Litsy

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMJournals

LMM includes lots of details on her inspiration for places, people, and events in AoGG (pp. 348-356) and AoA (pp. 356-7), a little about Kilmeny (p. 357), and then details on Story Girl (p. 316 and pp. 404-408).

📚What do these details add to your reading of these books?
📚What do they offer you in understanding more about LMM and her writing?

lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks I definitely enjoyed hearing about some of her inspirations - I also felt like some of her explanations were in the nature of making sure people understand who/what were NOT inspirations 😂 I really love the way that LMM (and many authors) are able to pull threads from different aspects of life and weave them into a different story. 13h

16 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMJournals

📚Now that we‘ve read further into LMM‘s adult life, what aspects of her personality stand out to you that maybe you hadn‘t noticed before?
📚What picture do you get of who she is and what she was like as a person?

lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks I've always known she was very proud/a bit of a snob, and I feel like that is definitely true. The whole section towards the end where she is telling about her family history and connections, even the part where she was summarizing the neighbors - she definitely ranks people and considers her family a cut above many of the others. However, I think that makes her determined to live up to her family name and the idea of “bringing shame“ to the ⬇ 13h

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) family is a real horror to her. It really seems to me that that is a bit driving part of what kept her with her grandmother for so long, and it definitely seems to be what kept her from certain romantic entanglements. LMM also had an amazing sense of humor and a knack for friendship. I think she had a huge capacity for affection that was thwarted again and again. Her description of her marriage as something that made her “content“ made ⬇ 13h

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) me so sad for her because it felt like she married someone who couldn't even be a real friend to her, and she seems like someone who desperately needed friendship in her life. I find myself wondering what her life would have been like if her mother had lived, if she had grown up in a house with parents who cared about her, with some younger siblings - I'm rambling wildly away from the actual question here 😂 but I guess the point is that⬇ 13h

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) I think her journals show us not just who she was, but glimpses of who she could have been under different, happier circumstances. I so admire her determination to stay positive, to take moments to just drink in the beauty of the world around her and find peace in it, her commitment to what she viewed as her duties, and her ability to find and distill humor and humanity into virtually everything she wrote. 13h

12 likes4 comments

BarbaraJean

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

I have a super busy Saturday tomorrow, so I‘m posting our #LMMJournals #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead questions early!

Here we are at the end of the second volume of LMM‘s complete journals, ending this volume just after her marriage and the start of her honeymoon.

📚What stood out to you from this week‘s reading? From this volume overall?
📚What have you found to be most interesting or surprising from reading LMM‘s journals so far?

lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks So it's starting to run together a little, but was this the section where she actually went and met Mr. Jerk Publisher Page? What a creep! He's so manipulative! You can see how he made a successful career by preying on female authors! I wanted to tell her to run away!!! But instead she signed another contract with that horrid man. However, it was super fun to read about her journey to Boston and her adventures there haha 13h

10 likes1 comment

lauraisntwilder

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

pick

LMM's early 30s, despite literary success and fame, seemed to have more than her fair share of sadness. Depression and loneliness were ever present in the winter months, with just her elderly grandmother for company. But when she's happy, if she's spending those happy moments writing, her words are effervescent and full of the beauty of the natural world. #kindredspiritsbuddyread

23 likes

lil1inblue

They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up | Eternity Martis

#schoolspirit #college

Eggs, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Eggs ❤️🧡❤️ 3d

33 likes1 comment

DebinHawaii

Finding Mr. Write | Kelley Armstrong

pick

#ReadAway2024 #ForTheLoveOfBooks

I read this one via library ebook & put it on my hold list based on the author who I love for her Rockton & Haven‘s Rock series. This is Armstrong‘s first foray into romance & it is an overall good rom-com about an author who comes up with a male non de plume to get her first novel published & has to hire someone to play him for publicity & gets in deep when the book takes off. Rather than the arrogant actor ⬇️

DieAReader, Andrew65, TheSpineView, GHABI4ROSES

DebinHawaii … she thinks she‘s hiring, it‘s a sexy, sweet accountant getting out of a legal/financial jam. While I still prefer the author‘s other books & genres, I did like the main characters of Daphne & Chris, the glimpses inside the publishing world & the fact that she kept her Yukon setting so it gets a pick. 5d

DieAReader 🥳Great! 5d

TheSpineView Awesome! 4d

57 likes2 stack adds3 comments

BarbaraJean

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

“I do feel so worried and unhappy all the time. I cannot even write my worries out here—they go too deep and cut too keenly. I seem to enjoy *nothing.* Always there is the undercurrent of dread and anxiety and heartsickness.
…If I had anyone to share the worry with me—to talk things over with—to assist—to encourage! But I have no one. And everywhere I look I can see nothing but darkness.”
😭💔⤵️
#LMMJournals #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead

lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

BarbaraJean I thought we were going to have more balance between pain and happiness in this volume, Maud? That lasted until winter, I suppose. 😭 My heart really goes out to her with these kinds of entries. If only she‘d had access to some mental health professionals! 5d

Blueberry 😥 5d

TheAromaofBooks I just read this section this morning. Even scarier was just the next page or so when she takes the pain medication - knowing that she ends up taking addictive/destructive substances for the rest of her life (through medical ignorance of the time) that entry basically saying “maybe it isn't bad if I only take it now and then“ was kind of chilling. But I also can't blame her - days and days without sleep because of pain is so horrible! 5d

lauraisntwilder It's even harder to read knowing she outlives Frede, the only person who seems to alleviate the pain and darkness. 5d

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks I know, right?! She's so hesitant about taking it at all, then rationalizes it in a perfectly reasonable way... but you just can't help seeing the foreshadowing! @lauraisntwilder I wish for a parallel universe where LMM didn't have to stay with her grandmother and Frede didn't die and the two of them can just have their own place and live out their best lives as cousin-old-maids. 4d

31 likes5 comments

Sparklemn

Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel | Louise Penny

pick

I can‘t believe I waited so long to start this series! I love curmudgeonly detectives. 🙂

Pic is how I imagine Three Pines in the winter. ❄️

marleed Oh same! There‘s just so many boooks in the series that I haven‘t started it, but I really want to read the series. 5d

Sparklemn @marleed It is intimidating! 5d

CoffeeNBooks I love Inspector Gamache and Three Pines! 5d

Sparklemn @CoffeeNBooks Do the other books take place in the same area? 5d

CoffeeNBooks @Sparklemn Some of the books in the series are entirely in Three Pines, and sometimes part of the story is there. 4d

40 likes5 comments

NovelNancyM

Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel | Louise Penny

pick

I'm not sure why I've never read Louise Penny before (other than that mysteries aren't my first genre choice). However, this did not disappoint as the writing is so descriptive and the characters are intriguing. I plan to continue reading the series.

ShelleyBooksie The series gets better and better. Enjoy! 1w

33 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911 | L.M. Montgomery

“In spite of my free confessions and self analysis, a stranger perusing these journals would receive from them a quite misleading impression of my real character and life.”

“…the second volume gives the impression of a morbid temperament, generally in the throes of nervousness and gloom. …in reality these spasms came at long intervals, when loneliness and solitude had broken down my powers of endurance. ⤵️

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMJournals

JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) “…Between these times I was quite tolerably happy, hopeful and interested in life.

Well, I begin the third volume. I am going to try to strike a better balance in it—to write out my happiness as well as my pain.”
(Feb. 11, 1910) 1w

BarbaraJean This is exactly what I was thinking in reading the bulk of this second volume of LMM‘s journals (side note: I wish they‘d been published to correspond to LMM‘s volume divisions!)—that it‘s not a balanced picture of her life. Since she so often uses her journal to “write out” her pain, we don‘t have a record of the happy times. But this got me thinking: does writing out the pain and not the happiness not only give a stilted perspective to the ⤵️ 1w

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …”stranger” reading LMM‘s journals, but also emphasize the pain and not the happiness to LMM herself? What do you think: is it better to let yourself vent and get it all out, or to count your blessings and not focus on the negatives? Or is there a middle ground? (Asking for a friend 😂😂) 1w

See All 13 Comments

lauraisntwilder I've always been a sporadic journaler, but I recently realized I hadn't written anything in my journal since shortly before my sister's cancer came back 3 years ago. We were still in lockdown mode, waiting for my son to be old enough for the vaccine, and I think the cancer news was just too much. I didn't have the words. In general though, I think it's good to vent! 7d

TheAromaofBooks Whoops, I commented about this on the other post, because I hadn't read this one yet 😂 I think balance is good. I genuinely believe that gratitude and appreciation for our blessings make us better, happier, more pleasant people, so I'm a big believer in focusing on the positive. I definitely use my journal to sometimes write out “big feelings“ and I think that lots of times those are negative ones because we tend to try and figure out “why“ ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) when bad things are happening. When good things are happening, we don't generally deep-dive into the analytics as much, or at least I don't 😆 Sometimes things genuinely are hard, and you need to get things sorted out to figure out the best way through. But sometimes it's my attitude that's the issue, and sitting down and writing down 10 things I'm thankful for today, or writing a quick note to someone I appreciate helps me turn myself ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) around.

And not to get super religious on social media, but I'm a Christian, so lots of times I'll read Psalms when I'm feeling down - it's so good to remember that having feelings isn't a bad/sinful thing, and also knowing that I'm not the only one who has ever felt this way helps me keep my problems in perspective. 7d

BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder @TheAromaofBooks It's fascinating to me how journaling works so differently, even for the same person at different times! There are times that writing everything out has helped me immensely, and other times that I think it's exacerbated things by me rehashing stuff I needed to let go. And then as you said, Laura—sometimes there just aren't words. I used to keep a “prayer journal“ that really helped me process life circumstances ⬇ (edited) 5d

BarbaraJean (Cont'd) ...and reflect on both the good & bad, with God (now I'm getting Christian-y, too 😊). I used to write in that journal almost daily, but there was a year I barely wrote at all because I was processing in different ways & praying in different ways. (I also realized I needed to stop measuring my faith by how often I was journaling!) I tend to over-analyze the bad & lean towards pessimism, so balancing out my reflection is important for me! 5d

lauraisntwilder @BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks This line, from page 397, seems relevant to this discussion: "I long shrank from the pain I knew would be attendant upon the writing of grandmother's death and leaving Cavendish." I totally understand that. I think "writing it out" when you're down is helpful, but this is an important distinction -- you know bad times will pass, but some changes (like death) are permanent & words & writing can fall short. 2d

BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder Yes! She CANNOT write it out when it comes. That long gap between March 1911 and January 1912 is jarring to see, but so telling. When I saw the gap in dates, I did a double take, and then thought “Oh, no...I know what happened in between... 24h

TheAromaofBooks @BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder - Yes, I definitely think there is a sort of emotional paralysis that comes with genuinely huge changes/times of grief, especially ones you weren't expecting. I think writing it out can really help with situations where you are trying to make sense of things, make decisions, sort of analyze life, etc. But something like someone dying - it's a different kind of sadness, and you have to get further along before you can⬇ 13h

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) start to make sense of all the feelings. 13h

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