Thought-Full Thursday: What I’m Reading

“After all, it’s the librarian’s sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader.”
-Kate Morton

Or nowadays, at least in my world, it’s Amazon’s sworn purpose. 😉 I’m reading The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton right now.

It’s a novel about “an unforgettable journey through generations and across continents as two women try to uncover their family’s secret past.”

The description on Amazon reads:

“A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, “Nell” sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.”

I’m on Chapter 14 (out of 51) and man am I enjoying the way this writer strings her words together. On page 34 she writes, “The smell of dust and time was thick inside. Cassandra let her gaze run along the row of book spines, red and green and yellow, and waited for a title to arrest her. A tabby cat was stretched across the third shelf, balanced in front of the books in a strip of sunlight. Cassandra hadn’t noticed it before and wondered where it had come from, how it had entered the flat without her seeing. The cat, seeming to sense that she was under scrutiny, pushed up on her front legs and fixed Cassandra with a look of majesty. The she leaped in a single fluid motion to the floor and disappeared beneath the bed.”

And then on page 95, there’s a fairy tale within the tale that is so beautifully written too:

“Inside the cottage there lived a blind crone, who took pity on the girl and determined to give her shelter and raise her as her own. There was much work to be done in the crone’s cottage, but the Princess was never heard to complain, for she was a true Princess with a pure heart. The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe. Thus did the Princess grow up contented. She came to love the changing seasons and learned the satisfaction of sowing seeds and tending crops.”

I loved that line about the happiest folk are those that are busy. I will say, though, that I’m pretty doggone happy just sitting and reading a book every now and then too. 😉

Layla