"To be allowed, no, invited into the private lives of strangers, and to share their joys and fears, was a chance to exchange the Southern bitter wormwood for a cup of mead with Beowulf or a hot cup of tea and milk with Oliver Twist." ~ I'm fresh out of mead, and I forgot to put milk in the tea, but what a killer quote guys! The essence of bookworm life. I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings last month with @diverseclassics and I'm kicking myself for not reading it sooner. I've already picked up her second autobiography and want to eventually read them all. The books in this shot are just some of the ones mentioned in this book. Maya Angelou was a true book lover, you can just tell by the way she writes about books. Here is another wonderful example because I know you all will appreciate it: ~ "Pots rattled in the kitchen where Momma was frying corn cakes to go with vegetable soup for supper, and the homey sounds and scents cushioned me as I read of Jane Eyre in the cold English Mansion of a colder English gentleman. Uncle Willie was engrossed in the Almanac, his nightly reading, and my brother was far away on a raft on the Mississippi. I was the first to hear the rattle on the back door. A rattle and a knock, a knock and a rattle. But suspecting that it might have been the mad wife in the tower, I didn't credit it. Then Uncle Willie heard it and summoned Bailey back from Huck Finn to unlatch the bolt." 💘 So good. This is kind of a #TBRinCR pic too because I haven't read The Rape of Lucrece or all of Shakespeare's sonnets yet. How many of the books in this picture have you read? Am I the only one who gets excited when a book I've read or plan on reading is in a book I'm currently reading? ~ #iknowwhythecagedbirdsings #mayaangelou https://www.instagram.com/p/B7RcRtooRM2/?igshid=1s54x5vdl33sz