The Secret Papers of Madame Olivetti by Annie Vanderbilt and The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

Acquired Books By: Vanderbilt’s book was purchased by me, whilst scouring through all the rows and stacks of discounted books at BAM! [Books-A-Million] approx. Autumn 2010! :) It was a blissful afternoon, where you just wander around a bookstore, not really in search of anything in particular, but your eye and heart are drawn into the stories that your reading, as you pick up one book at a time and realise that with the price marked down as low as it is, you could afford a nice stack of ‘new!’ paperbacks that are all but discarded and disinterested by others! Authors you’ve never heard of and a few that you have! This was one of those books that I felt had to come home with me that day! Whereas the Forest Lover was gifted to me by Mum! :)

Why these two books have intrigued me to read them!?

Thursday — Sinking into literary fiction, one of my favourite places to be!

Number of Pages Devoured | Out of: Haunted:  43 | 43 ; Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness:  46 | ? ; The Secret Papers of Madame Olivetti:  0 | 0 ; Lark Rise to Candleford:  0 | 0

Tally of Pages Read Thus Far: 490!!

Books in Progress | continuing onward | happily consumed:  3 | 3 | 1!!

A six word summary of today’s reading: at long last the mystery eclipses!

Best Chapter: coming soon!

Favourite Character: Toss up between: Darcy, Mrs. O’ Hara, & Penny!

Challenge Participation? Book Road Trip & I Spy my Bookshelves! Simply overjoyed I could take part in these challenges because they were an absolute delight! :) What I loved about the Book Road Trip is that it proved where I have the tendency to travel in the books that I gravitate towards reading AND with the I Spy my Bookshelves, it shows that even if you have a small collection of books, you will surprise yourself by what is included on the cover art!! :) :) I put in quite a work-out darting from one shelf to another! Laughs. The Book Road Trip took approx. 4 hours in total, as it took a long time to not only sort out which books qualified for which category but which categories I wanted to focus on! :) :) Such a lovely day for challenges! I look forward to visting the others’ who took part as well! :)

Book Road Trip : All Books Pulled from my TBR Jar! :)

Hallo, Hallo! :) :) This was a heap of fun! I loved yesterday’s book spine poetry challenge AND today’s is even sweeter as I organised books in my TBR Jar by ‘locale!’ :) Wicked sweet! Mind you, with my list you need to travel by car, ferry, and ship/or/plane!! Bless Book Browse & my local library for helping me sort this all out!! :) Rock on, Bout’ers!! I added on the fact I needed to find at least 5 books I want to read under each section! :)

1. ENGLAND: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
   • Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William M. Kuhn
   • The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James
   • The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
   • The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
   • The American Heirest by Daisy Goodwin
2. CANADA:  Galore by MichaelCrummey
   • Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
   • *clearly i need to sort out more Canadian lit!*
   • *I refrained from listing *every!* Montgomery title I want to read!*
3. AUSTRALIA|NEW ZEALAND: The Light Between the Oceans by Margot L. Stedman
   • Cocaine Blues {Phryne Fisher mysteries} by Kerry Greenwood
   • The Fine Colour of Rust by P.A. O’Reilly
   • Beauty for Ashes by Dorothy Love
   • The Colour of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe
4. INDIA: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
   • Miss New India by Bharti Mukherjee
   • Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors
   • The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran
   • Garment in Shadows {a Mary Russell mystery} by Laurie R. King
   • Sideways on a Scooter {Life & Love in India} by Miranda Kennedy
   • Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
5. KENTUCKY|TEXAS|OHIO: Calling Me Home by JulieKibler
   • Looking for Me by Beth Hoffman
   • Courting Marrow Little by Laura Frantz
   • Roses by Leila Meacham
   • Love on the Line by Deeanne Gist
   • Head in the Clouds by Karen Witemeyer
   • The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier
   • The Kingdom of Ohio by ?
   • *honestly, this could be a overfilled section if I were truthful!*
6. PACIFIC NORTHWEST: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford
   • Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks
   • The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
   • The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
   • *i love this region, i need to explore it further!*
7. CALIFORNIA: The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood
   • The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice
   • The Bughouse Affair {Carpenter & Quincannon mystery} by Marcia Muller
   • The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo
   • The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli
   • Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
   • The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Piffenbaugh
   • The Perfect Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
   • The Wives of Henry Oades by Jonathan Moran
   • Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allend
   • *clearly i am ‘california dreaming’!!*
8. BOSTON|&/or|MASSACHUSETTS: The Art Forger by Barbara A.Shaprio
   • The Technologists by Matthew Pearl
   • Next To Love by Ellen Feldman
   • The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
   • Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara
   • The Gilly Salt Sisters by Tiffany Baker
9. NEW YORK: The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
   • The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
   • Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
   • The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
   • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran
10. EUROPE:  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by NeilGaiman
    • The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
    • The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
    • The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill
    • The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor
    • Madame Tussand by Michelle Moran
    • A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay
    • The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner

I Spy My Bookshelves,… and here’s what I am finding: [all books are physical books – either hardback or softcover!]

I cannot wait to dig into my shelves and see what I can find! :) Ironically, I wish I had all my books unpacked, as I might have had a better chance at finding, say ‘combat boots OR hand-cuffs’!! Laughs. I’ll do the best I can! At least, I get to re-appreciate my book covers!! Hmm,… I wonder how everyone else is progressing with this challenge!?

• snowflakes | does ‘fresh fallen snow’ count? on the front cover of “The Parson’s Christmas Gift” by Kerri Mountain
• flames | 3 lit flickering flamed candles one each on the following: front cover, back cover, & spine of “An Unexpected Pleasure” by Candace Camp; 3 lit flaming candles in canning jars on the front cover of “Fly Away” by Kristin Hannah
• a city skyline | “London, England, UK” on the front cover of “Ticket to Danger” {a Cassandra mystery} by Jennifer Austin; “Miami, Florida, USA” on the front cover of “Blood Ties” by Sharon Sala
• the moon | on the front cover of “Deadly Gift” {Flynn Brothers trilogy} by Heather Graham; on the front cover of “Dragon Rider” by Cornelia Funke
• a sword | more than one! on the front cover of “Eragon” by Christopher Paolini; one sword on the front cover of “At the Captain’s Command” by Louise M. Gouge; on the front cover of “Love’s Pardon” by Darlene Mindrup
• a wedding dress | on the front cover of “A Bride in the Bargain” by Deeanne Gist; on the front cover of “Deep in the Heart of Trouble” by Deeanne Gist; on the front cover of “The Convenient Groom” by Denise Hunter; on the front cover of “Spring Creek Bride” by Janice Thompson; on the front cover of “The Wedding Dress” {Annie’s Attic mysteries} by Mary O’ Donnell
• high heels | on the front cover of “Murder in Volume” by D.R. Meredith; on the front cover of “Little Town, Great Big Life” by Curtiss Ann Matlock; 3 pairs of them on the cover of “The Good Kind of Crazy” by Tanya Michaels
• fog | on the front cover of “Essays and Poems” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• a Christmas tree | a pink Christmas tree w/ ornaments planted in the waves at a shoreline! on the cover of “Holidays are Murder” by Charlotte Douglas
• sunglasses | of course I found plenty of beach hats & umbrellas — no sunglasses!
• lightning | on the front cover of “Stormbreaker” {Alex Rider novel} by Anthony Horowitz
• a tattoo | the skull & vine pattern reminds me of a fancy tattoo design! on the cover of “Thyme of Death” {a China Bayles mystery} by Susan Wittig Albert
• combat boots | of course I found all sorts of ‘boots’, just not for combat!
• hand-cuffs | the very one I knew I wouldn’t find!
• a road | on the back cover of “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe; on the front cover of “Just Shy of Harmony” by Philip Gulley

Bout of Books blogs I visited: [by 2:30p] 11!!! [Devouring Texts], [The Paige Turner], [Divergent Gryffinder], [Library of Mallory], [Read. Run. Study.], [Listful Booking], [The Polished Page Turner], [Miss Reader’s Reading Adventures: had to email my comment instead!], [Life: Merging I, II & III], [Bookeater/Booklover: I & II], [Bookworm in Barrie], and I had meant to continue going backwards to the start of my Master List of Blogs to Visit, except that the fierceness of the storms blocked my attempts!

*Thanks to Bree, of [Coffee Bean Bookshelf] to help me re-organise this part of my daily journals of the Bout!

Tick Tock, there goes the clock:

11:00a-2:30p: Making my rounds to all the lovely Bout’er blogs! I am starting at the bottom of my list and shifting upward! Morrow I’ll reverse course and start at the beginning! :) I had planned to do this each day since the Bout began, but let’s not digress!! I am also not acknowledging my inability to wake prior to 11a! Let’s face it, how many NIGHT OWLs can actually get up EARLY if you turn in by 2 or 3am!? Hmm, mmm, I bet there was a show of hands and nodding going on!!!

There is seriously nothing better to start one’s day than a large espresso raspberry mocha latte!! And, if you’ve been reading my blog for a bit, you’ll notice that this is my cuppa of choice!! Mind you, I would have preferred to be snuggled into the ending chapters of Haunted! whilst I sipped this divine concotion, but the next best thing!? Blog hoppin’ through the Bout’ers!! :) :)

Cuppa love: lunch in a mug! :) :) Yum, yum leftover quinoa casserole all warm & toasty in a blue mug! Yumm!

2:30p: Digging into the books!! Now, who in their right minds would steal a heap of bones, unless to discredit the identification!? Haunted is surely getting interesting in the ending chapters!! :)

5p-6p: Wickedly smashing homemade ice cream w/ specks of real vanilla bean, crumbled cookie, and caramel! Smothered over a fresh-pressed waffle cone! Yum, Yum!

[ as seems the favour, the afternoon was littered with firece lightning and thunder!! the rain at least dropped the muggy atmosphere quite a bit! ]

6:30p: [round, round the Bout’ers!] + [sorting out y Bookish Road Trip!]

8:00p: [dinner break!]

10:00p: Finished Haunted! Went on a mad-dash search for the “I Spy my Bookshelves” challenge and came up with some surprisingly plentiful answers! I thought I wouldn’t have nearly as much as I have! Goodness! :)

All the posts interlinked to *Bout of Books, 8.0* are a work-in-progress post! Therefore, what you read on one visit, might alter/change or be added to by the time you swing back!!

{SOURCES: Bout of Books Badge created by Jorie in Canva to give readers & visitors who come to her blog a way to know of its existence and therefore increasing the mystery & lore surrounding it!! Seriously wicked bookish, coffee and library badges {entirely FREE!} provided by Squeesome Designs!}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2013.