saturday afternoon. playing with paper and roses. small arrangements.
reading. piddling. taking pictures. waiting for rain.
no talking. no being talked to.
finished state of wonder. looking for something GOOD. any suggestions?
MARY ANN MOSS
MARY ANN MOSS
saturday afternoon. playing with paper and roses. small arrangements.
reading. piddling. taking pictures. waiting for rain.
no talking. no being talked to.
finished state of wonder. looking for something GOOD. any suggestions?
Ooh book talk! Love that! I second many of the recommendations already here: I Capture the Castle, M.M. Kaye books, esp. Shadow of the Moon, and Alexander McCall Smith. All wonderful reads! I absolutely adore the Jalna series by Mazo de la Roche. And I just finished reading a book called Still Life by Louise Penny. I enjoyed it so much, and I’m especially excited because it’s part of a mystery series with several volumes!
A funny coincidence – I had never read any books by Ann Patchett, so after reading about her on Dispatch from LA, I checked some out {including State of Wonder} at the library a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I learned that she just opened an independent bookstore in Nashville, TN called Parnassus. It’s only a couple of hours from me, so I can’t wait to visit! Hope I like her books!
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner or any stories by Alice Munro. I love visiting your site always.
I love love love to see these beautiful roses on a blustery gray cold winter Seattle day. Thank you for sharing.
Maine. I usually read 3-4 books at a time but read this straight through once it took hold of me.
Violet sparked some creativity in me with her generousity and I totally forgot my humble suggestions for some good reads: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows- oh how you will smile with this one. A more serious read but fascinating is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I, also, loved 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
I am currently reading two at the moment (because I have no self-control and had to peek at the other when I’d just started the first)! The Night Circus – Perfect!! and Wildwood. You will love both, I just know it :~D
For planet lovers, Eaarth by Bill Mckibben. A different spelling for a different place. A bit depressing but I’m hoping it gets less so as it continues.
Marvelous pics and love your new header. Your flowers and paper collages are swoon-worthy. If you think you might like mysteries with a vintage bent/child prodigy protagonist give Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries a try, set in 1950’s England. Another transporting mystery set in modern India is The Case of The Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. Funny, with a gift for capturing the characters endearing foibles.
Floating is good. Everybody stay in the pool, but no splashing allowed.
I’ve been on a Jane Austen kick lately, tho. I just drifted into Cranford. I do love Elizabeth Gaskell. If you enjoy cop/mystery/crime…Ian Rankin’s Rebus books are great..all set in Scotland.
I’m off to float some more.
Love from e.w., the floating queen.
Lovely photographs … and visually interesting piles of paper, tape and pictures. Let’s see those finished pages!
thank you everyone for these wonderful book titles! ive been downloading samples left and right on my kindle.
violet i am awarding you the BUCK MOSS cat rescue award for saving SNICKERS from a certain death. Buck will deliver it personally. be on the lookout!
I’m thinking you might enjoy “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith. A little gem of a book.
Your photographs are brilliant Mz Moss!
More pretty pictures. A visual feast! Recently finished Shanghai Girls by Lisa See and am working on the sequel Dreams of Joy. Also for a quick read, Janet Evanovich has another book coming out on Tuesday, Explosive Eighteen.
I second the recommendation by Violet to read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon; amazing read!
Had to come back and let you all know that the lost cat I found is now home with his Mama. My son found a lost cat sign today and I called the phone number, and HURRAH it was the right home. Snickers was 17 years old and blind. I don’t know how he made it 10 days and ended up three streets away from his home. It was lovely to see him get back to his owners. Kinda makes up for the five hours I spent today in the Urgent Care with another son getting 7 stiches in his toe after walking around without shoes on and stepping on a piece of glass — he was in his bedroom cleaning, saw the broken glass and put it in a plastic trash bag on the floor where he was putting trash, continued to clean and then stepped right on top of the glass in the trash bag. What are the odds!
Mmmmm, I can smell those roses! Several of my favorites this year were Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, The Help, Blue Shoe (by Anne Lamott), The Little Giant of Aberdeen County and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. Also, anything by Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series – read in chronological order).
Ahhh….such gorgeous colors and images!
By now, you might literally be “floating”…what’s going on with “It never rains in California”??? I was skyping with the little family and the cats came in soaked! Oh that the weekend would be longer. I have no satisfactory reads to pass along. I haven’t been overjoyed with my selections of late. I’m going to investigate the new Catherine the Great!
Got The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides for my bday from Micah. So far I’m LOVING IT. I’m a huge fan of Middlesex, so it figures! ….I’ll cruise my nightstand book pile and get back to ya.
Beautiful pictures.
I’m copying down the recommendations other people have mentioned. New books to discover. Yay! If you read fantasy at all (and this book isn’t super fantasy-ish), I loved The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.
If you’re younger than I am, which I think you are, you may not have read two of the biggest hits of the ’70s, The Far Pavilions and Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye. Wonderful historical fiction. M.M. Kaye knows the world she wrote about very, very well and was an incredible writer. (Go with The Far Pavilions first.)
Have your read The Elegance of the Hedgehog? If you love Paris, you’ll love it. If you love Dublin, read Ghost Light by Joseph O’Conner. Love London? Christopher Fowler’s Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries. Love the West of Ireland? Cora Harrison’s Burren Mysteries.
Thoughts on Tape Anyone?
I was just thinking about all things I use to use scotch tape on and how now the tape has yellowed and doesn’t stick anymore. Photo’s, cook books, etc. Does anyone worry about the tape losing its stickiness down the road that you use in your journals? Just curious, any thoughts?
Such delicate sweetness in those blooms and collections in waiting….and a thank you to your lovely visitors for so many tempting books to read, one can’t ever have a book list that is too long. VBG.
Love your journal pages.
Violet, you dear dear lady people like you make me believe the world isn’t such a bad place after all. Bless you and your hound.
So much beauty.
1Q84 by Murukami – it will blow your mind!
Love the new header 🙂
oh, The Sparrow is great! And The Marriage Plot.
I loved Out Stealing Horses, but it ain’t for every dang one.
I’m reading and loving The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters…..two orphaned sisters living in a junk shop in the middle of a cornfield, think Nebraska Gothic……quirky and funny and sad all at the same time…
I have just finished reading The Thread by Victoria Hislop ….she also wrote The island and The Return … all three are interesting and I love the way the stories are interwoven into the backcloth of great events in history …I’m sure you would love them
I want to second the recommendation for The Sparrow. I am not a science fiction reader but it is one of the top 4 books that I have ever read! I am a avid reader all my life and also recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and Major Pettigrew’s last Stand. Both are recommendations from NPR’s Diane Rehm show. Enjoy.
It’s 3:00 am and the smell of roses lingers. Piles of paper and a painting just begun call me from the studio. No one to please but me .. night drifting. The wee hours of the morning are delicious … if you don’t have any little monkey minds in the morning! :o) Donna
I just finished the last in the Outlander series, a series I thought I would never like if I relied upon the discriptions. BUT I LOVED it! And, there are about 7 books, so you can have a total orgy of reading for months. I called in sick some days just to curl up in my bed with Jaime…well, and Claire. My day started out so energentically, I decided to finish my quilt, which I have been inventing along the way as I have never made one. Hauled out the sewing machine, set it up, pinnned and sewed until my barking dog made me come out and follow her. She went to the very corner of our large yard and barked and poked her nose at a cat lying in the bushes. The cat was so out of it, he could barely raise his head. I ran and got a cat carrier and opened a can of cat food and lured him into the carrier. He is SOOOOO skinny, I can’t believe it! I had to go buy a cat box and he is now installed in a bathroom with a heater. He is such a sweet cat, he can barely stand but wants to be petted, he purrs and butts his head on my leg. On Monday I will take him to the vet and see if he has a chip and if we can find his owner.
Just finished The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond, which I enjoyed a lot. Jodi Piccoult-ish. Love the flowers, love your new header!
Another vote for The Night Circus….
Did you like State of Wonder? I have been wanting to read it.
try Jeffrey Eugenides — The Marriage Plot — also Anthony Doerr — Four Seasons in Rome (a memoir) and also everything else he’s written.
Wasn’t the sky a marvel today?
My suggestion is to merely enjoy being in the state of floating…just as you describe it. My day is a feeling of listless motions and no desire to do anything more than honor my empty void of losing Sasha BooBoo kitty after 18 years of total togetherness. Mr. C and I are “traumotional” over our loss this week. I know you understand since your loss of Buck. Your roses are beautiful and I can almost smell their heady perfume. I adore your honest post and I thank you…
I just finished Divergent (think Hunger Games). A really quick read – and good. Found it hard to put down.
I just finished The Sparrow, scifi is not my usual genre but my son really wanted me to read it. It was a page turner though I sobbed (for reals) at the end. Don’t you love getting good book recommends?
S
Have you read The Night Circus yet? I’m only 100 pages in but so far I’m loving it. It’s just as intriguing as the title suggests – midnight dinner parties, magic, a duel between 2 magicians. Absolutely luscious so far. The author rewrote parts of it in a bound book using a vintage fountain pen and gray ink and I swear it shows 🙂
Soooo beautiful.
I love Mark Helprin’s writing and am currently, thoroughly enjoying Memoir From Antproof Case. Can highly recommend it – especially to a ‘reader’…..
SO SO luscious…..