Library Musings…Marriage Proposals, Literally

Happy Valentines day all! I thought in honor of the official day of love I’d share a few romantic scenes from literature, both classics and YA alike.

Proposal Scenes to be exact.

They’ve been picked randomly…mostly because I was able to remember that a proposal scene happened in these particular books! Some of them surprised me during the re-read…Did you remember that Mr. Darcy proposed to Elizabeth twice? That Rhett was unromantic? or that Ash really did it when he became Meghan’s Knight?…I didn’t either. So please, find some chocolate and enjoy this post of love.

Without Further Ado…Marriage Proposals

Gone with the Wind

“I always intended to have you, Scarlet, since that first day I saw you at Twelve Oaks when you threw that vase and swore and proved that you weren’t a lady. I always intended having you, one way or another. But as you and Frank have made a little money, I know you’ll never be driven to me again with any interesting proposals of loans and collaterals. So I see I’ll have to marry you.”

“Rhett Butler, is this one of your vile jokes?”

“I bare my soul and you are suspicious! No, Scarlett, this is a bona fide honorable declaration. I admit that it’s not in the best of taste, coming at this time, but I have a very good excuse for my lack of breeding. I’m going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you’ll have married some one else with a little money. So I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.”   (1160, Mitchell)

Pride and Prejudice

I’d like to note that I have this very saying on a tea towel…and you can have one too, or a mug, or a t-shirt…just check out Brookish’s Etsy Shop.

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” (172, Austen)

But she rejects him…he was a bit of an ass up until this point…But we all know the poor man tries again, with success…

“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.” (326, Austen)

That’s 150 pages of groveling that Mr. Darcy had to do! I think he’s earned his happy ending…I may have folded for the first proposal *sigh* it was pretty good, never did have Elizabeth’s pride…

Twilight – Eclipse

“Now, I want to do this right. Please, please, keep in mind that you’ve already agreed to this, and don’t ruin it for me.”

“Oh, no,” I gasped as he slid down onto one knee.

“Be nice,” he muttered.

I took a deep breath.

“Isabella Swan?” He looked up at me through his impossibly long lashes, his golden eyes soft but, somehow, still scorching. “I promise to love you forever – every single day of forever. Will you marry me?”

There were many things I wanted to say, some of them not nice at all, and others more disgustingly gooey and romantic than he probably dreamed I was capable of. Rather than embarrass myself with either, I whispered, “Yes.”

“Thank you,” he said simply. He took my left hand and kissed each of my fingertips before he kissed the ring that was now mine. (459 – 460, Meyer)

The Iron Fey – The Iron Daughter

This is officially the closest they come to an actual proposal…and it’s just too good to pass up!

“My name is Ashallyn’darkmyr Tallyn, third son of the Unseelie Court…Let it be known–from this day forth, I vow to protect Meghan Chase, daughter of the Summer King, with my sword, my honor, and my life. Her desires are mine. Her wishes are mine. Should even the world stand against her, my blade will be at her side. And should it fail to protect her, let my own existence be forfeit. This I swear, on my honor, my True Name, and my life. From this day on…” His voice went even softer, but I still heard it as though he whispered it into my ear. “I am yours.”

Entwined

“Mr. Bradford,” she said. “I’m not going to propose to you.”

The twinkle in Mr. Bradford’s eyes faded. So did his smile. He managed to keep it on his face. It looked painful.

“Oh,” he said.

“Mr. Bradford?”

“Yes?”

“Would you mind it so very much if…you know…you proposed to me?”

The light in Mr. Bradford’s eyes jumped to life. He beamed so largely it almost wasn’t crooked.

“If you want.”

Romeo and Juliet

Did you remember that it was fair Juliet that did the proposing?…

JULIET

Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

(Act 2, Scene 1)

Thought I’d end this post with the above picture of Leo and Clare *sigh* this very scene started a crush (on Leo) that lasted for YEARS…

…Ok, might still be prey to it. While searching for the photo above I found this:

Yep, still have a thing for Leo…Enjoy that one with your chocolate too 😉

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Oh for the love of words! (3)…Absconded

This meme was created by RachelKiwi over at She is too fond of books and it has addled her brain. She decided that Fridays should be dedicated to logophilia. Logophilia is “the love of words” for all of you without a dictionary close at hand.

Posts are dedicated to either a new word you found in your reading this week, a juicy quote, or a general need to share your vocabulary ability. ‘Cause you know you’ve been dying to show off your reading skills since that final time you took your SAT’s.

Without Further Ado, My Word…

absconded 

past participle, past tense of ab·scond (Verb)

1. Leave hurriedly and secretly, typically to avoid detection or arrest.
2. (of someone on bail) Fail to surrender oneself for custody at the appointed time.

I don’t believe I chose this word for this week. I think the word chose me. I used it in a post yesterday to explain that the main character left town quickly, under the guise of bad fashion to avoid being killed by Vampires. She most definitely absconded. But why do I say that this word chose me this week?

Because I had no conscious knowledge of this word or what it meant when I typed it.

None.

Actually had to look it up when I thought of it.

I was just typing along yesterday morning (yes. I wrote my post the morning I posted it. Don’t judge.) and my fingers, of their own accord, typed “Lady Maccon has absconded to Italy…”

I thought to myself…”absconded?! Is that even a word? How the heck do I know that word? Do you say it like ‘ab-scone-d’? Because that would be very English-Tea-Time of me.”

I’m not being humble when I say I didn’t recognize the word coming out of my brain. My Id was dictating my typing (or is it my superego? always did get confused). Apparently the soft click-clak of the keyboard together with a distinct lack of coffee lulled me into a state in which I accessed a part of the 90% of our brains we don’t use.

Quite Limitless of me don’t you think? And I didn’t even need that little pill.

All this time I’ve been a prodigy and I’ve never known. Well, that or I have some type of early on set dementia.

So how about you? Ever surprise yourself with knowledge you didn’t know you had? Forgetful lately as well? Do share…

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TGIF (25)…Which Love I Love

TGIF is hosted by Ginger at Greads. It’s about answering/asking our readers a random book related question. The question posted by Ginger today is…

Love Stories: What are some of your favorite fictional love stories?

The Tea Rose

Fiona and Joe…torn apart at such a young age! Watching them live lives and find love is completely addictive.

Outlander

I dare you not to cry when Claire had to make a choice between her 18th century husband or her 20th century husband. And also not to feel some sexytimes every time Jamie takes off his shirt or admires his wife’s bottom!

Twilight

Yes. I know. I’m dogging the rotten fruit as I write this. But come on…the first time you read it…I dare you to tell me you weren’t a little bit in love with Edward and Bella’s utter desire to be in love forever. The song 1,000 years from the Breaking Dawn soundtrack is haunting this thought as I type…Obsessed.

Trashy Romance as a genre

I gotta end with a shout-out to the romance genre in general. Thank those regency rakes and virgin spinsters for forming my early thoughts on finding true love. They come with a few universal tips for distinguishing a true love from the rest of the thronging masses:

1. You’ll feel his eyes on you as soon as he enters the room. By ‘feel’ I mean you’ll either get a ‘heated blush’ or ‘shivers’, ‘tingles’, ‘electricity’ down your spine.
2. If the eyes didn’t produce feelings immediately…that first hand to hand touch oughtta do it. If you don’t feel sparks, he’s not your man.
3. He’ll save you from some type of accident, embarrassment, or help you cover up a crime. This is important because it proves how much he instinctively cares for you.
4. Immediate orgasm during sex. Obvi. Not your true love if this doesn’t happen. Cut tail and run now my friend. If the romance genre has taught me nothing else it is this one elemental fact. I dare you to find a romance in which this does not happen, and the characters end up together. Foreplay counts.

Again, obviously this all happened with my husband and myself as well. Lets just say there was an incident involving a horse and a runaway bandit…*wink*

just kidding

What about you? What type of Love do you Love to read?

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Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate #3) by Gail Carriger

BookTalk

Alexia Tarabotti is terribly inconvenienced.

Infant-inconvenienced to be exact.

A woman whom no one would call maternal, when Alexia married Lord Maccon, head of the Woolsey werewolf pack, she thought children weren’t an option…her husband had been, technically, not-human for a few hundred years or so. That does not mean that Alexia was unfaithful in any way. Her dear husband should realize that unexpected does not mean impossible…

But the inconvenience of a child that can’t be explained instead sends Conall Maccon into a tail-spin of formaldehyde induced drunkenness. He’s left his Beta to hold down the fort at the worst possible moment for Lady Maccon has absconded to Italy, Lord Akeldama has fled town in pursuit of a stolen item, and the rest of the supernatural society has decided that Alexia and her infant-inconvenience need to die.

The question of the hour is how long will it take for Lord Maccon to come to his senses and beg for forgiveness. Because, Alexia is a little busy fighting off Vampires, Templar Knights, and mechanical ladybugs. A husband by her side would be a great help…

Review

This book is a necessary evil. It reads as a linking book. Almost like a bridge between books two and four. Because, while the text was filled with Carriger’s trademark wit and tongue-and-cheek steampunk creations the plot itself is a bit ‘light’. I’ll say ‘light’ and not ‘weak’ because it’s a necessary story for Alexia and Conall. At the end of book two we find Alexia pregnant and it is (apparently) un-explainable between her and Conall.

My hunch was that the curse breaker plague was going to be the explanation. I mean, it did turn all supernatural completely human…doesn’t that mean reproductive functions will work again as well? Seemed simple enough to me. Heck, even if Carriger didn’t want to take it that far I was willing to accept that given the uniqueness of their relationship (preternatural and supernatural are never to mix in this society) that no one had attempted to cross-breed. Alexia’s touch makes Conall mortal – thus he functions as a mortal man whilst having relations with his wife. This would make a baby possible, no?

No. Apparently not. My mind is not intelligent enough for Carriger’s aether-theory. I guess it’s far more difficult than my pedestrian ponderings. And I’ll admit that by the end of this installment I was still quite confused as to how it scientifically happened. Even Meyer gave me a vampire baby-making explanation I could accept. Forget that part during your reading? Yeah, I got it off her website. Don’t judge. You know you were curious too.

Curious, because you need these fantasy worlds to be completely rational if you are going to accept them. The author needs to build rules and stick to them. You can break them only if there’s a super secret Plan B rule that will make even more sense than Plan A did. I won’t say that Carriger’s pregnancy explanation broke her world for me. Finding and explaining the pregnancy was one of the two reasons for this novel. It was more like I started skimming the explanation. I ‘Smile and Nodded’ at the explanation and politely waited for it to stop talking. Like math involving more than basic addition/subtraction…or integers higher than I can count on my fingers…I just stopped trying to understand and accepted that it did in fact make sense. Someone clearly smarter than myself obviously figured it out. Time to move on now, blah, blah, blah…

It may seem like I harp on this issue a bit, but understand that aside from Lord Maccon’s issue of sobering up and apologizing to his wife…this is the entire plot of the story. The mysteries of the Templar Knights were simplified. The issue of the child’s supernaturality (word?) is simplified. Even the tease of finding out more about Alexia’s father is in the end simplified and then forgotten about. So the complexity of the one thing I thought could actually be simplified was an issue for me.

I still enjoyed the read. I was in the mood for witty Victorian conversation. That play between manners and the absurd that Carriger does so well. Snappy dialogue and chapter titles abound. Just know that in this series the third title is just a hop skip and a jump away from the fourth. I’ll just say that the fourth should pack a bit more of a plot punch to pick up the ‘lightness’ of the third.

Rating: 3.5/5 Proper, polite, and just the right bit of the absurd save this tale of marital discord…Because without it, it’s 200-odd pages of waiting for an apology…

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Let’s get steamy…TheLibrarian Style

So I’m a little slow on the uptake…exactly 8 days slow on the uptake.

This is a big deal during the shortest month of the year. Even with the extra day this year it still comes in at a brief 29 days. Which leaves me with only 21 days with which to participate in Unabridged Andra’s

Let’s Get Steamy: A Celebration of all things Steampunk

steam·punk

noun

1. a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy featuring advanced machines and other technology based on steampower of the 19th century and taking place in a recognizable history period or a fantasy world.

It was a sign that I decided to eschew all the books I should be reading in favor of Gail Carriger’s Blameless, the third book in the Alexia Tarraboti Series a.k.a.

The Parasol Protectorate

I hadn’t touched this series since October (my Nook keeps track of such things you know, it’s my little electronic personal assistant in bookish pursuits). And while walking through the Valley of Unread Books I discovered that while I had started the third of my three book bundle I had left it hanging around Chapter 3: Alexia Engages in Entomology. Love the chapter names. Think my all time favorite so far is Chapter 5 of Blameless: In Which Ivy Hisselpenny and Professor Lyall Are Given Too Much Responsibility. I suppose you have to know the characters to get the joke, but the titles are always very smart.

So I’ve decided to join in Unabridged Andra’s month of Steampunk love by finishing this series. Look for my review of Blameless tomorrow.

But for now I shall leave you with a bit of Steampunk fun…

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TheLibrarian Listens…Bossypants by Tina Fey

So I’m still running. After my half marathon in January I enjoyed it so much I decided to sign up for another one this May in Pittsburgh. This means months of long runs and the same neighborhood/beach loops…217 miles and that means roughly 2,170 minutes too! Whatever shall I do to break the monotany? Why, listen to audiobooks of course!

*Note: Over the course of today I’ve said I’ll run:

1. 217 miles in 217 minutes (sign me up for the Olympics people…that’s a mile a minute)

2. 217 miles in 2,170 hours (that’s one mile every 10 hours, in which case I should probably stop running, lol)

3. I think my final answer is: 217 miles in 2170 minutes which ends up being: 36 hours and 16 minutes of physical exercise.

Thanks My Love for catching my many math errors 😉

Without Further Ado…Bossypants

From GoodReads:

Before Liz Lemon, before “Weekend Update,” before “Sarah Palin,” Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey’s story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we’ve all suspected: you’re no one until someone calls you bossy.

(Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!)

An unabridged recording on 5 CDs (5.5 Hours).

Review

I looooved this audio book! I have a friend who reads biographies and memoirs like it’s her job. They’re her favorite genre. And when I told her I had downloaded this book she was a little “Meh”. She hadn’t loved the physical book. Granted she’s a fan of Chelsea Handler and other funny women. So her standard is a bit high.

I’ll agree with my friend in that while I was listening I thought to myself “This wouldn’t be nearly as funny simply reading. I totally would not have read it like that” Fey reads her audio book herself. Which enhances the experience like none other. Fey adds asides to her rendition that could not have made it into the print copy.

Case in point:

The Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton SNL Episode

Fey had the entire audio of the skit in her audiobook. Almost cried from laughter during my run.

As a side note: Do be aware that if you listen to funny things while running/working out in public you will laugh. And others will stare. You’ll be ok with this situation however, because it’s just so darn funny.

Fey spends quite a bit of time recounting her time as Sarah Palin on SNL as well as the work she’s done building 30 Rock. And while I’m not familiar with her 30 Rock show (never could get into it…) this didn’t hinder my experience enjoying her thoughts on the experience.

Some of my favorite bits from the audio were of her comments on the image of female beauty in our society. As well as the bit about posing on magazine covers and the part when she speaks of elitest breastfeeding mothers. Tears, I promise tears from laughter.

I would suggest this audio book to any woman looking for a good laugh. You’ll see bits of yourself in this funny woman who seems to have happened upon such fame through hard work and a bit of luck.

Rating: 5/5 Feminist and funny Fey will point out all the issues of being a woman in our society and poke fun at them in a way that is utterly accessible. 

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Library Musings…So I shall walk through the valley of the Unread

I have been mired in a forest of unread books.

11/22/63

The Night Circus

Entwined

Wait, finally finished that…

Blameless

Started without finishing any other books listed above.

Found myself starting at

The Scorpio Races

And my student-gifted

Fountainhead

And instead of reading this plethora of unfinished and untouched literature

I’ve been sucked into bad tv marathons

Hello Kourtney and Kim Take New York

And weeding my yard.

I promise lots of more bookish reviews starting tomorrow 😉

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TGIF (24)…Judging Books (And Blogs!) by their covers

TGIF is hosted by Ginger at Greads. It’s about answering/asking our readers a random book related question. The question posted by Ginger today is…

Book Appeal: When you’re browsing goodreads, the library, or another blogger’s reviews, what grabs your attention to make you want to read it?

All diehard readers are loath to say this. We spend so much time focused on content, on storylines, on the relative sparklyness of vampires and if its attractive or not convincing another reader why or why not they should pick up a book we’d all hate to admit we were shallow enough to often time judge a book by its cover.

Yep. Even with all this time spent searching out our next favorite story…we can be downright Toddlers and Tiaras up in here.

Often times the one with the prettiest dress gets the crown…

When perusing blogs the cover continues to be a huge draw…As does a good star rating of some kind. Not all bloggers use rating systems but I’m attracted to those that do, and it’s the first place I scroll. The Book Smugglers rate books on a 10 point scale and add a tagline about why they felt this way…

But I must stipulate that while I’m always attracted to a book rated or reviewed enthusiastically…ones with the words “love” and “excited” thrown about the text…I don’t like when a blog only gives good reviews. I like to see genuine excitement from my blogs and GoodReads reviews. And it’s only genuine if at times books don’t work for you. If they fall short of perfection. If you’re reading with a critical eye…then I know I can trust when you say something is an amazing read.

Because we all know that the ultimate endorsement for a book is a “You Need To Read This!!!” from a trusted bookish friend.

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