Tomorrow, Monday, 20 March, marks the first day of Spring! Even though Winter hasn’t been too difficult this year in my little corner of the world, I’ve still been looking forward to Springtime. It’s been extremely freeing to not hold myself to an arbitrary list of books; my general goal has been to read through the books I already own and that has been quite a bit of fun!

From my On Upcoming Reads – Winter 2022-2023 list, however, I did finish:

• Girls’ Club, by Sarah, Sally, and Joy Clarkson (review here)
• The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge (review here)

Both of these books took me more time to read than I thought, and at first I was becoming increasingly annoyed with myself for not finishing them quickly. There are so many books I want to read, but more and more I really want to savour the books I read. This does mean I will end up reading less over all, but it also means I have begun choosing books I will probably be more likely to recommend and reread.

I’ve been slowly making my way through The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper for the first time. While I’m enjoying this world’s mythology and adventure, my mind and spirit have been longing for stories that invoke feelings of rest, slowness, and beauty. Ideally:

• A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter (It’s been over twenty years since I first read this book. While I have forgotten most of the particulars of the story I have never forgotten the feeling it imprinted on my imagination, almost like a soft sigh.)
• The Complete Tales And Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne (I don’t know if I’ve ever read all of the poetry in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six and I think it’s time to rectify that oversight.)
  • When We Were Very Young
  • Winnie-the-Pooh
  • Now We Are Six
  • The House At Pooh Corner
• The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (Although a more recent read via audio recording, I am looking forward to reading a physical copy and have forgotten enough of the story that it will feel as though I’m reading it for the first time.)