About Me

Hello! I’m Samantha (or Sam, if you like, or Samanthawise if you're feeling formal), a Catholic, homeschool graduate, and book lover! If you’re here, you probably want to know a bit more about me, so I will gladly oblige:

-I have four younger siblings, Legolas (of driving age), Eomer (just barely a teenager), Galadriel (just barely double digits), and Gandalf (a bit over the age of reason). My entire family, including our parents loves to read!

-I am a very fast reader, and tend to read between ten and twenty books per month, depending on how busy I am.

-I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Queen’s Thief series, and many, many, many other books. LOTR is my favorite book Of All Time.

-I am a woman of strong and obstinate opinions. About everything. And anything. (My family has a running joke that if they name something I know next-to-nothing about, I will have an opinion about it within thirty seconds.)

-I’m an INTJ, although I’m close on the N and the S, which might explain why I am, in my own opinion, the most normal INTJ I’ve ever encountered.

-I'm from a Dominican parish, which has given me a deep love not only of the Catholic faith, Jesus, and Mary, but also of philosophy, theology, and truth in general. Oh, and of the Dominicans! (Dogs of God forever. Just try to tell me you don’t love those snazzy habits.)

-I am a self-avowed farm girl who milked goats every morning and evening for several years. We sold our goats the summer before I left for college, because I was the main goat-keeper, but I'm still keeping the title of ‘crazy goat lady’!

-I'm in undergrad at the University of Illinois, studying Landscape Architecture and minoring in Animal Science.

-I love music and musicals and am afflicted by whatever peculiar ailment it is that makes people randomly start singing bits of songs on a very regular basis. (I have been informed by an aunt of mine that this ailment occasionally goes by the name "Broadway Tourette's").

-My favorite authors are Lewis, Tolkien, Madeleine L’Engle, G. K. Chesterton, and Megan Whalen Turner.

-When I’m not reading or hanging out with farm animals, I’m probably photographing random flowers/spiders/landscapes, quilting, cooking, singing, writing, or eating chocolate and raspberries.

-I love languages, but my eyes are a little bigger than my metaphorical stomach, so I can read basic Latin, halfway speak Spanish, transliterate from the Greek alphabet, say a few phrases in German, and string together simple sentences in ASL.

-Three of the fictional characters I am most like, in my own opinion, are Hermione Granger, Mr. Darcy, and Elanor from Sense & Sensibility. My family also thinks that I am much like El from A Deadly Education. However, the two characters I want to be most like are Samwise Gamgee and Natasha Romanoff. 

-Bookshire is called Bookshire because when I was a very small girl, I wouldn’t hear my parents when I was reading, and they called this lack of attention “being in Bookshire”, as in “Samantha is lost in Bookshire again”. Hence the name!

I post on this blog every Friday, and my posts try to be a good mix of bookish posts, philosophical posts, fun posts, and life updates! I hope you join me for the adventure!