From Severe Mercy:

"But feelings-feelings were emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then-this was awful!-maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself: showing one's emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, than one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love-a great love...If he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain-if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice-and he suspected there was-a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe,, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths."

Blog Contest

Contest time! Win a copy of Josi S. Kilpack's book on Anne Bradshaw's blog!

CONTEST - for signed copy of Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack

What books are on your bedside table?

I'm trying to read most of the Whitney Award finalists among other books! One of the books I read I was surprised was a finalist.  The character never changed for the better.  And there was no closure for any of the characters. Maybe I read too much into the story...

I cleared off my book shelves a few weeks ago.  So I have a surplus of books I need to give away.  I read them and loved them and determined I would never read them again nor would my children so I am giving them away!

Can you tell what I am planning this summer?  If you come up with the right answer or close to it I will send you a book! The winner will get to choose from a variety of authors so you get a book you don't have/have read yet.

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!

Quotable Monday

"A well composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter any other way" Caroline Gordon (1895-1981)

Blog Contest

Here is a fun blog contest "Not Entirely British"!

CONTEST! Great Prize from Dr. Wally Goddard

Who can resist a book?  And a free book at that? So go to it!

Happy Birthday President Lincoln!

Here a couple of great websites to read about Abraham Lincoln and Ford's Theater:

Ford's Theater

Other Lincoln sites

President Abraham Lincoln struggled throughout the Civil War to preserve the Union. He lived long enough to see it maintained, but not long enough to help in healing the wounds left by the war.

He was a great president who worked hard and slept little to provide freedom and safety to Americans.

In honor of Abraham Lincoln, I am posting his 'Gettysburg Address."

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Book Review

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

"Princess of the Midnight Ball" is a retelling of the '12 Dancing Princesses' with the main character who happens to be a polite, kind orphan boy who knits!  

Galen finds his mother's sister who immediately takes him in. His uncle is the royal gardener and Galen becomes an under-gardner. He soon becomes involved in the Palace and more precisely, the princesses secrets. 

Each princess is named after a flower and Ms. George gives each sister something to remember her. One plays the pianoforte, another takes to praying often, another hates dancing.  

The queen wanting desperately to have children makes an unsavory bargain with an evil underworld being: King Under Stone. After the queen died, her 12 daughters have to fulfill the bargain. 

How will young Galen, a commoner, solve the royal mystery? You will need to read the book to find out. And while you are finding the book, pick up some knitting needles and yarn! There are knitting patterns in the back of the book! 

This book is a fun and intriguing read with its fair share of good twists and bad guys.

Plus surprises until right up to the end!