Welcome to Litsy!

My #BookSpinBonanza reads are moving right along at a great pace. @TheAromaofBooks

To be completely honest, I have absolutely no clue how to rate this one. Parts of it I liked, parts I hated, most of it I just felt confused and left without answers. I know it's the start to a trilogy, but I'm not sure if I'll continue.

Weird is the word that keeps rattling around my brain when I think back on this book.

While I enjoyed the poetic prose and the blending of Lovecraft & Conrad, I can't see myself recommending this book to anyone.

It's hewing to said literary forebearers unfortunately extends to it's lack of diverse perspectives: the female characters, while fairly compelling in their own right, are left to spin their wheels at the periphery of the action, and the only POC in the main cast is a colonial enforcer (this from a story set in Africa).

Wow, my first bail here. I gave it a proper 300 pages first. The prose was so baroque and heavily ornamental it did nothing for the narrative or style and only ended up being a burden to read. Also, the treatment of colonialism and the black body is problematic at times (not to mention that part where a dude cures a woman's blindness by having sex with her. Was this a joke?! Unortunately, no.)

Picked up The Erstwhile this past Friday as part of #barnesandnoble #bookhaul promotion. With the final book of the trilogy recently released, seemed time to get around to this long neglected #tbr .

Just finished The Mars Room and starting this one today. My first foray into fantasy in a while. This makes me think I've got to expand my reading palette.

I got a gift card as an early birthday present from the love of my life. I don't know which one to start with!

This book was a birthday present from a good friend of mine. I trust his taste, as well as Alan Moore‘s I might add, and now I‘m finally getting around to it.

Ugh, I'm done #MagicalPenis #WhiteMaleWriter

I'm 75 pages and the book has talked about Ishmael's "sexual awakening"/penis 3 times. If I have to read about it again I'm going to light this book on fire.

It has such an amazing sounding concept and a few really great quotes about anti-colonialism, but there's so much stereotypical "male artist" bs

My book haul from Half Price Books tonight. Only $11 spent on all 6. 📖💜😀

Here‘s my #5in2018 most anticipated! This was hard. You can really tell my genres of choice are usually SFF 😂. Mix of old and new stuff. Thanks for the tag @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled ! I tag you, @NCNY @Foragingfantasy @Debiw781 !

I don't normally read reviews first, but this one gives an excellent analysis (seriously, is Genevieve of Goodreads a writer herself? College professor?) without giving anything important away...

He knew that they were as bored as he. He knew that he had invented everything in their lives. Maybe in the world. Sometimes he thought he had dreamt reality itself.

That was... something.

I am always looking for books like this one. Books that are lifechangingly different, magickal and dark...

#bestbookever #bookrecommendation #recommendation #favorite #myfavoritebook #horror #mystery #addictive

I recently read The Vorrh, which reads like a mosaic of all things strange, with narratives surrounding the dense forest known simply as the Vorrh. It‘s very difficult to review, but put simply it‘s an incredibly unique, dare I say even postmodern, novel with beautiful prose, vivid characters and creatures, and poignant ruminations on vision and art.

Me reading the first 120 pages of this book: "What? Huh? Who? Where? Robot sex? Cyclops? What? Who? Huh? Where?"

Some days my brain wants to work for it, some days I just want a goddamned bedtime story, you know?

Dark, bizarre, labyrinthine, unpleasant. A little Peake, a little Holdstock and a lot that is wholly original but it just isn't an original that I really needed in my life

BTGO, it was hard to resist. #julybookhaul

I found this really hard going. I do plan to go back to it but I just couldn't focus on it at all.

I couldnt finish it. Got about 150 pages in and I honestly couldn't tell you what's going on. Catling seems unable to just tell a simple story, he's talking absolute nonsense. It takes a lot to make me give up on a book, but I just cant waste any more time on this one.

Loving this nightmarish alt-history fantasy

She was strong because she was quiet. Not silent, but still. Hers was a beauty of listening and a strength of giving; there was knowing, more than understanding, in the smolder of her gaze. She saw and felt it all; she gave more love than she received, more than she was ever paid for.

I liked it! The language was captivating. The story was twisted (in a good way) and weird (in the best way). Looking forward to the next one!

Hugely imaginative, with some wonderful (and disturbing) creations. Interesting characters, and a deep mythology. Really worth a read.

This book contains: An infinite forest in Africa that may contain Eden at its heart and consumes your memories, robots, a cyclops, a bow made from a dead woman, slaves that remain docile when fed dead baby souls, and the history of photography!

Somewhere between Pick and So-So. Not greater than the sum of its interesting parts and it doesn't stick the landing, maybe because it begins a trilogy.

#LitsyAfterDark spoiler in the comments.

I'm in the home stretch and so far his book has been gliding slowly between lyric beauty and graphic horror.

While this line may be an isolated bit of levity, it is also an accurate description of the fallen angels, the Erstwhile, who dwell in the lush immensity of the Vorrh. They are unseeable when you interact with them, but hours later you finally process their appearance and collapse in fear.

I always think it's neat when real people show up in fiction, especially something as far out as The Vorrh.

Top Left: Eadweard Muybridge is a main character. In real life he suffered a traumatic brain injury, pioneered many uses for the photographic camera, and murdered his wife's lover. The book cover is a piece of his art.

Top Right: Surrealist author Raymond Roussel is another main character, referred to in the book only as the Frenchman.

Soooooo.... that was a thing... that just happened.... that I read with my eyes... in this book... Alright then. Okay. Gonna... gonna take a minute. Yep.

There are four main storylines in this book, all taking place at different times. The post-World War II story of Tsungali the Hunter pursuing the Bowman who carries a bow made from the corpse of a priestess into the massive mystical African forest know as the Vorrh, is my favorite.

Have I mentioned this book is trippy? It's trippy.

Was feeling too tired to gather #commonwealthauthors for #marchintoreading but luckily my #currentread is by U. K. sculptor and performance artist Brian Catling.

I plan on reading until I can't keep my eyes open so... less than twenty minutes?

Cosmo is ahead of the game. #dogsoflitsy

G'night all.

#marchintoreading #readandeat I find that sugar-covered fried dough pairs well with a dark trippy fantasy that is, so far, about British colonialism in Africa.

I don't honestly read and eat much. Remember that one time I was reading Dan Simmons' The Terror in a Chipotle and it just happened to be the big autopsy scene?

I am excited and nervous to be starting The Vorrh. The effusive praise above is from crotchety literary genius and Mad Wizard of Northampton, Alan Moore, and the back cover contains similarly hyperbolic statements from Iain Sinclair, Jeff VanderMeer, Tom FREAKING Waits, and Terry FREAKING Gilliam.

As far as I can tell it is about a magic forest in Africa. It begins by giving a detailed description of a man making a bow from a dead woman's body.

This is my book outlet Boxing Day haul...oops? 😳 I may have gone a little crazy, but most of these titles are things that I've been wanting, and a few are lending/giveaway titles (I hate to loan out my books cuz I never get them back). Now to find room for these on my shelves... 📚📚📚

Sprawling, atmospheric and full of strange and compelling ideas. Can't wait to read the next one.

I picked up the first 2 books I'll read in2017.

However, here are my favorites of 2016.
I started 59-finished 57.
5 stars to:
Descent by Tim Johnston
Wool by Hugh Howey and
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
Out of my 4-star rated books, these stood out the most:
North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Close Range by Annie Proulx
Brighton by Michael Harvey
In the Woods by Tana French

That is a landslide of pressure to like this.

New reads. I was drawn to the cover in the Last Bookstore in DTLA, so let's see if it's good!

Previous attempts to arouse his masculinity had been woeful disasters. She had supplied him with a comely mistress for his twentieth birthday, but the poor woman was driven to distraction by her supposed lover's endless, limp readings of interminably long poems. So monstrous was the abuse that she had demanded one hundred thousand francs in compensation from the old woman, for the aural and temporal violation.

For so it is among those who shed lives every few years: They keep their deflated interior causeways, hold them running parallel with their current usable ones; ghost arteries, sleeping shrunken to those that pump life. Hushed lymphatics, like quiet ivy alongside the speeding juice of now. Nerve trees like bone coral, hugging the whisper of bellowing communications.

I am a mere 17 pages into The Vorrh and I feel pretty confident that this will be one of the strangest reading experiences.

Talk about a "tell me more!!" first sentence.. Glad I pulled this from the bottom of my to-read pile ?