Month: October 2017

8 Songs That Remind Me of “Lost”

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Anyone who knows me well is probably aware that that music is really the only form of pop culture I’m terrible at keeping up with. I don’t like a lot of modern Top 40 music and my iPod (yes, I keep music on an iPod I got in 2009 rather than on my phone) is a little embarrassing, filled with show tunes and songs that hit their peak about a decade ago.

However, videos like this one inspire me to think about more recent music in terms of book and TV characters. The mood or lyrics of a song can easily summarize a character’s motives, personality, or experiences in just a few minutes. When I was finishing Lost back in freshman year of college, I imposed a hiatus on myself in the last few weeks of the year – I wouldn’t watch Lost because if I finished one episode, I’d just want to keep going. During that little break, so many songs that popped up on my Pandora instantly made me think of certain characters on the show.

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When I completed the series in July 2014,  I wrote a journal entry about my thoughts upon finishing the show and why it had become so important to me. I included the songs I had paired with certain characters, which I thought would be fun to share and talk about today! I’ve also adapted a bit of the original journal entry to include some very emotional gibberish about why Lost is amazing.

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10 of My Favorite Book Quotes

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I mentioned before that I’ve kept a notebook of book quotes since I was 16, and six years after starting that collection, it’s still going strong! From my eleventh grade summer reading assignments to current reads that are more likely to align with my mom’s book choices than ever before, any writing that left me thinking, crying, or laughing is captured in this notebook.

Obviously, this record has a crazy amount of quotes, so I wanted to share 10 of my favorites from the first few pages, which equates to what I read my last two years of high school and freshman year of college. You can totally tell where I was in school when flipping through the quote book (the classics mentioned below? Some of them were assigned reading). I loved picking these out, so I will definitely do another post covering the next chunk of my notebook!

While the majority of these books were first-time reads, quotes from the Anne of Green Gables series pop up throughout my notebook because I’m always rereading them and finding new bits that I love!

“Emma’s mid-twenties had brought a second adolescence even more self-absorbed and doom-laden than the first one.” 

One Day, David Nicholls

I’m in a bit of a slow, transitory phase of my life now, and it’s hard not to get frustrated with the pace of things when everyone around me seems to already be on their next adventure. The quote above resonates with my current mindset. I must have read One Day when I was only a high school junior, so I don’t know why this quote about a proper grown-up appealed to me. It’s part of why I write down quotes I like – they’re words of encouragement or wisdom for the future.

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3 Topics That Will Convince Me to Pick Up a Book

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If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you probably have a sense of what kind of topics I gravitate to the most in books and TV shows. My reading material is particularly predictable, and I’m a little less likely to try out a new book genre than I am to watch a different kind of TV show. Essentially, I know what I like, and supernatural, fantasy, paranormal, and thriller stories rarely interest me. Even as a kid, the Harry Potter books were really my only foray into fantasy stories. and I mostly read contemporary or historical fiction.

Below, I’m sharing the top topics that are bound to convince me to read a certain book. No matter how many books I read with these features, I can never get enough! I’m always looking for recommendations, so leave a few titles in the comments if you know a book that fits one of these molds!

1. The Kennedys

I’m a fiend for non-fiction about the Kennedy family. When the summer comes around each year, I just get in the mood for long, in-depth books about these people. You know that I love stories about big, multi-generational families, and the Kennedys are the real-life equivalent of that. I can read as many as two or three Kennedy-related books in a row before I have to take a break. This year’s books were Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot and Jackie After O. Yes, there’s tons of books out there about JFK and RFK’s politics, but what draws me in are the family sagas and marriage narratives. I’m secretly hoping for a new Kennedy dynasty to become 1960s-level famous just so there are more books about them someday.

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More “If These Books Were Movies…”

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Some of my favorite blog posts are about my wish list casting of the book-to-movie adaptations I’d want to see someday (here, here, and here). I loved putting together this one, which leans a bit more on the fantastical side than the realistic one. Nevertheless, here are my most recent picks for what actors could play certain book characters in a movie!

1. Christy Altomare and Corey Cott as Amelie and Jack (The French War Bride, by Robin Wells) 

BeFunky Collage

We made each other feel loved and accepted and treasured. I think that is all one can ask for in this life. 

THIS BOOK. I devoured it in two days and didn’t want it to end – totally my favorite book of the year so far. If you love fiction set during World War II, this is a must read for you. It explored France’s war years in such an immersive way that I was exposed to several facets I didn’t know about before, and I’ve read a good amount of historical fiction set in 1940s France. Part of its gripping narrative was due to the narrator Amelie. The book follows her from the war’s beginning to what she does after the German surrender, but also flips between her past and 2016, when she shares her story with her dead husband Jack’s ex-fiancee.

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Top Seven Books I’d Give A Theme Song To

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When I’m stumped about what kind of posts to write, I turn to The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday book topics. The topic “Books I’d Give a Theme Song To” stuck out to me because, at the moment, I’m very much into the soundtracks of some of my favorite films and the moods they inspire. Right now, I’m in love with the You’ve Got Mail soundtrack (and was even on a Nora Ephron reading kick for awhile!), because it just screams New York in the fall.

So, I picked a few books that seemed to fit well with songs I knew from movies, the radio, or even my own iPod. Keep reading for these pairings and explanations of why I think they fit together!

1. Three Amazing Things About You, by Jill Mansell: “Right Back Where We Started From” 

I associate this song with movies that end in weddings, like The Parent Trap or Yours. Mine and Ours. Three Amazing Things About You, which I briefly talked about here, covers three characters who are finally together by the end of the book, celebrating the crazy twist of fate that introduced them to each other. When I match books with songs, I think about the decision cinematically, and “Right Where We Started From” is like the ultimate closing credits montage song for me.

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