Happy 4th of July! [America]

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Independence Day is a pretty awesome holiday in my opinion. America isn’t perfect, but compared to a lot of places, it is pretty nice. And there is so much to love about it, including the fact that we can keep striving to make it so much better.

When I was little, my town always had a fireworks display at the football stadium (I’m pretty sure they might still have it, but I don’t live there anymore!) and I loved them, without totally understanding what Independence was. As I grew up and learned more about the American Revolution, I had a lot of different feelings, but let’s face it, fireworks are pretty. I know they scare animals (I’m actually dog-sitting for some dogs that hate them right now!) and veterans have problems with them, which sucks. I wish there was a way to make quieter ones.

This year, I’m all alone on the 4th, which is kind of sad. I love big things on the 4th. One time my grandpa took us out on his boat and we watched lake fireworks right under them – it was AMAZING. Last year I watched some in Minnesota with the niecelets. There are tons of fireworks things around OKC, but I’m slightly iffy on navigating the traffic on my own, especially when people might be partying. SO I might just hang out and watch The Twilight Zone marathon! Annnnd look for awesome tacky patriotic and slightly mocking tumblr posts with eagles and flags and such.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite Independence Day related things:

Movies:

Independence Day – not surprising considering the gif (I made that gif, btw). Aliens, America, that speech. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight! AND the dog doesn’t die.

The Patriot – Militia and Heath Ledger. Bam.

update: A mini-series I need to watch: John Adams a gifset to show you its lure is here.

Books:

I haven’t read enough Revolution era books, that I can think of anyway. I do appreciate America and the Revolution but I read a lot more historical fiction and non about other countries. The two I can think of are for younger readers:

Time Enough for Drums by Ann Rinaldi – I was never a huge Rinaldi fan as  a whole, but I did love this book.

The American Girl Felicity series

Music

This playlist on Spotify has a lot of awesome songs that about America. I found out about it thanks to @thatsostelle.

Anti-fourth:

I also saw this Anti-4th movie article link, which goes hand-in-hand with feeling fed up with the country. Sometimes it helps to rage at the problem before you try to steer positive. I can think of more spec fics and dystopians that add to the negative, but I won’t go into that at the moment!

What movies and books about America do you love? Do you enjoy reading/watching about the American Revolution? Do you have any recommendations for me? OR do you have any negative/subversive recs you want to share? 

Or if you’re not American (or are and have an interest in other countries) is there a book/movie about your country/country’s revolution/etc that you want to rec me?

I’m sure there have been and will be plenty of posts similar to this (probably better) with recs, and if you happen to see one and think of it, can you link me/tweet it at me? 

ALSO: tell me your plans/traditions/the best 4th of July you’ve ever had! Even if you get to this post late!

Tagged – The Book Blogger’s Test

The awesome Cayce from Fighting Dreamer tagged me in this test! I really like reading posts like this with fun answers but I’m pretty terrible at thinking up answers, though later I will think of several fitting ones!

What are your top three book pet hates?

1. Text/chat speak in texts. This might have been fitting at the beginning of texting when texts could only be so long and you were charged per text, but now I can write a novel through text and I don’t text with anyone who says “what time will u be here?” or “what r u doing?” unless they’re being ironic. I know some people probably do text this way, and I know people tweet and type that way on facebook, but it still bugs me.

2. Guys that are overly OVERLY affectionate. Sometimes when guys are super gushy in books, it just makes me roll my eyes. I think it has a lot to do with the writing, and makes the emotion feel less than genuine to me, which makes it all fall flat. I know guys can be affectionate, but I don’t always believe the writing.

3.Language that doesn’t fit the character. When a character is narrating but the author uses words they wouldn’t know/shows information they wouldn’t have. Sometimes it’s easy to tell that what’s going on doesn’t fit the character’s way of telling the story, so I’ll wish the author had written it a different way, or figured something else out. ALSO when some characters use super correct grammar and you can tell they wouldn’t normally. A lot of people don’t give a flip about who/whom in everyday conversation, so why would a random teenager just use whom?

Describe your perfect reading spot.

My bed, haha. I read the most in bed. I like reading at night before I sleep!

Tell us three book confessions.

I have no idea! I am bad at confessions, so these will be lame.

1. I am really weird about spoilers for books I am excited about  but don’t really care about random books. But sometimes reading spoilers for books I don’t care about will make me more interested in them.

2.  I always feel really negative and picky about books because I dislike a lot of popular ones.  I like to pick apart movies, even ones I really love. But I’m not as negative as I seem!

3. I used to drop books in the bathtub. I don’t really use the tub anymore/have a nice one but I still have the curled remains of one of the victims. I also dropped a portable cd player in the bath one time. Luckily it wasn’t dangerous.

When was the last time you cried during a book?

I think it was in The Passage. I was surprisingly leaky in that book! I didn’t expect to grow so fond of the story/characters and care so much about everything.
How many books are on your bedside table?

4! I just cleaned it off! My current read: Horde by Ann Aguirre, When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle, The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding, and the second Dark Tower book, which I am definitely starting after those!

 

What is your favorite snack to eat while you’re reading?

Lately I haven’t been snacking at all while reading, but probably chips, plain potato chips and dip, or Hershey’s kisses.

 

Name three books you would recommend to everyone.

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

2. Harry Potter! I was a hold out for a long time (I read them in 2012) and they’re so much fun, so people not wanting to be a part of it or just putting it off should just jump in!

3. Um. Lord of the Rings? I have no idea.
Show us a picture of your favorite bookshelf on your bookcase.

Right now I’m living with my amazing sister and her amazing family and haven’t unpacked my books (though I’ve been here long enough that I probably should have) so this is my shelf right now:

It’s a mess! The top one is weirdly shorter so the second on usually holds my favorites and right now it has games and my awesome lampshade. The top shelf has the Dark Tower series. Both Raven Cycle books are there because my sister recently read and returned them. My Geography book that needs to be sold is on the top, and my Teen Wolf s1 and s2 dvds are also there. So, it’s not a look at my favorites but it’s a look at something! And the picture is bad because it was my phone and the lighting was weird!
Write how much books mean to you in just three words.

lovely company always  >> ??
What is your biggest reading secret?

Um, I don’t think I really have one? Maybe the amount of smut/romance I read but I don’t think it’s a “secret” I just don’t review it because I am worse at talking about it? Maybe I should try sometime, though.

 

I hate tagging people because I never feel like anyone will be like “Yay! She tagged me!” So I’m just going to tag Danielle from The Book Barn (whenever she has time) because I think she might actually like to do this and I would enjoy reading her answers. And if you’re interested in filling it out, you can be tagged from me and share your post with me so I can read it because I really enjoy reading them!

The Liebster Award

I am extremely appreciative to have been nominated for the Liebster Award! I think that I’ve been nominated four times (according to my Gmail, and I’m an email hoarder). 

I’m going to do something slightly different with this! Since I’ve been nominated twice in the past two weeks, I’m going to answer 5 questions from each! 

from Booklahoma

1. What’s your favourite book of 2013 so far? Probably The Dream Thieves

3. Who’s your favourite childhood character? (TV, movie, book, game, anything!) I loved Ariel from The Little Mermaid!

4. Which country/place would you like to visit most? I have never been off the US continent so I constantly dream of going ANYWHERE. London, France, Greece, Japan, you name it.

6. If you were in a book or film, do you think you’d be the bad guy or the good guy? I think I could be rather villainous =)

7. Would you rather live in the country or the city? I’ve lived in both and city!

from Spun With Words

1. What are you currently reading? Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson and I’ve got Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell on deck. I think they’re all bound to bring me tears.

2. What is/are your favorite book(s) of all time? Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Anne of Green Gables are what I think of as my top 3.

3. How did you come up with your blog’s name? It’s from a quote in Tess of D’Urbervilles! She compares the stars/worlds to apples and says that some are splendid and sound and others are blighted. Her brother asks what our world is and she tells him it’s a blighted one. I’m not exactly sure why I thought it would be a good blog name but…yeah.

4. Who are your top three book boyfriends? Um, Gansey from The Raven Cycle, Adam from If I Stay/Where She Went annd Four from Divergent.

7. If you could meet any author, past or present, who would it be? Jane Austen.

I’m also not going to nominate any other blogs, mainly because it sounds really difficult to choose blogs, and I am also kind of lazy. So I’m going to link back to the awesome bloggers that nominated me! You should check all of them out!

Booklahoma
Spun With Words
The Parasite Guy
Meredith’s Musings