Austenitis: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Horse Dreams

Author: Dandi Daley Mackall

Genre: Kids, animals

Series: Backyard Horses

Number in series: I think it's more of a set than a series

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 7

Type: Fiction

Number of pages: 148

Time period: Present

Main characters: Ellie

Exciting events: A mysterious horse...!

My overall opinion: A fun read for grade-school kids! I know my sister will love it. :) Especially good for any horse lover! Probably second grade on up can read it. A fun clean story, with a focus on God.

Book blurb: Meet Ellie James, a fourth grader with a great imagination. Ellie spends a lot of time daydreaming about owning a black stallion show horse and winning trophies in the horse show. But when the answer to all her dreams and prayers gallops into her life, will Ellie be able to recognize it?

**I received this book from Tyndale Publishers. It was the only compensation for this review. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.**

Giveaway Reminder!!!

The deadlines are getting close for entering the three giveaways open now here on Austenitis! They are listed below, with their closing dates.

Pearl in the Sand - Tessa Afshar - Today (August 31), 11:59 p.m.

A Reluctant Queen - Joan Wolf - September 1, 11:59 p.m.

Janette Oke's or Silas Marner - Janette Oke and George Eliot - September 2, 11:59 p.m.

Winners will be announced on September 3 or 4!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Giveaway for "Hailee!"

Didn't I just say that I'm ALWAYS posting about some giveaway on Katy's blog? Well, here's another. :) It's for Penny Zeller's newest book, Hailee! I've already read it, and believe me, you will like it. :) I enjoyed it so much! A review is coming later this month.

So check out this giveaway! It's right here. Good luck, everyone!

Liebster Award

Yes, I was awarded the Liebster Award! Naturally, I had to look it up and see what "liebster" means. It's German, and means "dearest." So therefore, I'd better give it to my favorite blogs! Unfortunately, I'm limited to five, so if your blog isn't listed, it doesn't mean I don't like it...it just means I'm WAY TOO LIMITED. Got it? Then let's go.

I was awarded twice, actually! The Leibster Award was first given to me by Katy (or Katie) from Legacy of a Writer. It's one awesome blog...and yes, you see me posting about the giveaways she's hosting all the time. :) Thanks so much, Katy! The second time, it came from Cathy at Thoughts on Books, a fun blog that I've been enjoying a lot lately. Make sure you check them both out!

This award is given to blogs with less than 200 followers; it's supposed to help get the word out about smaller blogs.

Like most awards, the Liebster comes with some rules.

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.

2. Give the Liebster Blog Award to five bloggers and comment on their blogs, letting them know they got it.

3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.

4. Have faith your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. Have blogging fun!

So. #1 is done. Thanks again, Katy and Cathy! #2 is hard. I'll put a list below:

The five newest winners of the Liebster Blog Award are ... (drumroll, please)

Jemimah - Beautiful Blank Pages
Miss Elizabeth Bennet - Elegance of Fashion
Maria Elisabeth - Miss Georgiana Darcy
Abby - Newly Impassioned Soul
Melody - Regency Delight ~ Jane Austen Etc ~

You want to go check out those blogs too. :)

#3: the award itself:

#4 -- I have faith in you gals! Get the word out!

#5 -- I had fun. :) You have some too!

Finally, congratulations to all who received it!

Cover Focus: The Harvest of Grace

The Harvest of Grace by Cindy Woodsmall

Book blurb from goodreads.com : Although Sylvia Fisher recognizes that most Old Order Amish women her age spend their hours managing their households and raising babies, she has just one focus -- tending and nurturing the herd on her family's farm. But when a dangerous connection with an old beau causes her to move far from home, she decides to concentrate on a new start and pour her energy into reviving another family's debt-ridden farm.

After months in rehab, Aaron Blank returns home to sell his Daed's failing farm and move his parents into an easier life style. Two things stand in his way: the father who stubbornly refuses to recognize that Aaron has changed, and the determined new farm hand his parents love like a daughter. Her influence on Aaron's parents could ruin his plans to escape the burdens of farming and build a new life.

Can Aaron and Sylvia find common ground? Or will their unflinching efforts toward opposite goals blur the bigger picture -- a path to forgiveness, glimpses of grace, and the promise of love.

**The Harvest of Grace is coming out on September 6, 2011!**

What I like about the cover: Well, I do love her purple dress, and the black apron is neat too. Then the pink sky, while not entirely accurate, makes a pretty compliment to her black hair and white cap. And then I like the farm scene in the background. Red barn, black cows, and the hay closer up. It's a beautiful cover!

Movie: Horatio Hornblower

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8

Main characters: Horatio himself, Lady Barbara

Genre: Adventure, romance

Primary actors: Gregory Peck

Length: 2 hours

Time period: 1800's

Exciting events: Fights galore!

Year it came out: 1951

My overall opinion: Well, it was fun! I was unhappy that a man was kissing while a woman while the man still believed himself married to another woman. But overall, it was a fun story!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Warning!

You must hereby consider yourself warned! This blog is going to be quiet for a day or two...the week of Ultimate Book Bash had tons of posts, and I doubt that most of you read all of them, so go back to those if you're bored. And of course, there are literally hundreds of reviews in the archives. I will be continuing posting soon! As in, probably tomorrow. So why am I warning you? I don't know. But it will be a bit quieter.

Those of you who follow Photographer at Heart: you are lucky! I have eight posts in the making there. :) And I'm excited about all of them! I know you'll love them.

Those of you who don't...well, it's your loss. But I can permit/invite you if you ask!

Friday, August 26, 2011

C. S. Lewis Day: Spotlight: Lucy Pevensie

Lucy Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Played by Georgie Henley, who's a brilliant actor.

She was so adorable in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!

So cute!!!

Moving on to Prince Caspian below here...

Moving on to Voyage of the Dawn Treader below here. Isn't she pretty?

(isn't that costume sweet?)

Okay, okay, I'm stopping. :) But I love Lucy! :) Admit it, she's beautiful by the end. :)

I have done two other Narnian spotlights, one for Peter and one for Aslan.

C. S. Lewis Day: The Movies

There are more than you might be aware of... :)

First, there are the old ones. And I just discovered a new old one. Apparently in 1979, a comic version came out.

Then in 1988, they came out with this one:

I watched this. It was terrible. There's a full rant about it on this blog, since I reviewed it several months ago.

And then, oh joy.

The 2005 version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's totally awesome, and while not perfect to the book in a few semi-minor things, it is a excellent watch.

Soon after, in 2008:

Love. I love that movie. Now I should mention here that there is an objectionable scene...namely, some pretty serious black magic. I always skip that. A few other things are also added (eg, romance between Caspian and Susan), but overall, I like the movie better than the book.

And now, in December 2010, Voyage of the Dawn Treader came out. I saw it twice in theaters, but not since then, so hopefully soon, another review will be coming from my watching it again!

I liked it. Yes, I know, it strayed from the book, but the essentials (to me) were still there. I recommend it.

Now there was, also in the 1980's, a combined version of Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and it's another that I haven't seen. However, if it's anything like the old LWW, it's not worth it.

C. S. Lewis Day: His Books

C. S. Lewis is another prolific author. My favorites of his books are The Chronicles of Narnia, a seven book series. He wrote them over a span of five years, and they have sold over 100 million copies, in many languages. They have quite a definite Christian theme, and also incorporate a few fairy-tale themes.

My favorite of the series is The Silver Chair, with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a close second. Other ones I enjoy include The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But really, they're all terrific.

About The Silver Chair from goodreads.com : Eustace and Jill escape from bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor ... or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved.

About The Voyage of the Dawn Treader from goodreads.com : The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his first voyage to find the seven lords, good men who his evil uncle Miraz banished when usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, their cousin Eustace, and Caspian to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's Country at the End of the World.

The chronological order of the books is as follows:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

Read them if you haven't!

However, this isn't nearly all that Jack Lewis wrote! He also penned The Space Trilogy which I haven't read yet, The Great Divorce, Screwtape Letters, and Until We Have Faces.

Finally, while this is technically just a book post, I've gotta point out that the Focus on the Family Narnia dramatizations are amazing. They follow the books closely, and bring them to life. Utterly awesome. Definitely something you want to check into!

The Ultimate Book Bash: C. S. Lewis Day

AAAAHHHH! It's the final day of The Ultimate Book Bash! A wrap-up post will be coming later, but for now...

Let's learn about C. S. Lewis.

His real name was Clive Staples Lewis, and he was born on November 29, 1898, in Ireland. (I'm glad my middle name isn't Staples. The only thing that might be worse would be Scissors. ;P) His family knew him as Jack. As a child, Jack always loved the animals in stories like Beatrix Potter. In 1916, he got to go to University College, in England. It was there that he met Yeats. In 1917, he became an officer in the British Army, and served on the front lines in France.

In early 1918, he was wounded and two of his friends were killed. Back when he was 15, he decided to be an atheist. However, as time went by, the books that he read and the friends that he made (including J. R. R. Tolkien) influenced him back.

In Jack's later life, he met Joy Gresham, also a convert from atheism to Christianity. She had two young sons, David and Douglas. (Incidentally, Douglas Gresham hosted for Focus on the Family, on their tapes of The Chronicles of Narnia.) Joy and Jack were married in 1956, but sadly, Joy died from cancer in 1960. David and Douglas had been adopted by Jack, and he raised them as his own.

He had blood poisoning, because of inflamed kidneys, in 1961, and died on November 22, 1963.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Giveaway for Janette Oke's Books and Silas Marner!

Giveaway now closed.

And no, not all of them. :) She's written a lot of books! Maybe someday I'll do a Janette Oke Day. :) But for now, I have two of her books to give away...and they're a strange combination. Here's the deal. I have for giveaways three books: Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke, the first book in the Love Comes Softly... (obviously, the book is just the yellow edged part)

When Comes the Spring also by Janette Oke, the second book in the Canadian West series...

and Silas Marner, a classic by George Eliot.

So what I'm going to do is say this. The winner of this giveaway can choose either one or two of these books, and I will mail them to you. Got it?

Your mandatory entry is simple:

Tell me which one (or two) you would like.

Anyone who lives in the United States may enter. You may leave your email address if you would like.

Extra entries:

+2 - Follow this blog.

+3 - Follow my privatized photography/life blog. Write to charityu.austenite[at]gmail[dot]com for an invitation.

+1 - Name me two of your favorite authors, and which of their books you enjoy.

And that's it for this time. :)

This giveaway closes on September 2, 2011. I will announce the winner soon after.

Ready? GO!

The Ultimate Book Bash: Final Post

Well. Here we are. Is it happy or sad? I don't know. :) But here we are anyway! So without further sentiment, let's go.

Firstly, the tag. I was delighted with how many people did it! Thanks to each of you. Make sure you check them out! I found lots of new books to read. :)
Tags

Austenitis (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
Beautiful Blank Pages (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Regency Delight ~ Jane Austen Etc (here)
Rather Bookish (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
Beloved Graceful (here)
Elegance of Fashion (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
But when a young lady is to be a heroine (Part 1 -- let me know when you get more up, Mel!)
Miss Georgiana Darcy (Part 1, Part 2)
A Most Beguiling Accomplishment (here)
Legacy of a Writer (here)

And then we have giveaways. Three are still open, so go ahead and enter!

Giveaways (There's still time to enter!)

Authors. Each day, as you should know, I featured an author. Below, you can find all the posts for each author/the author's books.
Author Days:

J. R. R. Tolkien

Jane Austen

L. M. Montgomery

C. S. Lewis

And that is the end. Goodness. How sad. It does sound awful, doesn't it? We'll have to do it again sometime. Currently I'm considering doing another thing similar to this...but musicals. As in, Sound of Music. Yes, really. That idea is still in the egg stage. ;)

But wait! Before you hit that exit button...there's another event happening soon! Those of you who are observant may have noticed the new button on the left. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is having a Period Drama Week, similar in some ways to the Jane Austen Week that she had not so very long ago. :) She has lots of cool buttons (making it nearly impossible to decide which to use) and a tag. Go here to learn more about it, and here to see the questions and/or leave a suggestion. Or just click the button below!