The Wine Book Tag

I wasn’t tagged by anyone to do this, but I love wine and I love books and well, it was bound to happen at some point!

1. Box Wine: A book that people will judge you for liking but you like anyway

I love that this question is first, here’s me raising up my guilty pleasures for all to see. I chose The Iron King by Julie Kagawa for this one – I actually re-read the Iron Fey series earlier this year when I wanted to read something I knew would be light and filled with lovable bits at the same time.

I really love the characters and the world-building, even though the writing might be kind of sloppy and the main character whines a lot, I still like it.

2. Organic Wine: A book that has no added crap in it and is just written perfectly

Not a book, okay, okay, but Ezra Pound’s “In A Station of the Metro” is the epitome of no-crap poetry. I remember being taught about Pound in a poetry class a few years ago, and apparently this poem began as a bunch of lines, and he (as my then prof described it) sculpted away all the excess until he was left with the simplest way of saying what he wanted to say. I think it’s quite beautiful.

3. Gluhwein: A spicy, wintry read

The Night Circus just strikes me as one of those books you could happily sit and read on a snowy Sunday. It’s filled with lots of life and keeps you on your toes!

4. Sauignon Blanc: A really sharp and aggressive read that you cou
ldn’t put down

Reading Maggie Steifvater’s The Raven King was like being torn apart. I was at once both hyper-aware that it was the last book in the series and I’d have to be saying goodbye to the characters at the end of the book, and wrapped up in the new adventures and the chaos that comes with something ending. To incorrectly quote T.S. Eliot, it went out with a bang.

5. Pinot Noir: A book you didn’t expect much of, but ended up being blown away

As you’ll gather from the review I posted this past Sunday, I was so pleasantly surprised by Sean Michael’s Us Conductors. Although I’d already bought a copy of it and had it signed (long story), I actually started reading it when I saw it in the library one day while I was trying to kill some time (“as if you could kill time without injuring eternity,” Emma) and ended up being hooked. Now I couldn’t be happier that I have a signed copy sitting on my bookshelf!

6. Chardonnay: A good summer read that was super zesty

I’m not the best at ‘summer’ or ‘zesty’ reading, and honestly the closest thing I could think of was Love’s Labour’s Lost ~~which I actually read last winter~~ which I think could be a fun and quick read, that’s absolutely got a lot of kick to it (or at least the characters).

7. Rose: A book that has a little bit of everything in it

This might be a strange choice, but Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying goes in so many directions your head swirls as you read it. It’s impossible to see all of the different storylines going on at once, so if you re-read it, you’ll see something new every time.

8. Shiraz: A full-bodied book that is dark and juicy

You can fight me on this, but I honestly think that The Great Gatsby is one of the darkest books I’ve read. When you get past the glamour a lot of people focus on when they read it, what’s left isn’t very pretty to look at, but offers up an incredibly rich moral message.

9. Merlot: A smooth and easy read with a soft finish

Will I ever stop talking about Mrs. Dalloway? No, no I will not. This book is at once a rollercoaster and so easy to read. And the revelations made at the end are so incredibly quiet that you have to really be listening to catch them.