The Friday 56 (254) & Book Beginnings: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme created by Freda's Voice, where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Spirited Elizabeth Bennet is one of a family of five daughters, and with no male heir, the Bennet estate must someday pass to their priggish cousin William Collins. Therefore, the girls must marry well—and thus is launched the story of Elizabeth and the arrogant bachelor Mr. Darcy, in a novel renowned as the epitome of romance and wit. Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s masterwork, an entertaining portrait of matrimonial rites and rivalries, timeless in its hilarity and its honesty.

Beginning: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

56: "In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to her mother to beg that the carriage be sent for them in the course of the day."

Comments: I finally read Pride and Prejudice, and I loved it as much as the 2005 movie adaptation with Keira Knightley. (I'm looking forward to rewatching it soon.) What are you reading (or watching) this weekend?

The Friday 56 (253) & Book Beginnings: How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Do you feel addicted to your phone? Do you frequently pick it up “just to check,” only to look up forty-five minutes later wondering where the time has gone? Does social media make you anxious? Have you tried to spend less time mindlessly scrolling—and failed? If so, this book is your solution.

Award-winning health and science journalist and TED speaker Catherine Price presents a practical, evidence-based 30-day digital detox plan that will help you break up—and then make up—with your phone. The goal: better mental health, improved screen-life balance, and a long-term relationship with technology that feels good. This engaging, user-friendly guide explains how our smartphones and apps are designed to be addictive and how the time we spend on them is increasing our anxiety and damaging our abilities to focus, think deeply, form new memories, generate ideas, and be present in our most important relationships. Next, it walks you through an effective and easy-to-follow 30-day plan that has already helped thousands of people worldwide break their phone addictions and feel more fully alive. Whether you need help for yourself or for your family, friends, students, colleagues, clients, or community, How to Break Up with Your Phone is the ultimate guide to digital detoxing. It’s guaranteed to help you put down your phone—and come back to life.

Beginning: "Let's get something clear from the start: the point of this book is not to get you to throw your phone under a bus."

56: "The second task required for concentration doesn't get as much, well, attention. But it's just as important--if not more so: we need to be able to ignore distractions."

Comments: I reread How To Break Up With Your Phone last month. It was kind of refreshing to revisit this one after so many years, especially with how relevant some of the chapters still are (but more on that on an upcoming blog post). What are you reading this week? 

The Friday 56 (252) & Book Beginnings: The Witless Protection Program by Maria DiRico

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Mia Carina has steered her Italian-American family’s Astoria, Queens, catering hall, Belle View Banquet Manor, into becoming the borough’s premiere party site, and nothing could make her happier—except her boyfriend proposing. There’s just one presumed-dead obstacle in the way . . .

A strong, independent woman and respected entrepreneur, Mia never imagined she’d pine for a marriage proposal. Yet lately, with her beloved Shane, she’s on tenterhooks. It’s especially surprising, considering Mia’s first husband, Adam, was a philandering grifter, assumed lost-at-sea after a boating disaster. But everyone knows what happens when you assume . . . While working a huge wedding expo in Manhattan, Mia is shocked to spot the man who nearly destroyed her life. The one who’s supposed to be sleeping with the fishes. But she loses him in the crowd. And when it happens again the next day, it’s time for an emergency meeting with the family—and the Family . Because if Adam is alive, Mia is still married . . .Everyone wants Adam dead. Everyone except Mia. She’s dealt with enough police for a lifetime. Mia needs to be a divorcée, not a widow. But someone out there disagrees, and if Mia doesn’t discover who, she may never be free to marry Shane—or anyone else . . .

Beginning: “Tavern on the Green was as lush and elegant as Mia always dreamed it would be.”

56: “Mia emitted a furious growl. She then ran down the back stairs, brandishing the bat.”

Comments: My first read of 2024 was Maria DiRico's The Witless Protection Program. This is still one of my favorite cozy mystery series. What are you reading this week?

The Friday 56 (251) & Book Beginnings: The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the Strange universe.

"A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really."

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees - and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst - and the path of her life is changed forever.

Beginning: "It was winter, just a few days before Christmas. A few flakes of snow fell on the quiet fields."

56: "Some stories sink down into your bones. In my own writing I had become fascinated by characters who are bridges between different worlds, between different states of being, characters who feel compelled to try and reconcile the unreconcilable."

Comments: I really liked this short story from Susanna Clarke. Its a very quick read but a good one, and it's illustrated by Victoria Sawdon. Since this was a so short, my 56 this week comes from the author's afterward, just because of how much I loved the quote. What are you reading this week?

The Friday 56 (250) & Book Beginnings: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

Beginning: "Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness."

56: "These days, they all had their hands thrust into the sky, hoping for comets."

Comments: I have finally finished reading the first four books of The Raven Cycle series. I liked this one as much as the other three. What are you reading this week?

The Friday 56 (249) & Book Beginnings: Sabriel by Garth Nix

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Enter the Old Kingdom, a world of dark secrets and dangerous magic.

As a child, Sabriel was sent across the Wall to Ancelstierre to safety. Now eighteen years old, she receives a cryptic and desperate message from her father, the Abhorsen—the magical protector whose task it is to bind and send back to Death those who won’t stay Dead. Fiercely determined to help her father, who is perilously trapped in Death, and save him from the sinister Free Magic entity that has somehow ensnared him, Sabriel must prepare to enter Death herself—and find her destiny. To preserve life, the Abhorsen must enter death.

Beginning: "It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough."

56: "It had been human once, or human-like at least, in the years it had lived under the sun."

Comments: Its been a minute since I last participated in the Friday weekly memes. However, I really wanted to mention one of my more recent reads: Sabriel. I'm very late to the series, but I enjoyed it. What are you reading this week?

The Friday 56 (248) & Book Beginnings: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Fredas Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.

Beginning: "If the bread hadn't burned, this would be a very different story."

56: "He thought of the winding streets of Toledo, the hills of Granada. Madrid bored him."

Comments: The Familiar was one of my most anticipated book releases of 2024, and I loved the story. What are you reading this weekend?

The Friday 56 (247) & Book Beginnings: Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages by Frances & Joseph Gies

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

In this account of Europe's rise to world leadership in technology, Frances and Joseph Gies make use of recent scholarship to destroy two time-honored myths.

Myth One: that Europe's leap forward occurred suddenly in the Renaissance, following centuries of medieval stagnation. Not so, say the Gieses: Early modern technology and experimental science were direct outgrowths of the decisive innovations of medieval Europe, in the tools and techniques of agriculture, craft industry, metallurgy, building construction, navigation, and war. Myth Two: that Europe achieved its primacy through Western superiority. On the contrary, the authors report, many of Europe's most important inventions--the horse harness, the stirrup, the magnetic compass, cotton and silk cultivation and manufacture, papermaking, firearms, Arabic numerals--had their origins outside Europe, in China, India, and Islam. The Gieses show how Europe synthesized its own innovations--the three-field system, water power in industry, the full-rigged ship, the putting-out system--into a powerful new combination of technology, economics, and politics. From the expansion of medieval man's capabilities, the voyage of Columbus with all its fateful consequences is seen as an inevitable product, while even the genius of Leonardo da Vinci emerges from the context of earlier and lesser-known dreamers and tinkerers.

Beginning: "In the centuries following the Middle Ages, thinkers of the European Enlightenment looked back on the previous period as a time "quiet as the dark of the night," when the world slumbered and man's history came to "a full stop.""

56: "When European horsemen finally adopted the stirrup and matched it with the contoured saddle, they gained a dramatic advantage."

Comments: This book has, admittedly, been on my shelf for a while. I was in the mood for nonfiction and finally picked it up. I enjoyed it. What are you reading this weekend?

The Friday 56 (246) & Book Beginnings: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. **Note: Freda @ Freda's Voice is taking a break from The Friday 56; Anne @Head is Full of Books is hosting for now.**

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

The third installment in the all-new series from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater!

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things, though, is how easily they can be lost. Friends can betray. Mothers can disappear. Visions can mislead. Certainties can unravel.

Beginning: "Persephone stood on the bare mountaintop, her ruffled ivory dress whipping around her legs, her mass of white-blond curls streaming behind her."

56: "Blue did not hate it, because that would require acknowledging that it was really happening."

Comments: I'm steadily making progress on my goal to read The Raven Cycle. I've finished book three, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and I enjoyed it just as much as The Raven Cycle and The Dream Thieves. What are you reading this week?