Rainy Day Reads

So I did end up catching that flu bug that’s going around. My immune system held up for over 2 weeks though, so that’s rad. What’s not rad is how this flu is STILL going around even after more than two weeks. Anyway, I’m holed up in bed, because I’m too sick to get up and do anything remotely productive in between naps, and that's driving me nuts. So what better thing to do than to discuss all of the artsy books from 2017? {NOTE: And then I waited a FULL week to edit. Write when sick and delirious, edit when lucid and well is my personal version of that Ernest Hemingway quote, apparently} These are the books that are hard to describe under any other category, and are works of art. Or just the ones that are really, really, pretty. You know, artsy . And as usual, this isn't in any particular order. Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady My biology teacher from a couple years ago recommended this to me. It's absolutely beautiful. The author, Edith...

This is my very large and very beautiful volume of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. It's seven hundred pages, with embossed, intricate Celtic designs, gold edged pages, and the size of an old church bible. I purchased it shortly after Christmas last year, and have been chipping away at reading it for the last five months (according to my Goodreads activity). I got it because I love me some Irish folklore; I find it fascinating. You can't go wrong with folk tales that tell the legends of a giant named 'Finn MacCool'. There's a fantastical 'magic-is-always-around-the-corner' feel that permeates these tales, and they have a very 'telling stories passed down from generations past around the family hearth' vibe. I find short story compilations slightly discombobulating. I have no problem with a 700 page book when it's all one linear plot, but to have roughly 70 10(ish) page stories makes it hard to stay focused, because you're always ...

~terrariums, thievery, tea. what's not to love?~ Back in July, my mother and I took a terrarium planting class at Roosevelt's Terrariums . In the introduction to the class, the owner told an interesting story about how terrariums (thanks to their enclosed, miniature ecosystem in a bottle capabilities) made transport of plants on old sailing ships possible; allowing a man to sneak deep into China, learn all about tea farming, smuggle a large number of tea plants out of the country, and start a tea farm in Darjeeling, effectively breaking China's tea monopoly. I thought that it was a fascinating story, but sort of tucked it away in my head, and went on with my life. Fast forward two months later at a gift shop, and what do I spy but For All the Tea in China , an entire book written about that tea-stealing trip? What are the odds of hearing about a historical tidbit, only to see a book about it for sale mere months later? So because it looked fasc...