WRAP-UP | March 2018

Can you believe it’s going to be April tomorrow?! I really can’t! I don’t often feel that time passes very quickly, but this month does seem like it flew by in some respects. It was an overall good month for me, including in regard to reading! I didn’t read as much as I sometimes do in a month, but that’s because I read The Hobbit and The Cruel Prince, two books I really took my time with and LOVED. So of course I’m happy to read any amount when it has been reading I’ve so greatly enjoyed. I was also very busy with work this month, as we are on deadline and I was simultaneously working on an extra project, so really this was a fantastic reading month, all things considered!

 

 

“‘First of all, Harry, I want to thank you,’ said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. ‘You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you.'”

 

 

I finally finished my reread of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets! I read this one quite slowly, just a few chapters a day, but I enjoyed that! I’ve read this many times before, but this was my first experience with the illustrated edition. I loved it so much! It’s incredible how I can still discover something new in these stories. Ahhhhh Harry Potter …

 

 

“Tired as he was, Bilbo would have liked to stay a while. Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.”

 

 

Oh how I adored this book! After having many of his books on my shelves for years and years, I have finally taken the dive into Tolkien’s incredible universe, and I’m so glad. I’d been reading this along with some bookish friends over on Bookstagram, and it has been such a joy! We’re continuing with The Fellowship of the Ring, and I’m loving this world dearly. I really gave this all of my attention, and that, along with being on deadline and working on a special project simultaneously at work, contributed to a smaller amount of books read for me this month. And I’m so grateful to this epic story and its legendary author for helping me to slow down and savor reading.

 

 

“Sing a song of Larch trees

Love by fairy-folk;

Dark stands the pinewood,

Bare stands the oak,

But the Larch is dressed and trimmed

Fit for fairy-folk!”

 

Since the spring equinox took place this month, I celebrated by rereading Cicely Mary Barker’s darling little book of art and poems and fairies themed around the season. I’ve been rereading these every season, and it’s such a delight.

 

 

“I focus my attention on the cloth until I can breathe evenly again, until the panic dissipates. There’s a velvet blue-green, reminding me of the lake at dusk. I find an amazing, fantastical fabric embroidered with moths and butterflies and ferns and flowers. I lift it up, and underneath is a bolt of beautiful fog-gray cloth that ripples like smoke. They’re so very pretty. The kind of fabrics that princesses in fairy tales wear.”

 

 

This. BOOK. It was so fantastic! I already want to reread it, and I’m so anxious to read the next one in the series. It also made me sure that I must pick up the rest of Black’s work. Up until now I had only read her collaborations, but this was everything I love. Vicious fairies drenched in beauty, decadent descriptions, court intrigue—GAH. I’m obsessed!

 

 

Want a full review on any of my March 2018 reads? Let me know in the comments!