any of the Bronte works. It is a book about the books that we love, that change us, and finding those books at the exact right time.
And for me, this summer, it is the book that got me back into reading this summer.
So maybe this was one of those books for me?
"Besides, sometimes in moments of intense sorrow holding
up a book and remembering to turn the pages is beyond
our capacity as humans. Good books require us to activate our
imaginations and transport ourselves somewhere else. When
changing clothes or showering seems like too much work, there's
no way we have enough energy to travel through space and time.
The best we can do is give our red and weeping eyes something
pretty to stare at. That is why Netflix was invented, and with
it, the literary miniseries."
So if you didn't read as much as you wanted to, if you didn't create, or learn a new language, or cross all those projects off your to-do lists; if you spent more time in sweats watching Netflix than working out or learning a new hobby... that's totally okay. And I thought this quotation fit the time in which I was reading it.
You know, kind of like the perfect book with the perfect message reaching you at the perfect time.
Have you had that experience of finding the perfect book at the perfect time? (Or rather, the perfect book finding you at the perfect time?)
Respond below, or via my contact page, here. And don't forget to subscribe to my (occasional) newsletter!