Inspired by Reading April Blog Hop...

It's hard to believe that we're almost finished with the current reading cycle for the Inspired by Reading Book Club!  We have just two more titles left and then it's on to the next selections!  For May, we're reading "The Children's Book" by A.S. Byatt and then for June we're reading, "An Atlas of Impossible Longing" by Anuradha Roy.  CLICK HERE for the 2015/2016 book picks.

For April, we read "Girl Reading" by Katie Ward.  The novel is a chain of stories taking place in different time periods, detailing the relationship between artists, books, and women.  The book was met with mixed reactions.  I have to admit that I struggled at first getting into the flow of the book.  It's written very stream-of-conscious, and there's a distinctive lack of quotation marks indicating dialogue.  So it's important that you really focus on which character is speaking and saying what, otherwise it is easy to get lost and confused.  Once you get into the rhythm of the book and can hear the author's voice, the stories are quite interesting!  

We unfortunately postponed our in-person meet-up.  I think everyone is super busy this time of year and we just couldn't get it together.  We'll make up the meeting though... we still have the movie version of Into the Wild to watch (from a few months ago).

Since we didn't have any meet-up pictures, Laurel sent these pictures of her reading and her daughter reading.  They fit the theme of the book perfectly.

Without further ado... here's the REVEAL:

Laurel made this necklace.  Here's what she had to say about it:  "This is my 1916 piece.  It was inspired by the broken heart of the young sister who spent her time in the vignette pining after an artist at her sister's home.  The sister was absorbed in her work and didn't seem to notice men at all, but after a lot of spirits and dancing one night, she ends up breaking her sister's heart by getting tangled up in a tryst in/on a multi-colored quilt on the floor of the drawing room.  Discovered quietly by her sister the following morning, the story ends with the characters and the reader asking themselves a lot of questions.  The necklace is made up of resin and Javanese glass with a patchwork cloisonné heart."

I made this piece.  It was inspired by the first story in the book about the painting of the side altar, Annunciation with St. Margaret and St. Ansanus.  I've always loved this painting.  Perhaps due to the expression on the Virgin's face.  Instead of the blissful serenity found in so many annunciation paintings, this one shows a little bit of skepticism and incredulity.  I can almost hear her murmur, "Say what?"  In any event, the pendant is made out of polymer clay.  I did a clay transfer, but I didn't care for the black and white, so I painted in some of the colors.  I hung the polymer pendant from wire-wrapped freshwater pearls, and antique brass peanut chain.

But wait... there's more!  Check out what these other participants of the Inspired by Reading Book Club made:

Alison Herrington

Jeanne Steck

Sarajo Wentling

Andrew Thornton and Laurel Ross

Up next is "The Children's Book" by A.S. Byatt.  CLICK HERE for the full list of the remainder of this year's books.  The next series of book selections starts in a few months.  CLICK HERE for the full list.  The in-person meet-up for "The Children's Book" is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27th.  The blog hop is scheduled for the following day on Thursday, May 28thth.  If you're interested in keeping up with us and what we're doing in the book club, CLICK HERE to visit our Facebook page.  CLICK HERE to check out our supplemental inspiration on Pinterest.