{"id":181,"date":"2018-11-07T16:08:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T16:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/07\/in-which-i-cope-with-life-by-buying\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T23:02:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T23:02:24","slug":"in-which-i-cope-with-life-by-buying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/07\/in-which-i-cope-with-life-by-buying\/","title":{"rendered":"In Which I Cope With Life by Buying Books"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Some people have practical reactions to stress. They go for a run. They clean their house. They garden. I, however, buy books. Actually, I buy books and eat sweets. My friends and family have been providing a steady stream of sweet treats since my husband was injured<\/a>. In the last two weeks, we have been given multiple boxes of chocolate, lots of cookies, lemon bars, apple pie, flourless chocolate cake, carrot cake, and chocolate-covered fruit. Maybe I should go for a run instead of sitting on my couch and ordering more books. Maybe tomorrow…<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I have been doing an excellent job comforting myself with books as you can see from the photo above. I have a few more ordered that have not shown up yet. I know it isn’t particularly easy to see the titles in the photo but the weather is not cooperating for photos and, to be honest, I just gave up. I’ll list them for anyone interested.<\/p>\n

A Kind of Magic <\/i>by Edna Ferber. This is the second volume of her autobiography. I read the first volume a month or so ago.<\/p>\n

Darkness Falls From the Air<\/i>\u00a0by Nigel Balchin. I listened to a Backlisted podcast <\/a>about this and the enthusiasm was so contagious I immediately bought it. I think the episode was from a while ago but I just got around to listening to it. Books set during WWII are definitely my thing.<\/p>\n

A Woman’s War<\/i>\u00a0by Frances Donaldson. The diaries of a woman during WWII. Of course I bought it.<\/p>\n

A Soldier’s Letters <\/i>by Jack Donaldson. This is a very slim volume but it is the letters of Frances Donaldson’s husband. It seemed necessary.<\/p>\n

Pastoral <\/i>by Nevil Shute. I read A Town Like Alice<\/i>\u00a0earlier this year and loved it. I\u00a0 have gone on to read a few other books by Shute and this is up next.<\/p>\n

The Go-Between <\/i>by L.P. Hartley. I read The Boat <\/i>by Hartley a while ago and enjoyed it. This is a book that everyone seems to know about but somehow I never heard of it. I am making up for lost time.<\/p>\n

What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved<\/i>\u00a0by John Mullan. Because if you are stressed and tired then obviously the only thing to do is read Jane Austen. Which I did. I just finished rereading Northanger Abbey<\/i>\u00a0for the five millionth time. When you have done that the next step is to buy a book about Jane Austen. If that doesn’t help with stress then I don’t know what will.<\/p>\n

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism\u00a0<\/i>by Lynne Olson. I read Citizens of London<\/i>\u00a0by Olson recently and found it fascinating. I wanted to read more about Edward Murrow and the other journalist who became famous for their coverage of WWII.<\/p>\n

An Open Book<\/i>\u00a0by Michael Dirda. I have loved everything I have read by Dirda. His bookish enthusiasm is a joy and a pleasure.<\/p>\n

That is it. For now. My husband is doing better but his recovery is going to take a while. I see more stress–and more book purchases–in my future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people have practical reactions to stress. They go for a run. They clean their house. They garden. I, however, buy books. Actually, I buy books and eat sweets. My friends and family have been providing a steady stream of sweet treats since my husband was injured. In the last two weeks, we have been given multiple boxes of chocolate, lots of cookies, lemon bars, apple pie, flourless chocolate cake, carrot cake, and chocolate-covered fruit. Maybe I should go for a run instead of sitting on my couch and ordering more books. Maybe tomorrow… In the meantime, I have been doing an excellent job comforting myself with books as you can see from the photo above. I have a few more ordered that have not shown up yet. I know it isn’t particularly easy to see the titles in the photo but the weather is not cooperating for photos and, to be honest, I just gave up. I’ll list them for anyone interested. A Kind of Magic by Edna Ferber. This is the second volume of her autobiography. I read the first volume a month or so ago. Darkness Falls From the Air\u00a0by Nigel Balchin. I listened to a Backlisted podcast about this and the enthusiasm was so contagious I immediately bought it. I think the episode was from a while ago but I just got around to listening to it. Books set during WWII are definitely my thing. A Woman’s War\u00a0by Frances Donaldson. The diaries of a woman during WWII. Of course I bought it. A Soldier’s Letters by Jack Donaldson. This is a very slim volume but it is the letters of Frances Donaldson’s husband. It seemed necessary. Pastoral by Nevil Shute. I read A Town Like Alice\u00a0earlier this year and loved it. I\u00a0 have gone on to read a few other books by Shute and this is up next. The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. I read The Boat by Hartley a while ago and enjoyed it. This is a book that everyone seems to know about but somehow I never heard of it. I am making up for lost time. What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved\u00a0by John Mullan. Because if you are stressed and tired then obviously the only thing to do is read Jane Austen. Which I did. I just finished rereading Northanger Abbey\u00a0for the five millionth time. When you have done that the next step is to buy a book about Jane Austen. If that doesn’t help with stress then I don’t know what will. The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism\u00a0by Lynne Olson. I read Citizens of London\u00a0by Olson recently and found it fascinating. I wanted to read more about Edward Murrow and the other journalist who became famous for their coverage of WWII. An Open Book\u00a0by Michael Dirda. I have loved everything I have read by Dirda. His bookish enthusiasm is a joy and a pleasure. That is it. For now. My husband is doing better but his recovery is going to take a while. I see more stress–and more book purchases–in my future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-i-bought"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2644,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/2644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}