Last week was hard. There were fresh waves of anxiety over a huge spike in Covid cases in my city. Relief that our curve was flat for so many months gave way to weariness and worry. Now each day we're getting more new cases than we had total from March to mid-June. Our curve is flat....just in the wrong direction: straight up to the sky. The city is open--and our total deaths doubled last week. … [Read more...]
Big Announcement: The Raspberry Cordial Catholic Literary Gathering! Are YOU Coming?
I could barely sleep last night I was so excited to finally share this news with everyone! For years, our Fountains of Carrots podcast listeners have been asking us to host a gathering where we can get together in real life to talk about books and drink tea with like-minded women. Friends, we're doing it! In November I'm teaming up with FoC podcast co-host and everyone's favorite bookish … [Read more...]
Anne of the Island Is the Best (or at least the coziest) Anne Book
Anne of Green Gables is the first and most famous book in the series of L.M. Montgomery’s beloved Anne books. And it is marvelous. But it’s not the best in the series. In fact, two books easily beat it out: Anne of the Island which follows Anne Shirley’s college years and Anne’s House of Dreams which sees her enter newlywed life and young motherhood. These two installments in the series are … [Read more...]
Anne with an F: The New Avonlea’s Confused Feminism
This post contains spoilers. As I watched Netflix’s “Anne with an E”, my family had to tolerate my enraged shouts at my laptop and my bookish friends had to endure text message rants in real time: Every episode is worse than the last. WHY is this happening? They RUINED MATTHEW! I challenge anyone who likes this version to a duel! THAT’S THE LAST SCENE?! I was writing a … [Read more...]
Anne of Green Gables and the Right Way to Share Things on the Internet
In L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island, Anne pours her little heart and soul into a novel which gets rejected by the publishers. In an effort to cheer up her downcast chum, her best friend Diana Barry sends the manuscript to the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Story Contest with a few additions to the original: scenes in which the main characters discuss their love for the product. “Sweetheart, … [Read more...]
10 Books You Must Read to Your Daughter (Or How to Keep Your Daughter From Ending Up Like That Horrid Girl in Twilight)
So now we have a baby daughter. Look how she slumbers. She doesn’t even know that I stay up at night worrying about her self-image. And, oh horrors! What if someday she wants to read Stephanie Meyer’s literary atrocity, the Twilight series? You know the one, the books featuring a non-descript female protagonist who, in addition to having no interests or talents of any kind (other than smelling … [Read more...]
