sadsongbird - Tumblr blog

[sadsongbird]

Beautiful garden by Louise Ness

[sadsongbird]

Puzzle purse love tokens from 1790 to 1816

[sadsongbird]

Exactly this. Let people read what they like, reading is meant to be a pleasurable activity! Also, books that are accessible aren't necessarily intellectually inferior to more "challenging" works. Some of the greatest works of literature ever written are children's books. But so many people online seem to believe they're the sole arbiters of literary taste🤷‍♀️.

Ok, real quick, speaking as a librarian, you absolutely cannot despair about the adult literacy crisis and shame adults for reading fiction books you do not personally care for or think are "challenging" at the same time. It doesn't work with kids, and it doesn't work with adults.

Here's how to increase someone's reading level:

1) Let them read whatever they choose without shame or judgment. Maybe get them talking about it using open-ended, non-leading questions to encourage critical thinking and comprehension.

2) Let them get bored after a while and seek out different books.

3) Repeat.

[sadsongbird]

[sadsongbird]

“Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley on the lifestyle of Lord Byron (via timemarauder)

[sadsongbird]

[sadsongbird]

~ you need to fall to learn how to rise up again...~

[sadsongbird]

Feeling rosy 🦢

[sadsongbird]

© Dominika Brudny

[sadsongbird]

- Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

[sadsongbird]

[sadsongbird]

I don't even remember pressing these but it was a delightful surprise to find them whilst I was reading 🌹

[sadsongbird]

Being a kind, sweet, and generally 'nice' person is very admirable actually! Being nice isn't just performative- a simple gesture or a kind word can make someone's day. Common decency seems to be devalued for no good reason nowadays, but it is what makes daily life more livable and pleasant.

[sadsongbird]

Mia Wasikowska in CRIMSON PEAK (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro

[sadsongbird]

Saint Maud (2019)

[sadsongbird]