Birds are chirping, flowers are blossoming, the sun is beginning to show itself more and more… Spring is in the air… Not that I’d know as I spend most of my time inside the hospital walls, whilst on my internal medicine rotation currently. That makes it not only hard to get into the joyful Easter-spirit, but also to post frequent and well-thought-out content on here. This tag is going to attempt to help me with both of these issues. Today I’ll be doing the Easter Book Tag, a quite underused tag, originally created by Rosie the Reader (Youtube Channel linked below). So grab your chocolate eggs and Easterbunny ears and let’s get into the questions.
1. Rabbits: a book you wish would multiply, aka a book you want a sequel to.
There is one sequel that I (and about a million other booklovers out there) am most desperately anticipating, and it pains me that there is still no release date in sight. I’m talking, of cause, off The Doors of Stone, the third and final book in the King Killer Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. I don’t need to go on a tangent here, as most of you will already know what I’m going to say. Please Pat, just please…
As for standalone novels that I wish would get a sequel: I wish Sixth of the Dusk, a Cosmere novella by Brandon Sanderson had a sequel/full series. I loved the world, the main character and his birds, and would have happily read another 600+ pages about them.
2. Egg: a book that surprised you.
The Unseen World by Liz Moore: I expected to like it, but ended up loving it. Same goes for (most recently) The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi: really exceeded my expectations.
3. Hunt: a book that was hard for you to get your hands on.
The first that comes to mind is my beautiful original edition of The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan. Being one of my favorite books of all time that has a very special meaning to me, I really wanted to own the beautiful first edition cover, instead of the much less pretty paperback I had. Considering the original cover has been out of print for a while, it took me quite some time to track down a second hand copy. I did succeed however, and it’s still one of my most cherished books. Secondly, I had a fairly hard time to get my hands on Lattitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup, as not only is it quite a niche book by an Indian author, it seemed impossible to get any seller to ship it to the Netherlands for me. However: perseverance pays off in the end, and although it got slightly banged up in the mail, a copy now proudly resides on my shelves.
4. Lambs: a childrensbook you still love.
So many… I have said it before, and will say it again: I will probably “outgrow” YA before I ever outgrow middlegrade. Some of my favorites from my childhood that I still love include the His Dark Materials trilogy, Matilda, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter and my entire Paul Biegel (Dutch childrensbook author) collection that I read with my mother as a child. To this day, I still continue to find new favorites in the genre, even once I didn’t get to read as a child.
5. Spring: a book with a cover that makes you think of spring.
There’s probably not going to be a lot of rhyme or reason to what makes a “spring-y” cover for me. Maybe a theme of plants and pastels, but other than that: just five random covers that remind me of spring. Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore, Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, The Bigfoot Files by Lindsay Eagar and The Seas by Samantha Hunt (2018 Tinhouse Edition)
6. Rising from the dead: a book from a deceased author.
I’m going to pick When Breath Becomes Air, a memoir by Paul Kalanithi for this question. In this incredible book, Kalanithi describes his life from the moment he entered medical school to become a neurosurgeon, to his diagnosis with terminal lungcancer at the age of 37. He didn’t get to finish his work before losing his life to the disease, yet his memoir isn’t any less impressive for it. It’s one of my all-time favorites, and a book I’d highly recommend to anyone in the medical field, or even outside it.
7. Baskets: a book that is in your amazon cart/wishlist right now.
three books that are on my wish list right now are: When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore, The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. Fun fact: the boxed set of all the Harry Potter books has been in my amazon cart for almost 3 years now, without ever leaving it or being purchased. I never owned the books myself (always borrowed from the library), and although I dream of one day having enough shelf space to buy and display them all, I currently (in my studenthousing) just don’t… It’s still staying in the cart however, as a reminder of the wallcovering bookshelves I dream to one day have.
8. Candy: a book that is just sweet.
I don’t read too many “sweet” books, if I’m honest. Most of the middlegrade novels I mentioned in question 4 could pass for this question as well. Both Matilda as well as the Ronia Robber’s Daughter are books that bring a fuzzy feeling to my heart, just by looking at them.
I wish you all a very happy Easterweekend, hopefully with some nice spring weather! Read on, and until next time.
Link to Rosie the Readers Channel
Link to my Goodreads
