My bookish week in the PNW
There was lots of book-related fun to be had in my neck of the PNW last week!
From date night with my partner to outings to share with baby girl – these were the perfect excuses to get out into the real world this week.
This is a new post style for me, a bit closer to the true-to-form blog post than I’ve explored in a while. The style and format may take shape and change here and there, but I’m hoping to add these more casual chats fairly regularly, even if it doesn’t end up being every week. Sometimes mom is busy, you know?
Right now my books are my time to turn my mom brain off. Sometimes these outings are an excuse to talk books with people older than a year old, and sometimes they’re an excuse for the baby and I to simply get out of the house. And while I’m pretty sure this section of my “brand,” for lack of a better term, is mostly just me talking to myself on the internet, I like the idea of celebrating those fun memories and breaks in routine.
And if I get to celebrate all of the fun events and local small businesses around me at the same time? Truly all the better.
This week I’m reading…
The Devil of Arden by R.H. Linehan
As soon as I saw the author describing this as Robin Hood x A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I knew that I absolutely had to read it. Throw in Autumn Equinox vibes and a slow burn romance filled with banter and sassy nicknames, and I am all over it.
Storytime at Page and Pine Books
On Thursday morning baby girl and I attended the cutest story time hosted by Page and Pine, an independent bookstore in Puyallup that we absolutely love.
It was themed around nursery rhymes and, together with a small group of kiddos and their grownups, we spent the morning reading and singing about speckled frogs and itsy-bitsy spiders.
This was such a lovely way to spend a morning! It was just a quiet, low-pressure event completely centered around reading and singing and letting the babies show off their newly found walking skills by wandering all around the bookstore.
Plus, all of the other kiddos were really close in age to my baby girl as well – while she does have lots of “cousins,” there is a pretty wide range of ages in the group. So any time there is a group this close in her age it always feels like such a treat. At least it does for me.
And, of course, girlie takes after me, so we couldn’t leave without picking something out to take home with us. We decided to grab the Five Little Speckled Frogs book that was a part of the story time, and she very excitedly read it again with my partner that night before bedtime.
The Music of Jane Austen with the Seattle Symphony
Throughout the course of my life, I truly believe that I have spent at least two cumulative years watching Jane Austen adaptations.
And I’m not even counting the retellings, although I would argue that Clueless and the first Bridget Jones are possibly perfect movies. Sorry, film bros.
I’m a sucker for a BBC mini-series of all varieties.
And both the 1995 and 2005 Pride and Pejudices (Prides and Prejudice? Pride and Prejudici?) are among the pillars holding up my entire personality.
Truly I can’t have any form of potato with dinner without internally complimenting a fair cousin for the exemplary vegetable; or even think about the existence of my birthday without contemplating my status as a) a burden to my parents, and b) frightened.
So when I saw that the Seattle Symphony was hosting a night dedicated to the music of the adaptations that bewitch me body and soul, I immediately knew that I wanted to go – and my partner was amazing enough to get us tickets for my birthday!
There were people dressed in their Bridgerton-best, there was onsite book shopping from Seattle romance favorite Beguiled Books, and there was even someone leading regency style dancing in the lobby that Emma Woodhouse would have approved of. It was an absolute dream.
And there were two more stars of the evening, in addition to the symphony.
The first is soprano Jane Eaglen who was featured in several songs throughout the evening, and whose name you might recognize from the soundtrack for the Sense and Sensibility movie from 1995 starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Y’all, she was incredible.
The second was the host of the evening, acting as a narrator and storyteller – Susannah Harker, miss Jane Bennet herself from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice. Are you kidding me? I lost my mind. I fangirled. I want her to narrate my life.
This was seriously the best night. The music was so amazing. The dancing was so much fun. I only wish I had realized people were going to show up in costume, because I absolutely could have obsessed over that for the couple of weeks leading up to it.
Audiobook Walk with the Tacoma Silent Book Club
Tacoma’s chapter of the Silent Book Club got together on Sunday morning at Titlow Park to take a walk and soak in the sunshine of an early PNW summer day.
I used this walk to finish up The Breakup Vacation by Anna Gracia on audio. I pulled this one out of my Libro.fm library because after all of the fantasy/romantasy and other slightly more intense reading I’ve been doing lately, I wanted something a bit light. Something that I wouldn’t have to think too hard about, and I could just listen and giggle and kick my metaphorical feet about the romance. This book was all of that and more, and I really enjoyed it!
After the walk the group found a spot on the grass in the park to sit and chat, and a couple of folks even brought some fun beverages – let me tell you, I will be much more prepared with some fun snacks and things for the next meeting!
As a socially awkward person who quickly fell out of practice at talking to people who aren’t my partner or my baby, a Silent Book Club is truly my dream come true. You have the opportunity to make friends and chat about books as much as you’d like to, but you can also just sit and read and simply share space. No pressure to read the same book and prepare talking points, and no pressure to socialize more than you’re prepared for.
Tackling TBR 